Unobtainable lifestyle

[FunnyPlumDog]

Hello, we have two children, the oldest is 18 and hopefully off to uni in September. We will obviously fund uni for them but I am starting to worry we have provided a lifestyle for them that they won’t be able to maintain once they start working themselves.
Should we start to slowly subtly dial back the spending to make things easier on them in the future?

Geez

Could you be more specific?

I don't think it's unusual for young people to experience this when they become independent; their contemporaries will be in the same boat. Better to teach them how to budget and manage their money, encourage sensible practices such as saving regular amounts, avoiding debt, shopping round for the best deals and so on. Teach them about tax, pensions and interest rates.

Wow, what a well thought out and enlightening post?
Op what are we talking about cutting back exactly? I don’t think it’s a bad thing giving your dc’s a taste of the real world before they have to live it

This is surely normal. They'll start at the bottom of the career ladder, live on a budget like everyone in their 20s, and then hopefully gradually progress and improve their lifestyles.

What are their career plans? They may end up doing very well for themselves.

In what way?

By funding uni do you mean paying the fees and giving money for living or just living expenses.

I know a mum who although they could afford to pay the uni fees (course fees). Has made there kids take the loans as thinks if they want to do it then they should take the responsibility, they are however paying living expenses.

Encouraging them to get jobs at a young age and earn money to pay for things is a good idea though, even if you could aford everything regardless.

For example DD 16 has her own part time job and I expect her to buy clothes she wants (I buy basic items bit if she wants extra she has to buy it). You need to help them take responsibility for things so they don't expect to be handed everything.

The best thing you can do for your children is to encourage them to get a job. Even if it’s part time and waiting on tables.

Mt eldest had worked since she was 14 and is now nearly 28 and doing fantastic. My middle one comes to work with me on a Saturday to earn pocket money. The same will happen to my youngest.

Free money creates entitlement. I work bloody hard for my money - they need to know what it takes to earn that.

Hi I feel.the same, when I was growing up I had a very loving normal secure lifestyle, but it wasn't lavish like some of my peers and that made me strive to achieve in wider life.
Fast forward 30 years and my children would probably be considered to be the lucky ones by some but not all of their peers....
A tiny example! But I went home from venture scouts and couldn't get chips as most folk did on the way home coz I didn't have the £1.75 for a bag and most folk.did but how I enjoyed those odd chips that were offered but nowadays I drop a tenner in online banking whenever one of mine may be a wee bit hungry on the way home from one of their endless hobbies!
It seems silly and a small point but I do believe it's indicative that I'm not replicating with my children what made me who I am today ...and will they assume how they live is how life is??

Ahem it's unattainable.

@FunnyPlumDog , my husband and I have been pretty successful; our boys were privately educated. We came from absolutely nothing though and worked our socks off and took many risks. We were lucky too.
We provided a wonderful life for our boy’s growing up, a great education, a lovely home and fantastic holidays. Our elder son is a GP. He doesn’t live in the London commuter belt like us and has a reasonable life but not luxurious. Our younger son lives close to us, house prices here are horrific but his job keeps him here however he isn’t paid nearly as well as his brother and life is financially quite challenging for him.
It’s not easy to see our youngest especially struggling and we’d never let him go under financially but we do believe our boys should stand on their own two feet. I understand your concerns but hopefully we’ve taught our children the value of hard work and responsibility for self in which case they’ll be ok. Life is so much harder for young people now than it was for my husband and I and that is so sad. I do understand your worries but all I can say is that my husband and I are now retired and continue to enjoy an extremely healthy income which will mean that we can cover the cost of any care we require in old age, hopefully this will be a great benefit to our boys. When we are gone they will inherit well and this should provide them with a comfortable retirement. Until then we’ll be there for emergencies but they have to take responsibility for themselves.

I had a teacher in year 9 who often mentioned how we were all going to be in for a shock when we left our parents homes and had to support ourselves. It was a state school, but had a wealthy population. he wasn’t wrong, the drop in lifestyle is shocking.

It is also almost always temporary. If you have been raised with privilege, you have been given the skills you need to maintain that privilege. A few lean years while you are a student and working your way up in your career teach fiscal responsibility. They also provide a glimpse into the way the rest of society has to live. The key difference being and it is critical to recognize, that passing through is not the same as staying there.

what we are doing for our own child is two-fold. We are mentally preparing her for the idea that she will have to work her way up just by talking about. We talk about our lean student days and our lean 20s. We talk about how we saved. We talk out how failures along the way and what helped us.

We are also looking for ways to put her in the best position possible. We will help with university. We discovered that in our country she can start a pension as soon as she starts working, even as a teenager, so we offered to match her contributions. She puts 50% of her part-time job earnings away for her retirement and we match the amount, which gets her to the maximum she is legally allowed to put into a pension fund. So by saving money, but more importantly, teaching her to save, we are hoping to get her moving on a good financial path.

We all knew what OP meant. This was unnecessary.

YYY to this!!!!

Nothing teaches the value of money like doing tedious work for people who couldn't manage a dogfight.

Having a job (or four or five) under their belts when they start applying for graduate level positions will work in their favour.

I think you have the right idea OP. Cutting back on the easy life that you have been giving them so far, will be good for them. However, depending on how you go about it, you may well be in for some trouble. I think you need to really communicate with them about what you're doing and why. Too many youngsters these days have way too much by way of material things, and to coin a phrase, think 'money grows on trees', so preparing them for the difficulties they're likely to face over the next few years is a good idea in my opinion. Maybe showing them how to budget, how to cook cheap but nutritious meals, and if they've not been used to helping out at home, even giving them a few lessons on how to do their own cleaning/washing, etc., wouldn't go amiss. I recently spent some time with a girl at work who is in her late teens, and whilst talking, I became aware that she didn't even know how to sew a button on! She also had no idea of how to get stains out of clothes, or how to wash things by hand, and said, 'if something gets marked and it doesn't come out in the wash, I just throw it away', all very well if your parents are buying the replacements, but when you have to find the cash to do it yourself, it's far better to have at least some idea of how to get rid of marks that can be got out with a little bit of effort, like, blood, biro, oil, etc. We had a bit of a chat about it, with a lot of laughter thrown in, and she actually admitted that she didn't realise it was even possible to get blood out of clothes!! So maybe now's the time to actually appraise what sort of a job you've done with regard to teaching your youngsters how to live in the adult world, and if they're like the girl I was talking to, take action before you send them out there, unprepared.

Whoops! Didn't mean to imply that the work your DD does with you is tedious or that you are a shit manager! @Hugosmaid

I was referring to my own DCs' experiences.

I think this nails it.

DH and I both privately educated / parents with holiday homes / all the hobbies / good degrees etc - and when we met in our early twenties in London it was VERY different to our teenage years. We were both spending more than half of our income on rent - and relying very heavily on frozen peas and jacket potatoes.

ultimately we had the fall back option of calling parents if we were ever in real trouble - but we would have been mortified to have done so. Our parents had been pretty clear with both of us that it was normal to have to graft and muddle through - and had regaled us with all the tales of ways they had done so. It felt like an expected right of passage - and one that we had a responsibility to work our way out of.

I know that by almost every metric we have both had enormous privileges - and I think that being told to expect the ‘lean years’ and also to have felt confident we would work our way through was One of those privileges rather than a ‘let down’.

its ok to let your son feel the difference. It’s probably wise to let him know it’s coming. But the contrast is healthy I think. Sharpening.

Yes, let them know you will be there in an emergency. Also let them know you have given them the skills to succeed and a spartan life is not an emergency.

i knew I had made it back when i repaired my built in microwave door handle instead of fixing it with tape. I was ridiculously proud of myself because it was damn hard to get to that point, but I also know it was easier for me than it was for many people.

It’s completely normal and appropriate. In their 20’s mine are all financially independent and live away. Doesn’t mean they don’t love coming home and raiding the fridge, commenting on non value food. We also take them out for meals and theatre and they know they can come to us if they need to- it’s happened once in covid when dc had to move into a flat before her job started.
I suppose if what you’ve trained them to be accustomed to is designer leisurewear and food deliveries they’ll notice the change when they move out, but otherwise you set them up with values and tools to earn a living.

Parents we know with older kids working in their 20s still pay for their holidays with the family, phones, Netflix, gym etc. so that in many ways they have the same lifestyle as they had growing up. I’d like to think I wouldn’t but couldn’t rule it out!

It depends. It’s normal to have a big drop in lifestyle at the bottom of the career ladder. However, it is simply the case that it is massively harder for young people now due to high house prices than it was 20 or 30 years ago.

We will help out with university and a house deposit, and after that they can manage on their salaries. I think that’s normal. I can’t understand wealthy parents who refuse to help with house deposits ‘to teach their kids a lesson.’

And this post demonstrates problem with the current generation of children, and parents.

It's called growing up, making your own way in the world and living independently. Yes. Your child will have to live like a pauper in comparison to the life they enjoyed at home. They don't have a house filled with stuff, two cars, a pension fund, and savings. Those are things you acquire throughout your life, not things you are given at the start. No unless you come from a rich family.

Your kid will just have get used to being an adult.

It's an interesting one this one. In my 20s, in a tiny rented flat, I was definitely living a better life than I'd grown up with. Branded food! Holidays! My entire motivation to do well in school a because I wanted to be like the better off kids in school.

We're doing OK (1 holiday abroad per year; don't have to worry about school trips for kids etc) and I worry that my kids won't be motivated enough to work hard, because although they hear"No, we can't afford x", it doesn't really impact them and they have pretty nice lives.

It's completely normal to have a "drop" in lifestyle when we're young. Living in a cold, grotty flat, second hand furniture, no holidays, using public transport and not a car etc etc.... this is how we all started, and we were fine. If anything, it's an incentive to work hard and progress.

Yanbu. Your 20s are all about grotty houseshare (are there still squats. lived in a squat on Kilburn High Road for a while), living on pasta, cutting your own hair, and taking home ‘free’ toilet paper from work.