What do parents typically pay for for their adult children?

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This is just me being nosey really and seeing what other people’s families are like. Question as in the title, what do your parents pay for? Ours pay for holidays, meals out and clothes for the grandchildren. If I have money when we are older I would love to treat our children and grandchildren and pay for things for them. If you’re the parent/grandparents, what do you pay for for your children? I’m on about adult children that don’t live with you. I know some grandparents pay mortgage payments and school fees! I’m not so much asking on opinions, I know peoples opinions will differ on this.

How much time do you spend with your parents now?

My in laws are lovely with treats - I think very generous. They have paid for dinners out / takeaways if hosting at theirs, bought us a new freezer when we were skint, larhe gift of money when we got our new house to pay for a door and blinds, treat the grandkids to clothes etc if they pick things up when out, my MIL always treats the girls in the family to a big day out once a year (I organise and she funds, including transport). So all in, they are generous. But wouldn't pay for day to day expenses which I would not expect. My mum has passed away and my dad is much less generous!! More of a count out how much everyone ate type!

Your attitude is what’s “gross”.

Very little. Parents are classic boomers with massive savings (think 2m+). I find it mean that they know we are in a different position and times are much harder but do not even choose to gift the 3k that would help them avoid IHT. But I would never say anything.

My parents pay for all my kids clubs (about £300pm) and our holidays. They also regularly buy them things like new bikes, swing sets etc. usually just in conversation when I’ve mentioned that I’m going to get them something, I’ll later receive a notification that money has been transferred into my bank for said items!

To be clear we absolutely do not need them to pay for any of these things and can afford them ourselves. I personally wish my parents would spoil themselves a bit more but having lived very frugally their whole lives they are now very comfortable in retirement. My father particularly has made it very clear that this is how he wishes to spent his money and being able to do this for me and his grandchildren is what makes him happy.

Mine pays for absolutely nothing! I was struggling to find polo tops in DCs size during the holidays, but my mum managed to find some in a shop near her. She asked me to transfer her the £4.50.

@Timeless4some people don’t mind paying IHT, my in-laws estate is worth about 1.6m so they don’t think paying 250k IHT is to onerous for DH as he will still get plenty.

If your parents are due to pay 1m+ that still leaves you more than 2m to inherit?

When I went to uni at 18 (first person in my family) my nan gave me £100 towards it, my mum fog-marched me to the cash point and made me draw it out and give it to her for the month just gone house keep.

My dad drove me to uni, we went food shopping but I had to pay for it myself.

They've never taken me on, or paid for me to go on holiday (but did for my siblings).

I don't think they've ever paid for meals at restaurants etc either, we always split.

Paid for my own driving lessons/ car with no help.

Saved for my own house deposit.

They did give me £1k towards my wedding though, which I thought was really generous.

I have mixed feelings about it. Mostly I'm happy and proud of my independence and ability to look after myself since a young age.

I’ve no idea what their will states.

I suppose my point is not only that they’ll pay an unnecessary and avoidable amount of IHT it’s that the remaining money isn’t used for anything worthwhile, it just sits here benefitting nobody not even themselves.

If I were to inherit anything from them, DH and I are likely to be retired by then so it would be of nowhere near as much use to us then as it would be now which is why we’re planning to move our assets to DS much earlier albeit due to very different age gaps, DS will always inherit from us and an earlier age than we ever would from our parents.

@Timeless4obviously it depends on how their estate is structured but most have their wealth tied up in their primary home which makes it harder to access. Trust funds to avoid IHT involve annual charges and some don’t want the bill or headache of it. The average age to inherit is in your 60s

My own parents gave me chuff all!
For my adult dc, we help when needed. For one dc, it was a once off write off of her debts. For another we paid a % of nursery bills for dgc until she went to School. For another it will be support through uni.
We do pay for the odd meal and days out but my focus really is to help them when the money makes a difference to their decisions

Mine too but I am from solidly working class stock.

Dad loaned me the seven K I needed for the deposit for this place and when the mortgage company wanted 14 because of the state of the place, he stumped that up too. It's worth over a million now and Dad is gone but I paid him back.

Dad loaned me money when my dog had to have very expensive surgery at a referral centre, when my car broke down and urgent things like that but I always paid him back.

As for actual gifted money. Never. Just birthday and Christmas money and a chocolate egg at Easter. That was my normal.

I'm in my 50s. When I was a student my parents paid for everything. Once I graduated (I did more than one degree so was relatively old) they paid the bulk of the costs of our wedding but otherwise we didn't need their financial help. Nowadays my widowed Mum likes to pay for family meals out or for the accommodation when we all go on holiday together (and my siblings and I paid for everything else, food, days out etc). She did give us all a significant lump sum a few years back as an early inheritance but that just went into my retirement savings, it was part of her IHT planning rather than something we needed.

Our eldest is at Uni now so we are giving her monthly living expenses. We're also thinking ahead about how and when to give money to the DC, whether we do that when they get married or buy a house or what.

I specifically said day to day support (like parents paying for everyday bills and holidays as pp have mentioned) not one off (admittedly bloody large and not at all asked for) input. As for what more did I want - would have been quite nice if my Dad didn't die as young as he did, would far rather have had him around than not, find your comment quite heartless.

Haha, you may well be right!

Nothing, I'm an adult. Very surprised that parents pay for car maintenance!

We have only recently inherited from our parents, and we turned 70 this year, so our mortgage is paid and we are fairly well set.

We passed on our shares of inheritance (below IHT threshold) via deeds of variation to our DC and also gave a large chunk of our pension lump sum, which has bought a two-up, two-down Victorian house that's now being renovated -- and we shall help with those costs too. Otherwise, we would be benefiting HMRC.

We also give help with living costs as DC is doing an apprenticeship on NMW, and there's not a lot left over as they work in an expensive part of the Southeast.

My parents pay for nothing because I’m a grown adult

When I went to uni at 18 (first person in my family) my nan gave me £100 towards it, my mum fog-marched me to the cash point and made me draw it out and give it to her for the month just gone house keep.

What?? Please tell me they were absolutely skint

Being a grown adult doesn't mean you can't be treated or gifted things

Yes, gifted things at birthdays or Christmas or special occasions. It’s really not normal for grown adults to have their holidays paid for by their parents.

Mine take us on a (UK) holiday once a year and give the grandkids £100/month pocket money when they're away at uni.

Just because something's not normal for you, doesn't mean it's not normal for other people.

I'm not really sure, definitely not 'completely skint' but probably not flush for cash either.

But as a parent myself, I can't imagine deciding that I needed £100 more than my 18yo that was moving away to uni the next day. She just said that I owed it to her and that's the way paying rent worked.

I didn't even have my grant through at that point.

It's interesting reading about other people's version of normal.

Well, clearly, some people are normally ridiculous.