To think it’s selfish for parents to retire early when their kids are renting?

[Lesbeavinu]

Dh has decided he is going to retire at 59. He has a great government pension and private pension/savings. He earns a decent £50k a year (same as me) and we have no mortgage.

I said that dh should continue working for another year or 18 months and gift the money to dd for a flat deposit.

What a cheeky you have!
Work longer yourself and gift the kid the money if you feel that strongly about it!

Well, against the grain here, but yes I do think he is selfish it is lovely to be be able to give kids leg up in this financial environment .

You are being ridiculous . If your husband is financially able to retire and wants to, that’s his right. I have three kids, in their thirties- all own their own homes. No financial help from anyone. They and their partners have the satisfaction in knowing they achieved this through their own hard work and not handouts

No way would I work an extra year to eighteen months to give any of my three the money. It’s too late now for your circumstances, but we saved the Child Benefit for each child in the Trust Fund accounts and then moved them to Jr ISAs - eldest had a pot of just over £25k when he turned 18 and it’s remained in ISAs ever since. The girls will have a similar amount. That’s pretty much it from us for now. Maybe something later but I wouldn’t work longer than I need to so that my kids didn’t have to rent. That’s up to them.

Both my parents were dead by early sixties. I would not have accepted the gift of a deposit as I was fiercely determined to make my own way. I just worked extra hours as did my husband although we were lucky that deposits didn't need to be as madly huge as they do now.

So poster's on here will have to make sure they are not spending much as they will be working for a very long time as their kids will need money so they need to be warned they wont be retiring early

I would do whatever I could to help my kids but that is my choice and I don't think it is unreasonable for your husband to want to enjoy a longer retirement.

When did you buy your home @BeaRF75? Because if it was before house prices went crazy, and you did it without leaving uni with massive debts (or at a time when a degree wasn’t necessary for most jobs as it is now), then you are not comparing like for like.

I think young people have things so hard these days. I wouldn’t hesitate to work a few extra years to help my DD because it will be much harder for her than it was for me.

Lots of reasons not to stay in wirk, saving up for adult DC is not one of them.

In my experience it seems better to take a pension when offered without penalty, do for some people that will be 60, others later.
Not taking it risks pension providers changing the rules

Lots of my friends retired at 60 and have great lives, I'm really jealous as for us it'll be work til we drop, but such is life.

What if you have multiple kids? Wil you let him retire at 70? All ages struggle to buy it’s part of the journey. We had no extras we ate from scratch no new clothes. When money ran out it was tough. When we moved in it was lean times . The feeling of pride that all the struggle was paying off was great. It’s been bloody hard at times but it’s all ours . Most working class families don’t get handed cash but get support in other ways . We raised our kids to be hard working and make their own choices.

What hours do you work OP? How long are you going to continue to work so you can give your children money? I think your husband should retire if he can. Our local newspaper obituary page is full of people who die in their 60's. Plus he'd be leaving a vacancy for a young person to fill.

People saying older people had it easy are generalising. I have certainly had a good life despite the 2 week maternity leaves but we did spent 50% of each of our net incomes in 1984 on full time childcare for example which did not feel a time of loads of money. We also sold our last house at a loss in the 1990s crash and paid huge stamp duty in 1997 ( it had doubled from 1996) and I was too young to benefit from mortgage interest tax relief in any meaningful way as it had been allowed to wither on the vine to not being worth much when we were buying particularly compared to very high SE house prices in the 80s and 90s.

The legal issue in England is parents can choose what if any help they give an adult child. It is entirely up to them and as I believe in a liberal free society where people can be different but each right in their own choices, that is fine. You are not wrong whatever you do. I will not and do not look after my grandchildren as I work full time. I have however chosen to help them with housing including for the last remortgaging the house to afford that and giving up my own SIPP to HMRC and the children - I repaid the mortgage last year. I now feel in a phase now only 2 adult children live at home of starting to save up some money for old age care (if I need it) - my father spent £130,000 in NE England on day and night dementia care in last year of his life - he died at home and needed 2 people (due to lifting issues) by the end. One reason I remortgaged was so I could be done, over with, finished in supporting any of the 5 children. A bit like my parents who said we pay for your education and then you are on your own, I feel similarly other than I chose to help a bit with housing. Now they are on their own. When I die the state gets just about half of everything but the rest goes to the children equally although if Labour get in I suppose we might even get put up to a higher level than 40%. I see the highest estate duty (IHT) in 1949 was 80% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_inheritance_taxes_in_the_United_Kingdom

Well my parents didn’t give me naff all. Let him retire no one knows what’s around the corner

What does the child and husband think of this. If it was a reverse and a husband was telling his wife to do this the thread would melt down.

'People saying older people had it easy are generalising.'
No one is saying that all older people had it easy because that would be nonsense; of course some struggle financially and are still renting. However, in a financial sense, overall, they have certainly had it easier than subsequent generations. This is a new phenomenon and one that needs to be addressed but is being entirely ignored by politicians.
Clearly, you would not have felt it necessary to pay for all your DC's uni fees and give them all large house deposits if things were the same as they were in the 1970s/80s.

Absolutely crackers idea @CuttingMeOpenthenHealingMeFineI plan to retire at 55. DH and I will have put our DC X 3 through private school & university (one Psychologist, one Doctor to-be and one Theatre Set Designer to-be).

I have no desire to continue supporting my children after I retire and I intend to spend every cent of the money I made during my life, having worked extremely hard to make the aforementioned education available to my much loved children. Of course they will receive our assets when we shuffle off this mortal coil, but house buying is their baby.

Your DD needs autonomy and responsibility, Daddy won't always be there to fill in the blanks.

YADBU

Eh. What a weird thing to say. It wouldn't even occur to me for my parents to give me money for a deposit or anything else for that matter. And I would be genuinely appalled if I thought they were delaying retirement for that sole reason.

Theatre set design? That pays diddly squat! So how does that dc afford to save? Even in London that’s not a well paid job. Even if they get one. Good luck to that dc in the big wide world of affording a house.

I think many DC do understand parents have saved for their housing needs. If you can afford school fees you should be able to save for a house deposit too - or at least help out. It’s a generational thing. Many of us never needed it and no point discussing it as parents didn’t have anything. Our DC know we do, and it’s blatantly obvious! So we talk about money and how much we’ve invested for them. The latest decision has been to release funds from a trust to pay down some of DDs mortgage. Thats why we saved and didn’t blow all the money. Although plenty of our friends think we did when they look at DH and his cars! We wil
be giving more away to reduce IHT. I assume people who don’t fine won’t be paying IHT. If you had a huge bill, you might think differently.

Well that’s great for you and I’m not sure if this post was just an excuse to boast about how well off you are, but your privileged circumstances are not what the thread is about. This woman wants her husband to have to work longer to subsidise her dd, not just give her money from savings, trust fund etc! It strikes me that she loves dd a lot more than dh! She doesn’t seem to care if he drops dead from overwork as long as dd is sorted! I’m assuming they are planning on leaving dd their house etc in their wills, so she should wait rather than have her dad work longer to provide a house for her. You’re in a very different position and I’m sure that most people would do the same as you if they had the means, but it’s rude of you to cast aspersions on other people when you’re unaware of their financial position.

It’s an illustration that people do give dc money! I don’t care what anyone thinks about me but DH is doing P/t work at 70. It’s relevant that he hasn’t retired - and absolutely could have done! We like to help and DH enjoys his work. So we don’t have a me,me,me viewpoint. We try and share and obviously reduce tax liability. I also recognise we be from easier to buy housing and DH had no uni loan. My education was paid for by my employer. I’m aware few dc have these advantages now. I even have a final salary pension! Helping is just a nice thing to do for little sacrifice.

My DM has just died. I’m nearly 70. Waiting for parental inheritance was a long wait in my case. Plus it’s a small sum - went on care home fees. Give it while you can!

But it’s not a ‘little sacrifice’ to continue working if you don’t want to! Again you are making assumptions on the basis of your life. Ie your dh enjoys his job, your employer paid for your education, final salary pension. Not everyone is in the same position and is should be choice not expectation! Of course people give dc money, I’ve done the same for my dc BUT my dc would definitely not have wanted me to work for longer to do it!

Interesting we never got an answer to this! The only answer given about anything was,his job is easy etc. I think the op didn’t get the answer she wanted on here.

You probably didn't get an answer because it's literally in the first post. She does work and earns similar to her husband.

She says she works- but we dont know if she is planning to work until she dies to fund her DC or is it just the husband with his easy little job who is expected to.