Does anyone NOT get financial help from parents these days?

[Milly848]

It seems everyone around me is getting money for house deposits or even full houses from their parents. These people are in their late 20s and 30s. I'm not sure if it's the area I live in, or if it's normal.

It makes me feel quite bad, as my parents haven't given me a penny since I was 18, let alone thousands for a deposit. I've had to save everything from the work I earn, and I'm on a relatively low wage. I thought this was the norm, but now I'm feeling it's the exception.

Is it possible these days to get by without financial help/inheritance?

Oblomov why are you surprised? The world that young people are living in is not the world our parents did - many will have had cheaper housing, jobs for life, final salary pensions, free tertiary education - that's just a few things!

I've never had any help from mine, they're poor. DH has inherited from grandparents though. I doubt we'd have been able to buy our properties without that.

We are around 50 and have never received any assistance but of our friends three couples have had a lot of help. One of my friends had very wealthy parents and she has received at least 250k. I’m always amazed at how they divulge this very personal information. We may inherit around 100k in a few months once a will has been settled though it’s very complicated and not a sure thing and involves a property sale, we won’t be telling anyone.

I get help, but it’s not free. My parents loan and I pay back. For example, they took out my car loan, as they get better rates, but I’m paying every penny.

No deposits for me!

I didn't have that sort of big financial help though both sets of parents were good in many ways, bought things, childcare and all that. Not many did years ago and people were generally worse off, I can remember the recession of the late eighties/early nineties which was quite dreadful. We were terribly hard up.

However circumstances improve and we are lined up to give substantial sum to our offspring. Goodness knows, it's needed considering how much has to go on house deposit alone in the London area. It's nice to be able to do it (we don't make a big thing out of it and it's appreciated) and you will probably be able to do the same when you have adult children.

I never resented anyone better off when I was poor, good luck to them. I had some happy times. Everyone has problems at some time or another in their life, money worry is not the only one.

I've never had any significant sums of money from my parents. My mum has paid for a few things for DD, like her swimming lessons as they were done through my mum's gym. The only thing I can recall my dad giving me was his old tumble dryer (half sister has had house deposit, wedding, car, numerous TVs and iPads) .

However, I did inherit a very large amount of money from my grandparents a couple of years ago, enough to pay off my mortgage. So can't complain I'm hard done by compared to others with generous parents.

My parents were both dead before I had children so never had childcare. I support my children financially through university and my ex will provide a deposit when they need it. If you have it and can afford it, why wouldn't you?

We got a lot of money for our house deposit. We didn't ask for it or expect it but my parents had it ready for us and insisted. I realise this makes us incredibly lucky and we are very grateful. I do understand it grates on others but should we have turned it down? would you?

I think it is more common now but I don't think it is the norm - it will very much depend on the mix of people you know.

I am 45 and my dad gave me £100 for freshers week and that was the very last time I had a hand out (and there was no going home in the holidays from second year onward as he moved to a 1 bed bungalow!). My husband is 49 and his parents have him a bag of shopping and a wardrobe when he moved out at 18. I don't think either of us felt hard done by. We both bought our first homes at 24 - it was fairly easy then. It is not now.

A lot of our financial planning has been around being in a position to help our (now teenage) children. We think it will take at least £100K each just to be able to do what we could with no help (almost no student debt/nice starter home at 24). The biggest thing we want to give our children though is continued practical and emotional support - something neither of us got either.

I've never had any financial help from my parents since leaving school and neither did I expect any, just as my children don't expect any from me which is a good job as I'm just about keeping myself afloat.I guess it's the circles you mix in.My friends are mostly the same as me, so I see it as normal to be self sufficient as opposed to being reliant on mummy and daddy for everything.

I had help from my parents when we bought our first house - 20k and they paid outright for our car 10k.
I know how lucky that is and it helped us enormously.
It is more normal among my friends - baby boomer parents although not people of massive wealth just comfortable and generous! That said, I do know someone who was gifted £400k for a deposit 😱

I worked two jobs - many years ago now - and saved a deposit for a small terraced house. It was very unusual in those days for single women to have a mortgage. Despite a divorce later on, I ended up very financially secure and had family inheritances. Therefore when my only daughter got married to a lovely guy, it was my pleasure to pay for the wedding (lovely but not an obscenely flashy do) and give them a substantial deposit for a house. I view it as them just getting their inheritance early, and obviously it gives me great pleasure. It meant that they could avoid the starter home stage, having a nice but still fairly modest 3 bed semi. We will have a much wanted grand-child next year, earlier than they would have been able to, if they were in insecure housing. They are both very responsible and hardworking - I would not have helped them if that had not been the case. I admire all those that have done it themselves, without parent help, it's not easy.

No. Nothing at all. No child care. Not a minute of their time.
Not even a gift on their Birthdays or Christmas.
I feel I have to compensate for them.

I was in care so no family at all.

I bought my first house when I was in my mid 20's by working 2 jobs (office 8-4, bar 5-close).

I have never had a penny from either of them. No help with childcare either. We will not get any inheritance from either side.

My mum lent me a fiver in 1996, which I paid back. She's still moaning about it now! Also no childcare, ever.
My sister got 2 horses and a fucking Volvo though.

I'm in my 40s, and I didn't get any financial help in my teenage years, my 20s or even my 30s (when I had my children) however my MIL and FIL have just downsized and have given us a large lump sum which we are able to use to pay off a large chunk of our mortgage. But I am much older than you.
I didn't anticipate getting this kind of money so I have saved into a pension and been careful not to use credit cards. If my own parents don't need nursing care then my sister and I are likely to inherit two homes. I imagine that won't be the case though and one will have to be sold.

My parents never gave me a penny. I won’t see any inheritance either (dad dead, mum disabled on benefits). I was lucky in that I was at university before the existance of tuition fees, I got a full grant off the LEA, and worked P/T in the summer holidays. So I only had a £2000 interest free overdraft when I graduated.

I own my own home outright, but was again lucky in that house prices were relatively achievable then. I did however have to buy in a more deprived area away from where I grew up and work a full time 9-5 job as well as a part time job (Sat & Sun all day, plus a Tues evening straight after main job) to afford it until I got a better paying full time job. I had to do that for nearly 2 years and it was exhausting.

Now I’m comfortably off, and so is my partner. Our son (8 weeks old), already has a Junior cash ISA we’ve put his money in from friends and family when he was born, and we are going to put his child benefit into it, as well as £100 p/m from us. His birthday and Christmas money will go into it as well, until he is old enough to decide how to spend it (he can put it in his savings or spend it). This can’t be accessed until he is 18 years old. He should then have enough money for a house deposit or tuition fees or drugs and hookers. However he spends it, he’s not going to get any more large sums from us until we pop our clogs.

So maybe your “lucky” friends just had financially sensible parents who could afford to put money aside for them.

It varies a lot. I did not have help but we were married with 2 full time wages even whilst having small babies so financially that was better than a part time worker or one of us giving up work. However I did read in my diary recetly and had forgotten that in the 1990s after we had bought and sold a terraced house, a semi and had moved to a deatched my father gave us £10,000. i think it was because my siblings were buying their first homes then and he treated us the same although I had not asked for got anything with the first one. I used it to pay off a tiny bit of the house mortgage - we were in negative enquity, no savings and paying 15% interest rates so it has a bumpy ride time and very welcome money at the time. It was interesting I had forgotten. My parents' view was they would pay for our education (my grant was £50 and full grant was £900 and no loans in those days for university so my parents at huge cost paid that different - 1980s. Also remember only 15% of people went to univesrity so most people my age did not get a free or any kind of university education provided by the state).

My father refused to apply for a uni grant for me, some objection to the government being in his business or somesuch (he hated the Tories) so he paid for our uni grants - but exactly what we would have got, no more, and he certainly expected us to work in the holidays.

I think that's what drove quite a bit of it - he hated the Tories (well, governments in general but especially them!) so we went to private school so they couldn't muck around with our education, he hated landlords so didn't want us renting.

Of course it's rash to assume that just because you know some people who do X, everybody does it.

There are people, on here for example, who are rolling in cash, and others who are struggling to make ends meet.

Help? Not exactly.

We saved for our own deposit, fees, buidling costs, fallback savings, and we're prepared to pay in full for our own wedding too. My parents gave us £13k over the last two years because they wanted to.

We're a combination of relatively frugal and high-earning that makes for a very secure financial position, AND my parents are very frugal indeed and want to 'help'. I wish they'd enjoy their money and their lives a bit more.

We haven’t had any financial help as such, or any childcare, but both DH and I have inherited some money since we’ve been together.

Nope. My Dad has always been able to afford to help me but would rather spend it all on my brother bitter

My Mum cant afford it as she is disable on on little money herself.

My In Laws are amazing. We get money gifted to us occasionally due to them treating their kids equally. My DH has never asked to borrow money from them but if one of his siblings is loaned an amount of money here or there, say around £1k to £5k the debt eventually gets wiped clean and the other siblings receive the same amount. It is a lovely gesture and it tends to always come when we most need it, ie just before our wedding and just before we have our first child. We don't expect it or ask for it but they're incredibly generous, despite not being huge earners. They also happen to be lovely people as well so I consider myself very lucky.

I had to give my dad petrol money when he came to visit! In my circle it's the norm not to get any help from parents.