If you were/are wealthy, how much would/do you help your adult children?

[ohcrumbss]

I often see celebrities talking about how they won't leave an inheritance for their children.

Recently I have seen an article from Zoe Ball's son stating he has been cut off financially and is working to make his own money.

Yet in the real world I know of a few adult children of successful lawyers and entrepreneurs who have houses and holidays paid for by their parents and are given sizeable allowances etc.

I just wondered if you were/are in that position, what would you do?

I take the celebrity not leaving inheritance with a pinch of salt as most will have had a very good education, potentially job opportunities so they are unlikely to end up on the street.

What I find odd on mns is the idea you should never expect help from parents or inheritances but then if you're a parent you should be saving for your dcs future.

I live in a pretty affluent area & the parental help was eye opening. Things like 500k to help them move up the ladder.

I would pay for uni, and accommodation costs, etc, but probably not much else. I'd put money in trust for her, that she could access when she is 25. She has MH difficulties, and it would be a balancing act between taking away her worries, and putting her into a position where temptation and exploitation become a whole new set of worries.

If I was in the position to I like to think I would help with uni costs/wedding costs/housing costs for my DC. I think it is a big part of why my DH and I work.

I would rather give my ds every help I can in being able to generate a good living of his own.

So good education and support with practical/technical training, plus a good work ethic. If he has those, he won't need me to spoon feed him.

He is my only beneficiary though so he gets anything left in my estate when I die, as well.

We are not 'wealthy' wealthy but are very comfortable with 2 incomes and low outgoings. We pay ds's university maintenance and rent so he only takes the loan to cover course fees. We also put 5 K a year into his ISA. He actually has a very healthy relationship with money and has a job each holiday and has a quite substantial sum of his own savings.

Depends on the circumstances. If they were working really hard in a job that benefits society but is low paid or wanted seed capital for a business that they'd thought out carefully and were passionate about I'd be more generous than if they're just dicking about in which was BoM&D is closed.

Having observed friends with family money, often it is very much treated as something that should be passed on/reinvested and not spent. So they may be bought a house but they couldn't just cash it in and spend the money. It's very much a case of an unspoken agreement to "spend the income but dont touch the capital"

My parents are very wealthy. I’m 32. They paid for most of my uni, (accommodation, spending money, textbooks), but I still had a loan. They gave me £15,000 for my wedding, £15,000 for help with house deposit and they have just lent me £50,000 to buy our dream home - with no pressure to pay it back.

I see this is a great privilege and would like to be able to do the same for my children. However they have still instilled very good financial sense into me and I am very good at managing my own money.

No idea, maybe a house and travel. Definitely not a wedding, if they want to waste thousands on a party they can fund it themselves.

I wouldn't describe us as wealthy, but we can afford the help the kids a bit.

What we will do is:

• pay for university/equivalent training, as long as it's in a sensible area likely to lead to a job/improved earnings
• we would probably offer some help towards a house deposit, but only based on them saving at least half themselves.
• we would consider offering a loan interest free to set up business/trade if they had a proper plan and had thought it through.
• we would probably invite young adults in their twenties along on one family holiday a year that we would pay for. This would not be every holiday, and once they hit 30/ have their own families we would expect them to afford their own holidays.

What we will not do:

• pay regular allowances to top up their incomes/give them a lifestyle they arent earning
• fund vanity education/phds etc that arent useful for getting a job. There's funding available for genuinely important academic research.
• gift expensive items like brand new cars or chunks of money.

We expect them to do as much as they can to support themselves, but we also acknowledge that in the UK lots of valuable professions don't pay enough to be able to pay off student debt and afford to buy a home, which wasn't the case when it was our turn, so we would try to put them in the same position we were in ourselves.

I know someone wealthy like this and as pp said its ridiculous because they were given pretty much a house after uni, had no debt everything funded, given very lavish gifts, treated to as holiday once a year with partners or dc etc.
And they will also get an inheritance it's just not the "entire" estate and this is the distinction.

Not the entire estate.

It's a bit like the posters who say " we don't spoil our dc at Xmas we give them two gifts each" then it transpires hundreds of aunts and uncles will also be buying for their dc.

@DeepaBeesKit

You realise teens don't often want to holiday with their parents anymore .
Parents usually pay for their dc to go away because its a way of seeing them and spending time with them.

Re paying for what you see will earn money, that's rather controlling, what if your dc doesn't want to do what you want them too?
You could be stifling their creativity?

As for saving half for a house, again you could be waiting an extremely long time if their job doesn't pay well.

I come from a reasonably well-off background (but not wealthy) and my parents paid my Uni fees many years ago which amounted to about £2k (another country). Other than that they have never given me any money.

DH came from a background of almost poverty (his description) but only later in life has his parents amassed a serious amount of money through shrewd investments and pension schemes. They have been very generous to us and SIL with this money (sizeable contributions to our wedding and house deposit), which tbh makes me feel a bit uncomfortable as my parents have never done this and never will (I don’t expect it either).

For DS we have investments which we pay into monthly for - Stocks&Shares ISA, SIPP, a University fund, and a house deposit fund. Only the ISA is in his name, as if he turns out to be feckless, bad with money, or has manipulative friends/partner then he will not be able to access this money. If he doesn’t go to University then the money will be used for something else, maybe more towards a house deposit etc.

We are reasonably well off although not mega rich. Assuming our situation doesn’t change, we’ll be paying all university costs and giving our children either a flat to share or a large deposit each.

I wouldn’t pay them an allowance unless the chips really were down.

Mine are still very young so this all feels a long way off. But current thinking is we’ll help them as long as they are also doing what they can to financially better themselves.

We have accounts set up for education already which will also cover further education. My parents were not well off at all, struggled at times, but they went without to fund uni for me and siblings. Mine will get the same but we won’t fund them through holidays, they’ll need to work.

We would help with a house deposit, but I see that as an advance on their inheritance. But I would have expected them to save hard too so they certainly won’t be getting set up for life at the age of 25.

If they want to live at home to save for a deposit I won’t charge rent as long as they are saving the equivalent of what they are saving on rent.

We won’t buy them cars. That’s something you work and save for.

Will contribute to weddings, and will start savings for grandkids if that’s ever relevant. What we won’t do is pay for private education for grandkids. My view is that a family needs to live within its means. They a absolutely will not get an allowance as an adult.

I think so much of this is personal though. Not necessarily a right or wrong answer for a lot of this stuff.

Not me, but my ex had a lovely house bought outright for him by his parents. They also paid all his household bills. So his earnings were all his own for fun, which honestly did him no favours.

I'm currently saving enough so that both my DC will have 6 figure sums for deposits when they are 25. They don't know this, as they are both currently under 6.

I will support them throughout their education, and will top up expenses if they go to university. I will advise them to take out maintenance loans when at uni, as I think that will make them value the education they are getting, and not drop out in a whim because they don't fancy it anymore.

If they do apprenticeships, I'm happy for them to stay at home rent free until fully qualified.

Once they finish uni/apprenticeships and are in full-time jobs I'd prefer they live at home until they are ready to buy a place. I will charge rent, probably something like £100 per week for everything, if only so they get used to budgeting, but I'll set the money aside and give it back to them when they are ready to move out.

I will give them each £10k towards a wedding/civil partnership if that's what they want.

They will inherit my house between them, which will probably be worth a couple of million by the time they are both 30.

I'd like to think I won't bail them out of financial difficulties, but in reality I'd assess each situation as it arose. They'd also have their DF to go to, though we're not together, and he earns about half of what I do, so I wouldn't have any control over this.

That's my plan for now, but may revise if it all goes bad!

We’ve paid for private schools, paid for university and will help with deposits for flats or houses. We also paid ds’s rent for a year (£750 a month) so he could live near his work post graduation

I know someone who used part of their substantial inheritance to buy their adult child a house outright. Their reasoning was that it gave them the security of always having a roof over their head but no more money would be forthcoming.

I do wonder if inheritance tax rules will change in the future. Whilst it's completely normal to what safeguard your own we are now in a time when what your parents have & can leave you eg a house will determine whether you can own a house. For many a good job is not enough.

I’m mystified by this attitude. I view generational wealth as much more important than individual wealth. I am not wealthy, but in some ways better off than most, and it is ONLY for my children. Anything I add to it is for my children. Nearly all money we spend, we plan it in relation to benefit for our children (I.e. tangibles that will be passed on to them, or things that will benefit them like education, travel etc.).

If I was a squillionaire I would lock it up so that they wouldn’t suddenly inherit spendable cash and risk losing it (it’s for THEIR kids at that point!) it would be a family trust or something, but they would be educated to not be massive jerks about it.

Honestly, the “I have massive privilege but my children won’t”comes off as having a poverty mindset where you view poverty as inherently noble and pure, which I think most poor people would vigorously contest!

@astoundedgoat I don't think it's actually like that as for most of these offspring they will be growing up in privilege. And these people are very wealthy & there is definitely an issue with children of those who are very wealthy having problems with life. Inheriting 5m instead of 50m is not going to result in poverty.

Family is very important to Dh and I. The world is a tough place and we plan to help as much as we are able to ensure our children have a good quality of life and get on the property ladder etc if we can help.

Nearly all money we spend, we plan it in relation to benefit for our children

That sounds a bit miserable to me. We spend and enjoy our money. None of our kids actually need it so I’m entirely happy for them to get what’s left when we’ve gone. If we need residential care for any length of time that won’t be much.

Children should be taught to never expect cash handouts. Parents need to give their kids opportunity to get a decent education and ambition. If you let your kids think that bank of mum and dad will take care of them, you are just enabling future underachievers.

I’d give them everything they want and enjoy every minute of it. (Unless they had addiction problems and I would help them every way I could with that too)

I’d love to win the lottery and find out if this would really happen.