To ask parents

[peonylane]

I was having a discussion with a friend last night who is asking her parents for help with a deposit for a house. She asking for approx £25k. They also look after her child 3 days a week, which of course saves her a considerable amount money.
It got me thinking about how many people actually receive help of this scale from their parents.
I'm interested to hear how your parents have helped you financially and also with child care etc.

Nothing

Nada

No childcare. No financial help

We got where we are on our own!

My mum looks after my children 3 days a week. She actually cut her hours down at work to do this. I didn't ask her, but she really wanted to. And could afford to cut down her hours. I am eternally grateful for this.

My mum bought me three saucepans, and a cookbook and waved me off to college. That was it in terms of parental support.

Yes PIL helped all their DC with a lump sum for their first property and have given generous amounts since. They'd much rather their DC benefit from the money now than it going to the government.

Not with regular childcare as we live in different cities but my mum is brilliant at babysitting for big events, e.g. if DH and I wanted to go to a wedding or something she'd come and have the children.

I can't imagine asking my parents for £25k though! I mean, they don't have £25k, but even if they did! When I first left home my mum did help me with a rental deposit, which was around £300.

Never had anything from my DM (DF died when I was young), if anything I support her. Though I don't have a lot of cash (I don't own my own home for example)

Nothing. No help with childcare either (one is ill, the other hundreds of miles away)
Nothing when I was at uni either.

My Mum paid for my accommodation at Uni as I wasn't entitled to any help based on their income. They did resent this a bit I think. Not me, but the system which assesses the parents of adult children (I was 21) regardless of whether they want to support the adult or not.

My Mum also paid 4k for my first wedding which was very generous I think. They gave £400 towards my second wedding too (which we bought a painting with) which was nice and unexpected.

They earned well and spent a lot on themselves and I don't think it really occurred to them or me to expect any different. They were both poor growing up and had no help from their parents so thought once you were 16 you should pretty much be on your own - I had to pay my share of holidays from 16yo if I wanted to join them. They charged me 50% income for board from 18 too.

DH's parents were wealthy and I was surprised when I met him that he had 100% mortgage and they'd not helped him to buy (But they had paid for everything for his BA and MA and helped when he went travelling for a year). Similarly they had been very poor and it just would never have occurred to them to give a large sum towards a house.

Both DH and I had 100% mortgages when we met and then pooled our money and bought a bigger place when we had kids. But then mil died and DH inherited a substantial amount, so we bought a bigger place with a garden. So I suppose the answer is we have had a lot but it was mainly in the way of inheritance rather than large deposit gifts.

Neither sets of parents had paid into any private pensions so now we are looking at financially supporting my parents as they don't have enough with their state pension. This is instead of saving or paying into any pension for us! Again it hadn't occurred to them that they'd need it.

My parents do look after the children and help out if I have appointments etc, but would never do it as an arrangement so I could work. Its very much so they can enjoy the children rather than be childcare. Which I understand and never expected them to be any different.

My parents paid a substantial amount towards my first home and paid for all our weddings. In laws gave us a substantial amount towards our first family home and have put money in trust for all their grandkids. We will be forever grateful for everyone’s help and will try and do the same for our kids.

my mum loaned me a suitcase to leave home with, but I'm in my 50s so that was many years ago.

My mum gave me £16k in 2001 which firmly got me on the property ladder. Another £10k when I bought my current house and I didn't have enough for all of the stamp duty. Also lots of little smaller amounts (£500 or £1000) here and there. She's died now and I wish she had given more in her lifetime as sorting out her estate is a god awful mess. She also wanted to make provision for her grandchildren.

My husbands parents are very different. On paper much wealthier. They have never given us a penny. In fact I'm pretty certain they didn't buy us a wedding present. They have on occasion lent my husband money but have always required every penny back. They whizzed through his grandmothers inheritance having pointless work done to their house and then promptly moved (to a cheaper priced house that they now can't afford to renovate so basically lost the £100 plus k). I have asked my dad to bypass me with any money he may have (and there may well be none if he needs care) as I want my children to have a chance of getting on the property ladder in time. That's not to say that inheritance wouldn't be useful in my hands right now, it would be. I could do lots of lovely things like extend my house but I also want to afford my children the opportunities that a lump sum of cash would give them.

It's not about affluence and being able to afford it, although having no money means you can't even afford to do it if you want to. It's a mindset about family wealth generation. It's not entitled to take help from your parents and frankly if your parents have lots of spare money it's odd that they don't want to help.

We borrowed £20k towards a house deposit that we have paid back. It was interest free so obviously a big help.
No childcare help as DM works full time and DF is busy with his new wife and her teenagers.
We are in a position where we don’t need any financial help, but my dad likes to ‘treat’ us and occasionally gives us some money and tells us to book a weekend away. He would be extremely hurt if we refused.
My mum doesn’t have any money, we occasionally help her out financially and as she is mortgaged until she’s 70 we will probably help her to pay it off early so she can retire.
IL’s take us out for nice meals when we visit them abroad.

My parents help all the time, but its more 'oh i saw this while i was out so got you some' could be food, clothes, cleaning products or anything

Parents gave us money for deposit, but I never asked for it. They gave us their old car, but I never asked for it. I'm grateful fot their generous gifts, but it's not something I would ask for.

My friend lives in Putney and has just bought a 1 bed flat that was circa £500k she's a store manager in retail...and tried to imply she'd done so well to get the house. People def still receive huge help from parents. I have also, but not quite on that scale, not that they couldn't afford it but touch wood I haven't needed to ask. My mum did have DS 2 days a week for approx 18months though but she would have had him full time if I'd have let her

Joking aren’t ya? It’s always been my family asking to borrow off me. Both my mother and sister spend like there’s no tomorrow then wonder why they’re broke. I’ve never asked for or received a penny. My sister has loaned or been given money over the years, about 600 quid max each time I think, which is a lot of money to me, but I don’t ask and I don’t want.

I live over 100 miles away from my family so childcare isn’t an option, but my mother doesn’t really do that anyway. My sister did have dS for a few weeks a couple of years ago when I was ill though.

@Frenchw1fe that is so lovely, sounds like a wonderful family!

I've never asked my parents for any money since I've been an adult, apart from my wedding. I asked my DDad if there was anything set aside for one and he said no and looked baffled - (he did give me a grand though)

I asked my step mum for a loan once - we were in the shit financially (long story) and needed 12k asap. She lent us £5k which was everything she could get her hands on as quickly as she could, and then said we could keep it when we gave her the cheque to pay her back - which was amazing. We borrowed the other £5k on a credit card till.
She does give me the odd financial gift every couple of years - she just gave me £500 for instance after visiting, because she says she feels 'guilty' that she isn't around to buy stuff for us and the kids like she is for my DSis. (She has precisely nothing to feel guilty about - we are the ones who moved away making it difficult to visit) Its super generous of her. She isn't hugely well off. She owns the house and has both her own pension and my dads, but she is far from rolling in it. I know that I will inherit the proceeds from her house (1/3 of it anyway) when she dies, which is probably never, since shes healthier than me, because she's told me so. I don't expect it though. If she wanted to sell up and move abroad I'd be happy with that.

My DMIL has given us cash gifts now and again which were not asked for which is lovely. However the only time we've ever ask was we were in the shit - see above - and knew she had plenty (we're talking millions not thousands - as DH did her accounts after her DH died) - she refused and said 'get a bank loan or something'

She has a habit of promising things on a grand scale and then not coming up with the goods i.e telling us she never said it in the first place. She makes shit up too. I'd rather she just kept her trap shut and didn't promise anything at all.
(Examples: the trip to Disney World Florida for us and the boys when they were 'old enough'. The payment for private school. The house she was gifting us. (she did buy D Sister in Law a house. And a car. Which I don't begrudge her - she has to live near MIL after all)

We are too far away to have grandparental childcare. Which is fine by us. My DStep-mum can't be arsed (I don't blame her!) and I don't trust MIL anyway.

No financial help in the sense of towards our deposit when we bought our house but both sets of parents bought stuff for us like the vacuum cleaner, microwave etc.

We had ds last year, my parents bought the cot, in laws bought the travel system. Both are happy to have him whenever, my parents have him 4 evenings a week while dh and I go to the gym, in laws have him all day Sunday while we're decorating the house, they've said they would like to keep it up when we finish.
I go back to work next month, mil is having ds one day, my mum is having him another and he's at nursery on the third.

Both randomly put money in our bank account to help us out, my parents reasoning is they helped put my brother through uni so it's only fair. In laws said they've helped dhs sister a lot in the past few years and as my paths said its only fair.

We are extremely lucky and both very conscious of it.

Nothing.
They couldn't afford to, and I wouldn't ask. We're a working class family and I have five siblings.

As for childcare, my son is just about 5 weeks old and my family live far away. My mother in law is close though and has already babysat for us once.

Must be nice to have parents who can help you buy a house!

My parents will usually have my children for a few days each holiday and have helped out when our car had to be replaced. I don't like taking money off them though (even though they can afford it) but they won't let me pay them back.
MIL will help with childcare reluctantly in an emergency but that's fine and nothing financial but I think I'd feel really arkward taking money off her anyway.

@BoomyBooms thank you. We have our ups and downs like everyone but I know we are very lucky. Especially so when I read some threads on MN where OP's are having terrible problems with in law's and parents.