How much financial support do you give once your children turn 18?

[etchedinstone]

Just after a bit of perspective really. Dd is 18 and hopefully going to uni in September. Obviously we will give her what student finance expect, which is about 5.5k a year. We’ll help more if we can but I was hoping to start paying off debt /saving at some point as well. She also has a £20k trust fund to help her through uni.

She is going on 2 post-A level holidays (and our family holiday). We’ve obviously paid for the family holiday but have also paid for one of the other holidays, which was 1K. She paid for the other herself and I’m expecting her to use her money from part time job/savings/ trust fund for spending money.

However, she appears to be the only one of her friends in this position, with parents bankrolling everything. Quite a few don’t have part time jobs and no intention of getting one as parents give them so much money. They have a summer of even more holidays/ trips than my ‘3 holidays daughter’ (which I would have bitten someone’s hand off for at her age). My dd is also one the few who doesn’t have her own car (although full use of mine, which I paid an extra 1K insurance on).

Anyway, I sway between thinking this is bloody ridiculous and she’s really lucky that we give her this and also it’s important to have a job and realise the value of money. Then I feel a bit guilty that she’s hard done by compared to her friends.

Do parents really continue to fund the lifestyle of their kids well into their 20s and not expect them to work? My parents were lovely but I had my last family holiday at 16, paid for holidays/cars/insurance myself after that and worked part-time all the way through uni.

Our plan is to pay for the essentials (this would include a car and driving lessons as we live rurally) but expect them to work for anything fun.

When they go to uni we'll pay rent and tuition and give them enough money to cover groceries, but if they want a budget for fun they need to get a job. They are welcome to live at home for free, and always welcome to join family holidays, but if they want to go away with friends or to festivals or whatever then they pay for that themselves.

We'll help with house deposits too, but that's a one off rather than ongoing help.

I suspect there isn't a one size fits all answer to this

For example when I was a student.20 something years ago I didn't have to pay fees and living costs were lower
My parents paid for 1st year of accomodation and did a good shop at start of each term for me.
I took out student loan and worked during a levels and afterwards the idea being I saved some.money as a cushion for the 2nd and 3rd year.
2nd and 3rd year of uni paid for everything myself (apart from a big food shop at start of each term).worked in uni holidays and parents didn't charge for rent or food when at home so could save all earnings.
If I wanted to eat out/ go on holiday I funded it if my parents planned something (family holiday/ meal etc.. they funded it).

I have a child now with additional needs which likelyeans.we.will be support them financially for like longer than we would have anticipated.

If they didn't have additional needs then I would expect to help with essentials whilst at uni but probably wouldn't.run to funding things like holidays unless it was a gift (birthday, end of.A levels etc...)

That's just me through

We give DS £300 per month. He has a job. He used his CTF to put down a deposit on a flat (mortgaged). We matched his deposit and are the guarantors of his mortgage (we’d be guarantors for his rent anyway 🤷🏼‍♀️). He had nowhere near £20k in his trust fund!

He has uni friends as lodgers so covers his mortgage that way. He asks a significant sum less than the going rate for his expensive city.

Our help is affordable for us (we saved £250 a month on food when he moved out and saved on the utilities too. We were surprised at this and the amount of savings too!) while some of our support for him (being guarantor) is more intangible.

He can drive but we can’t afford a car for him and it’s too expensive to insure him on our car now that he’s passed and Marmalade no longer offer the pay as you drive insurance.

We’re paying for him to come on a family holiday with us this year (our first for several years).

I agree with @ShanghaiDiva. DS will coach this summer, also volunteer at our local museum and is going to work at the local garden centre lugging things around as required.

DS has a s&s isa worth about £60k (was his child Isa) of which he will probably use some of for year 3

I also agree with @TheWineoftheChicken- we may find a trip that DS wants to go on that we will fund. More a “well done” on your a levels than anything else.

Dd didn't leave college until she was 19 so we supported her for a bit longer. We then paid her rent when she was doing a course where she could not get student finance. She funded all her living expenses from her job.

When ds turned 18 we paid for him to take part in NYMT during the summer before he started uni. we then gacve him the amoubt student finance expected. The following year we agreed to pay towards NYMT but he paid for all his travel.

Both of them have been on various holidays etc whilst atuni they have funded themselves.

We provide a place to live & food during the uni holidays.

I have a 22 and nearly 20 year old. The older one is just graduating after a four year course. Honestly, uni costs a fortune! We've topped up their accommodation (from the minimum loan), paid food/living expenses, gym and phone, car insurance and road tax, roughly around £6k a year each, which is the amount you're supposed to top up their loan by.

Both had small trust funds with around £4k in at 18. They've also both had part time jobs since late teens. They bought their first cars themselves and they've paid for all their own holidays, entertainment, clothes etc.

We have helped with car repairs/services/MOTs too, to be fair. And other essentials when they've run out of money, like dentist, parking fines etc etc. There are loads of things that come up like this, so in reality we've probably paid more than the £6k a year. But I won't pay for things that are purely leisure/lifestyle choice.

I'm looking forward to dd starting her first full time job in the next couple of weeks!

I think going on 3 holidays post A levels and having access to a 20k trust fund is very privileged.

I suspect you live in a wealthy bubble OP, as no-one I know would have that kind of life at 18 y/o - they're all working instead in order to save up for uni/their own car/pay rent etc.

Urgh, spoiled trust fund teens/adults are the worst to work with. This post is quite enlightening. Why on earth are you planning on funding in addition to the trust fund? The trust fund IS the allowance you are expected to pay. Do you have no moral issue with her only socialising with wealthy peers? Because this is what will happen and she will gain little life experience. Let her live a normal student life, with normal people. The wealth inequality in education is gross.

I have one child who left home at 18 and has a minimum wage job (he worked part time at 16 then full time after college). I paid for his car insurance as his 21st birthday present, but the main thing is he is living in a house I own. He pays council tax, all the bills, phone etc but could not afford to live there if he had to pay rent. He knows he’s very lucky. He works hard but his pay is low.
My DD is just finishing up second year at uni and I pay for her phone and that’s it. She does take out the loans for uni and works over the summer. But I haven’t had to give her any money at all - and her accommodation is more than the maintenance loan. She’s gone on two weekends away visiting friends at other unis which she covered , and we did a family holiday this year (but not last year), which I paid for, though they both used their own spending money. Neither would expect me to fund a holiday with mates, nor would they sit around without jobs. My DD worked last summer, has a job this summer (in Columbia!), and is currently doing a paid internship at uni. She definitely does not expect me to fund any activities outside the home. My son would accept anything I offered, but I don’t have it to give him.
If you keep offering she’ll keep taking. No one needs three holidays over the summer; they need a job, not just to pay for fun stuff, but expenses while at uni.

I’m in my 30s now, but when I was late teens / early 20s, I didn’t know anyone who lived at their parents’ home and paid rent, and virtually everyone got regular financial help from their parents through university and the early years of graduate life in London (paid for holidays etc.).

The idea of an 18 year-old paying rent while living in their parents’ house is completely alien to me and I had no idea it was so prevalent before I joined MN.

My daughter is 18 on a gap year. She has worked since she turned 16 earning just over adult minimum wage so a significant amount.

I pay her phone and basic clothes / shoes etc.

she pays for her social life, holidays etc (I pay for family holidays) . she has been putting away money for uni and will pay for food and social life. We only get minimum loan and she’s going to an expensive uni so halls are likely to be £9.5k alone.

i will pay for the bits she needs for uni including a new laptop.

no interest in learning to drive or getting a car so no costs there.

No parents don’t fund into their 20s. If they did they aren’t doing their kids any favours with independence. Most parents might contribute but surely not many young adults would be happy to live off their parents. Holidays are different family holidays ok to sub but any post 18s going off with friends I expect they’ve used their own money.

surely not many young adults would be happy to live off their parents

I think you'd be surprised!

Whereas I am in my early 50s and from a northern working class background and paying "keep" was the done thing as soon as you left education and got your first job.

I think you have hit the nail on the head here. Dd is aware that her friends are not representative of society as a whole and she said that she’s hoping to meet a much broader range of people at uni. Hopefully it will give her a bit of perspective.

Both of our DS had part time jobs from age 16 and benefitted enormously from the experience. Obviously we funded them through uni, but for non- essential expenditure like holidays (except family hols) we generally made a contribution but expected them to pay at least half the cost.
If you are paying for a family holiday I think it’s fair that DD pays for her other hols. As for paying down debt we found it impossible until DS2 finished uni.

Dd is 21 and has just finished her degree. While she was at uni we topped up her loan to cover accommodation. We pay for her car, phone, for her to come away with us if she wants to and £500 a month. She also had a job in uni town which gave her around another £500 a month and when she comes home for holidays she is lucky to be able to work as much as she wants at a local bar.

She’s doing her bar course and MA next year in our home city and living at home. We will continue to fund her to the same level on the proviso she only does one shift a week at the local bar. She likes to earn money but we don’t want her to jeopardise her studies.

After next year she will either be doing pupillage (unlikely) or working. We will stop funding once she’s working but also wouldn’t charge any rent if she continues to live at home.

My son is 18 and working as an apprentice earning £300pw. He paid for his own driving lessons and his own car. We paid for the road tax and insurance. He still loves our family holidays and we will continue to pay for him. We don’t charge him any housekeeping on the grounds that he save £120 pw of his earnings. He buys his own clothes/fuel/haircuts etc. he’s likes socialising with his friends and no way would I be funding his twice weekly pub trips. I think youngsters need to understand the value of money and if they want these things they have to be paid for. Once he’s finished his apprenticeship and is earning a proper full time salary we will be changing him £200pm housekeeping (but will be save it for him so he has a lump sum when he moves out of home). I never understand parents who don’t teach their children financial independence

You are bankrolling loads more than most parents can or choose to do. Her friends are very pampered. Not necessarily helpful in the long run.

I gave DC £50pw for groceries and paid for their phones while at uni. I bought them big cost items where needed, like a laptop, a fridge, emergency dental work that cost thousands! If they went on holiday with friends, I'd give them token spending money, like 100 Euros. They had college funds that I expected them to manage themselves, to pay for fees, housing etc, and they did. Apart from that, they were expected to find jobs, which they did.

I’m curious, how do you feel you are teaching financial independence by taking £200 off him and then giving it back? That says you don’t trust him to save so you’ll do it for him by insisting he gives you money so you can save for him - that’s not teaching independence.

Exactly. I never understand what parents think that teaches their kids. They wouldn't be getting the money back in the real world.

You don’t tell them you are giving it back

I sort of get it. You ask for the money, so he gets into the habit of understanding that daily life costs money and when he lives alone, this need to set aside a certain amount each week for the basics won't come as a shock to him. But you give it back later to show that saving and being generous with money are good attributes.

If he saved it himself, for himself, for a future date, he'd not be treating that money as cost-of-living outlay.

All the way through uni, but we stopped payments in the summer months each year when they got jobs.

Exactly. You charge them rent, because allowing them to live a lifestyle where all of their salary is effectively “pocket money” isn’t setting them up for success in the real world. And you still encourage them to save for their own house deposit in the meantime.

Then when it’s time to buy a home, like many parents do, you help them with their deposit. It doesn’t matter where the money came from, and they don’t need to know.