Giving money to adult children?

[Menonut]

I don’t want to jump on the Beckham bandwagon but I’ve just read that Nicola Peltz receives an allowance of $1 million a month! Surely that’s insane?
What motivation has she got to go out and achieve anything for herself when she can basically sit on her backside and receive that.
Is that madness or AIBU?

I understand wanting to help your children and do the very best for them, and we will help our son as much as we can to get his foot on the ladder, but surely a time comes when they’ve got to be self sufficient and stand on their own two feet?

I’ve always like Peter Jones’s approach to this. He said he will double his kids earned income so if that income is 0 they will receive 0. If they choose a role that is in the charity sector or the NHS for example the amount he gives them will be increased. This means they are not scraping a living on minimum wage, but they have a purpose to their life.

If I had a spare £1million a month I wouldn't give it to my children. I'd donate it somewhere it could do some good or to people who really needed it

I think it’s hard to comprehend that level of wealth. If I won the lottery I’d help my children out but there would be limits. This man is making millions while he sleeps - it’s probably the equivalent of someone on £100k giving their child a tenner.

Nicola does work though even though she might not need to.

My parents were very generous to me. I would point out that I had a full-time responsible job so they didn’t need to subsidise me in any way. They just got pleasure from giving and didn’t sacrifice anything for themselves in order to do so. Their attitude was that I was going to get it all one day and they got pleasure from seeing me benefitting. I was an only child so the sole beneficiary of their wills. I never asked or expected their financial gifts and was always grateful for their generosity.

I think it's too much - if you have the means help a child with a deposit for a house.

Work gives meaning and purpose to life.

It must be its own form of hell [though I would not mind trying it out for size] to have so much money from your parents that nothing you earn could make a blind bit of difference.

I’m one of them. My children are privileged by accident of birth and perfectly capable of providing for themselves so I’d rather give my money to causes that make the world more equal for everyone (like charities). In a crisis I’d help them but no, I fundamentally disagree with the principle of keeping wealth in families. It should be distributed for common good. An ex’s rich parents offered to buy us a house and I said no!

Same!

Wow! Bit harsh!

Totally agree with this. By shuffling money down the generations and deliberately avoiding inheritance tax, people are broadening the gap between rich and poor. I'd love to see people taking a less selfish approach and sharing their wealth (and paying taxes properly!).

Is it though? Why would you sponge off your parents if you're perfectly capable of funding your own life? Assuming I don't end up spending all I have on care, I will leave the vast majority of my wealth to charity. My children are aware of this. They work hard and, barring a catastrophe, they will never need my money as much as other people do.

Really @HoskinsChoice? Ashamed? Thank goodness my parents didn’t have that attitude. They worked hard and were happy to help us. For my older sister that was helping her through medical school - sure she could have borrowed the money and graduated a few hundred thousand dollars in debt (she lives in the US), but they chose to help her. For me it was gifting me the deposit for my first property. I could have rented for several years, saved and maybe waited tiI I met a partner to buy together, but they helped me instead. And why not? What were they working so hard for but to help their kids out? We all worked hard. We were grateful for the help. And with my kids - my son works very hard but his job is just above minimum wage. I can’t help him with his career, but I can help him with housing and he lives rent free (but pays all bills) in a house I own. And I’m so happy I can do this for him. He needs the help now, not in ten or 20 years when I’m dead. The alternative would be living with me, which is 70 miles from his current home, and frankly I don’t want to live with him, or living in a grotty shared house which he probably still couldn’t afford. No. My money came from my late husband and what I have done with it since he died. And one thing I know for sure is that he was a very generous man, and he would have wanted to help his children however he could, and that doesn’t mean giving them a free ride, but making their lives a little bit easier and more secure. Isn’t that the point? Working hard to make our children’s’ lives better?

Well I'm never having kids so can't comment on that part. Though I feel if I had, and I was reasonably well off and comfortable I'd want to help if I could.

I am "lucky " (lucky feels like a weird choice of word considering in order for it happen I lost two very close family members in the space of a fortnight 😔) in the sense that I, and my siblings were basically gifted an early inheritance. 2 of my siblings used it towards buying a house, other sibling already had a home with partner, and I myself will this year be using it as deposit to buy a house.

I know I'm extremely fortunate in that sense..more so because I am disabled and limited to working part time and affording any kind of deposit would have been far far out of reach as a possibility for me without the help. I can't out into words how literally life changing that help is to me. It's given me an opportunity I would not have otherwise been able to have.

Not that I want you to think it's all been go en on a plate. I basically absolutely feel I can never and would never ask my parents for money. As a poor student they helped me out, well let's be honest bailed me out more times than I could count. When it came to the last time I desperately needed money I told them no more. I don't want them having to do that.

They've said in raged to hisuinfif I or my siblings need anything doing they will will happily pay and just deduct it from whatever inheritance we get and yet i till feel uncomfortable with the idea of asking them for anything.

Tbh they've works hard all their lives, and I want them to have a great retirement. I want them to live their lives and do all the things they want to. And if they need care later I want them to have the best care. I'd rather they spend their money on that.

Who cares. If it’s not your kid then what does it matter. As long as they aren’t being funded by the taxpayer then let them get on with it 🤷🏻‍♀️

I don't know anything about Nicola peltz or her family so googled. She has 9 siblings do they also get a million a month.😳

I don't know. If I had enough disposable income to give that to my kids, I'm pretty sure I'd be giving it. It's not as if she's a complete waste of space or some drug addict.

Hasn't she done some acting? And recently co-directed a film? She probably also makes a tonne of her own money through social media, considering she has 3. something million followers.
I could understand your point of view if she was a complete bum, but that's not the impression I get.

Ah Mumsnet, where it's apparently the done thing to ply your kids with money and pay for stuff till they're 50, so that they'll love you.

So sweet

Peter Jones sounds very sensible, and if I’m ever rich enough to give my adult dc an allowance that’s what I’ll do!

We have helped our kids out with money towards rent when they were at uni and house deposits, but I wouldn’t want them to have the opportunity to sit on their arses and do nothing useful.

I've never thought about that. Did Brooklyn attend school, I wonder?

Who is Nicholas peltz sorry

I think that giving a child huge amounts of money doesn’t limit what they will do necessarily because people who are born into huge wealth actually have more opportunities to do whatever they want than all the rest of us. If money was no object I could set up a charity, study anything at all or even buy into a an existing company that i think is brilliant but instead i was trapped in a cycle of paying for the mortgage and childcare.

I don't subscribe to the view that supporting your kids financially reduces their motivation to work. Work should not just be about making enough money to survive but doing something that interests you and you care about. Helping our children find their calling or to put it another way how they want to spend their life productively starts young. We need to support them in making decisions about what they want to do in life, helping them get exposure to different options, without demanding they do what we consider to be good for them. Kids that develop an early ability to evaluate options and make their own choices become more competent and independent adults. This is more important than money. It is also very important that kids learn about money - how to manage it, to budget and as soon as possible to invest. Those parents who have the resources can make it possible for their kids to study for many years without financial concerns or to for example start a business while still being able to live independently. Others may be able to follow a similar path but it will be a lot harder and compromises may need to be made to ensure they have sufficient income to survive thereby limiting their options.

Because they both get given enough money to live on from parents, no wonder neither of them have successful careers. They have no incentive. I’d be embarrassed to admit I was taking money from my parents as an adult.

We help our kids out, one is currently renovating and we're lent him the money rather than have him take out a mortgage or a loan, it doesn't make sense for them to be paying interest when they can borrow from us. They're making regular large payments back and we know that they can afford it.
We've helped all the children out with buying houses and some with a cars over the years, they're all reliable when it comes to making repayments.
I sometimes worry that they should have done it all themselves, but life is much more expensive now than it was when we were younger. Some people think that it is character forming to struggle, but there comes a point when however much you struggle you can't live a good life. As @PixellatedPixie said "instead i was trapped in a cycle of paying for the mortgage and childcare".