To think this isn’t that common? Or do people keep it to themselves?

[Kevsap]

My friend has been gifted 100k in the last two years. Eight years prior to that she was given 15k. Every few months/ a year she has around 1k gifted. I consider her to be from a wealthy family and I don’t know anyone else who has this sort of money given to them? Are people just not saying it? I will literally never receive sums like this unless I won the lottery!! My friend seems to think this is pretty average.

My parents gave me a £5k loan for a car once and it caused so much **ing drama I took out a loan and paid them back.

I think the concept is really common - just the amount differs.

Many people will get an inheritance. Whether that's Aunt Maud's china set, or £1m from a larger estate. Your friend is not abnormal at all. Eight years ago she received something (from a relative dying maybe?) and nearly a decade later she got another inheritance.

It all varies, an only child will inherit the whole pot (again, whether that be £500 or £500k) but siblings instantly have their pot halved/thirds etc. Separated families may leave things to second wives/children instead.

Most people will receive an inheritance/gift of sorts in their life. How big, entirely depending on their situation.

I know a couple of separate people who've been given house deposits by their families. I was pleased for them because they are my friends, not jealous because I wasn't in that position. It would only make me less happy if I didn't like the person.

Surely it just depends on whether the family is rich or not? I think it's pretty normal for older relatives to give gifts to younger relatives - the amount of those gifts will obviously vary depending on how rich the giver is! So my lovely gran used to give me a £20 note every time she saw me, even when I was an adult with a full time job. I saw her probably 6 times a year. I have no doubt that if she'd been rich, she'd have been handing me £100 each time, or maybe depositing £1k into my bank account! When she died she left each of her grandkids £2k.

My parents are a bit better off and they gifted us our stamp duty on our first house, as we were living with them and they wanted us out more quickly than we could save! They wouldn't (and couldn't) hand me £100k for no reason, but I'm sure they would be helping us out more with random gifts for specific things like holidays or renovations if they had the money.

And no, i don't talk to friends about gifts my relatives give me - why would I? None of their business and would just make them feel bad if they didn't have the same themselves.

Friend one: her Mum died when she was 7. Her Dad inherited all her Mums money that came from her own Mum, and spent it on a stepmother who abused my friend and had her own kids. Her Dad died, leaving everything to step mother, who left it all to her bio kids.

Friend two: parents died of alcoholism when she was 16, she joined the forces to survive.

Friend three: immigrant parents returned to home country when she was 18, they live a subsistence life on the modest savings they took with them.

Me: lovely attentive parents who gave us all the opportunities they could manage, but never had spare money to give away. Left a modest inheritance from their small house, split between their Dc

I know people who come from far wealthier backgrounds and I dare say they have benefitted from that in different ways, and I am happy for them. But the details are not my business.

I’ve never been GIVEN anything, let alone ‘gifted’ 😒

It won’t let me delete this!!!! I meant to start a new post - sorry!

I’m wondering if I’m a bit controlling or if I’m justified in feeling a bit peeved about the way this conversation went.

Partner works full time and I’m on a break from work. We don’t share money so he’s not the breadwinner so to speak, in fact I probably pay the lions share including now I’m off work for a while. 2 kids, one disabled.

he’s been offered overtime at work but rather than say I might do overtime on such and such day, is that going to cause any issues with the kids etc. he’s let me know he’s

I have a very lovely, down to earth friend who has a trust fund. Her and two siblings get a pay out a few times a year. It’s really nice for them as they know they are never far away from the next little pot of money, although I don’t think they know how much until it arrives.

I assume it is a share portfolio, as the amount seems to vary considerably, so sometimes enough for a shopping trip and a hair cut, at other times it has been a new car, or an extension on the house.

She hardly ever mentions it, but often treats her friendship group. Others might make it all quite difficult, but she is one of the loveliest people I know and totally don’t begrudge her good fortune.

This is absolutely not the norm for me or my friends.

Thanks Shanghai that's really good to know

I'm lucky to get €1000 every few years from my grandma. Whenever her savings go over the inheritance tax threshold she gives all her children and grandchildren €1000 each. I'm open with my friends about money and know none of them get gifted any money, so I think it's uncommon, especially the large amounts your friend is getting. 100k in 2 years is more than most people's full time jobs pay them, of course that's not common!!

I don’t know anyone who has been gifted large sums of money. Maybe it depends what circles you mix in but I’ve never had a single conversation where someone has said they’ve been given large sums of money, and I’ve got a lot of friends

My in laws do gift us and bil sums like this. Money sat in the bank they say they won't use, and would rather we use it now.
They also pick up school fees occasionally. We're not reliant on it, and I don't get involved, the boys discuss with their parents.
They also gift a lot of their time for childcare, just generally lovely people and we are very fortunate.
We don't discuss the money with others.

🤷🏻‍♀️ My in-laws give their youngest son a monthly “allowance” of around £300 a month, and have done for many many years. He is 33 and so I do find this very odd, but my husband and his family assure me it is normal. Normal for them I suppose. It takes all kinds!

It’s probably more common than you think. We have been given similar amounts as your op from my in-laws over the years. We haven’t really told anyone about it. You probably wouldn’t know it to look at us, and you wouldn’t necessarily know my in-laws had that level of wealth just by knowing them in a loose sense - they have several investment properties which I doubt many of the people they know are aware of.
On the other hand my family have nothing like that kind of money and my siblings and I have never received any kind of money, so if I’d married someone from a family like mine (middle-class but in vocational professions so never bringing in big bucks and nothing really in the way of inherited wealth) I’d be quite surprised too.

My folks have dished out tens of thousands of pounds to help my Brothers onto the property ladder (I bought way back in the early 00s so didn't need the leg up) even though they are not wealthy they would give us their last penny. I don't know many people who have had handouts like this but I suspect with property being so valuable there will be many folk who receive bountiful inheritance. DD boyfriend has wealthy Grandparents and they own a lot of land with houses in a sought after part of the country that will come his way in years to come making him a very wealthy young man.

We have gifted large sums to our adult children but I hope, for a number of reasons, they have been discreet and not discussed it with friends, although inevitably it becomes apparent when they purchase their first home

Nope, not common. I have, however, been gifted money on two occasions by my DPs. Given that my DPs are not wealthy in the slightest it was very much unexpected and not necessary.

I wasn't listed in my DGM's will (as it went just to her two children, so my DM and her DB), but my Mum insisted I have some of it. I logged in to my bank account one day to discover an unexpected £7k deposit. Another time my Dad said he wanted to pay for my wedding cake. We had a pretty special wedding cake and I didn't think he'd want to pay what it cost, so I just didn't say anything. He wouldn't let it go, so in the end I told him how much it was and said that I know it was a lot and that I'd totally understand if they didn't want to give me that much, but the next thing I knew I had the money in my account too.

I'd much rather they spend what they have on themselves. They sacrificed a lot for my sibling and me when we were little and as a result didn't have much of a chance to enjoy themselves. There weren't really any holidays when we were kids, certainly not abroad, and my Dad used to regularly work a 50-60 hour week to make ends meet. I'd much rather they use the opportunity to enjoy themselves now they're at the young end of retired.

I get £30 from my mum at Christmas and on my birthday

Yes, I think its fairly common for people to be gifted money for a house deposit, wedding, business start-up etc.

I was given enough for a deposit on a house by DPs so I was very lucky. I don't know if friends would have guessed as they also bought houses around the same age, I think they just had less equity in their homes (if they didn't receive parental help). I certainly have never told friends about it.

Quite a few friends have had £10k or so toward house deposits from parents, and quite a few have had parents pay for some or all of weddings. I don't know of anyone getting cash given to them for no particular reason, though.

Apart from £2k from my aunt a few years ago which I was very grateful for, it's never been a thing for me, but both my parents are skint - if they were in different circumstances they definitely would give us money I think. And a lot of people my parents' age (late 50s) are generally quite settled, may have almost-paid-off mortgages if they own their home, etc, so I can see why they might give their adult children money at a point when it'll be useful - house buying, weddings, having small children - rather than waiting for it to go into the pot for inheritanc instead.

Baby boomers have amassed quite a bit of wealth and quite a lot are paying it forward to the next generations. One in five boomers are millionaires, which might go some way to explain all the posh farm shops and garden centres springing up everywhere with lovely cafe's. 😃
There will be a lot of people who are receiving bits of 'early inheritance' and not talking about it. I'm surprised you know about your friend's money, most people are quite guarded about this kind of stuff.

In the old days, people used to pretend to be old money. I could not understand that when learning history as a kid. These days people pretend to be self-made and it is the same thing really.
There are people who somehow managed to have a house and good lifestyle and would credit it to all sorts of things and forget to mention large amounts of financial help.

I have no idea if my friends have been given money, I expect they have but it has never been discussed

my parents haven’t offered me a penny since I left university apart from paying for a wedding we didn’t want (we wanted to get married but not a wedding they took control of) for their friends when I was in my 20’s

They frequently tell us they’re not rich yet downsized to a £1.7m house, have 6 rental properties and don’t use any of their investments just live off their pension. I know that they have several million in cash and investments. Lucky they are financially extremely smart and have set it up to minimise IHT

They give each grandchild £100 when they turn 18. That’s it.

I have never been given any money but a few friends parents paid for their weddings and house deposits not huge sums as was years ago

dh got £20k inheritance from his dads share of the house dmils went on care home fees

dsister has borrowed tens of thousands from dm over the years and never paid any of it back so may as well call it a gift. Due to issues related to this I am not expecting any inheritance as she will have either spent it all or have convinced dm to change her will