To NOT pay for adult DD to go abroad?

[OllieRhys]

She's 22 and wants to do a volunteering program abroad (she's an unemployed graduate).

We can afford it (my husband and I) - it's £6,000 for 6 months.

She hasn't asked us, just expressed a huge interest. DH thinks we absolutely should pay for it. I personally think at 22 she should get a job and save.

Thanks.

I agree with you, she should get a job and pay for it herself

It’s a lot of money for her to save.

Is it a good idea for her future career? I’d pay it if it is.

Agreed. Get a job and save. If you're feeling nice offer some money on Christmas/Birthday to put towards the trip.

Depends what kind of volunteering and how necessary it is to her future career/job prospects.

I’d pay 5 her 1

Could you not meet in the middle and offer to match what she saves herself?

Could you pay half if she can save £3k? It's a lot of money to save at that age, it could take forever!

I'd contribute some but not all of it.

I personally think at 22 she should get a job and save.

I agree - assuming you don't expect her to pay rent whilst she's living at home with you, working and saving up?

Have a look at reviews online about the volunteering project. Some of them aren't all that.

Suggest to dh that if she comes up with half the cost, you two will pay the other half? That would show her commitment to it and perhaps make her stick with it too.

Is the volunteering related to a job that she may do in the future ? I'd be more impressed if she worked and saved herself. What about TEFL, you can get paid work abroad once exams are passed I believe

She is 22 with no job? How is she supporting herself now?

That would be a consideration for me. I would help fund this for an adult DC who had been working and saving, but odd she has no job at all at age 22

Afford it as in have the money in savings or afford it as in have the money in the savings and you will be able to replace it within 12 months?

I would get her to start saving some money which means getting a job.
volunteering is all well and good but that is an awful lot of money that she might expect you to fund at 22 surely contributing is the adult thing to do.
there is nothing stopping you helping her but personally I would want to see a bit of effort from her

I'd offer half & half - so you pay 3k and she raises 3k.

If it falls into the category of voluntourism I would be less keen. I also would not want to fund the whole thing, and would want to be clear that she can support herself while she saves and expenses while there.

Depends a bit on the child though. If she needs skills and motivation and has not done much travelling or much at all or had a hard time then you might want to support more. If she has been diligent at studying, working and saving you might also want to support it. But if she has not been proactively earning or looking for work, then you might be playing into spoilt entitlement.

Maybe loaning it to her with the expectation that she pays it back could be a compromise?

Depends what kind of volunteering and how necessary it is to her future career/job prospects.

This is a good point. If it's relevant to her future career plans and will boost her employability I'd be more willing to help than if it was one of those random self indulging volunteering holidays.

If it’s a genuinely good opportunity and not some ghastly voluntourism could you go halves? For that money though make sure it’s something really worthwhile and not a dodgy programme doing more harm than good.

Volunteering at £6k is a load of bollox!! It will not impress an employer that she has paid a fortune to stay in nice hotels and dabble in a bit of volunteering for six months. It basically an expensive gap half year. Lived in a poverty stricken Asian country and real volunteers would laugh at people who paid a fortune for such programmes.
If she's serious and needs the experience to get a job in her field she needs to do more research and find a decent programme.
She's been put of uni for months now. She should be working anywhere to earn money like the adult she is. Her cv won't look good with a big gap. Waiting for the perfect job after graduating looks entitled and lazy. Better for a cv to have been working stacking shelves than living off the bank of mum and dad.

If she is determined to go and your dh wants to help then offer to double what she earns rather than throw money at her.

When I graduated I had no money to pay for clothes for a new job, or money for a train season ticket or deposit for accommodation in a city where Zi would be likely to get employment, somewhere like London. You may be better off helping with something like that.

Agree with PPs that my decision would be influenced by whether it would increase her employability.
It would also depend on her attitude for the last 22 years! If she swanned around like Lady Muck expecting things to fall into her lap - no. If she’s a great kid who worked hard through uni and has never expected you to pay up for luxuries - maybe.

Depends on what she is doing now to find work, what the volunteering is and whether it would assist her in getting a role in the career she wants when she returns.

If she wants to be a solicitor and she wants to volunteer at camp America type thing or painting a school in Africa then it's not that relevant to her career and may only slightly improve her prospects. However, if it's volunteering with legal assistance with death Row prisoners/some sort of EU law assistance then that would help her career.

Has she not had a job at all since graduating? If not I certainly think its pretty cheeky to be considering volunteering abroad, she should be looking at getting any form of job to begin earning money not wasting 6 months on what is essentially a holiday.

Personally I would imagine volunteering in a charity shop or with a local charity would be viewed just as favourably in terms of future jobs.

Have a good look at the project. So many are a real con. Others are dangerous - someone I knew went to work in South America, looking after children in an orphanage. When she got there she found someone had just been arrested by the police - he was wanted in Spain for paedophile offences. The woman I knew hadn't had to submit any kind of proof of who she was and there were no background checks at all. For instance nobody even checked her passport to check she was who she said she was.

And if it's the feeding elephants volunteer scheme in India, that's a con, too!