When do you cut off financial support for offspring?

[Poppyflowe]

Following on (and not wanting to hijack) the thread about middle-aged children's stress and financial burden on their parents - when do you expect to end financial support for your children?

My dc are both at uni and bleeding us dry with the eldest due to graduate (on track for a 2i from a RG uni and with loads of work experience ).

She would love to work in London, where she thinks graduate salaries would be between 18 and 22k if she gets a job. She seemed surprised when I said I didn't then expect to keep supporting her (I would like to start winding down to retirement from my very stressful job).

But, that's not enough to live on for her, is it?

I'm interested in knowing what is the view of others' here - either if you are or have been in the same situation as my dc, or are a parent yourself.

We are comfortable, not super wealthy, and both dh and I work long, busy, irregular hours which enables us to have be generous with the dc (who both will have student loans to repay).

Personally I'd say it stops when they leave uni - although I completely get the idea of a one-off payment towards a home deposit, for example. If someone can't afford to live in an expensive area when starting off, the simple answer is to work elsewhere until they can

To my mind the most worrying thing about OP's example is the "surprise" the daughter showed at learning she wouldn't get ongoing support; for me that would need nipping in the bud right away ...

Whatever you do, don't say, "I'll buy you some clothes for when you start work." Never be vague! Once she has a job you can give her a set amount of money - tell her it's a one-off - towards clothes for the job then that's it. You'll find she'll shop in cheaper jobs if she has a budget than if you volunteer to buy her three suits or whatever.

You know you're going to end up paying for her deposit, first month's rent etc so you could volunteer for that and pay for her Oyster card for the first month, but then she has to be let loose on the world and cope alone.

It is really expensive having children!

I put myself through uni with no financial support.certainly upon graduation I'd expect an adult to support self.if main job wasn't enough she'd have to scrape on by and work toward increased salary

Blimey I only earned 22k last year aged 35 and supported a family on it. It's plenty.

"many many young people are simply precluded from them"

Given that London is massively overpriced, overcrowded and overpopulated I actually don't think it's such a bad thing if graduates and other young people decide to take their skills to more affordable cities. The UK is horribly London-centric, the regions are quite exciting and offering a lot of job opportunities and I think the lifestyle is far better. I happen to be in the overpriced SE and all my family back in Manchester seem to get far more bang for their buck and are a lot less stressed. :)

As it sounds like you have been very generous already, I would do as Imperial suggests and give an amount of money depending on what you can afford, to cover perhaps deposit, a month's rent, a few clothes and if you can spare, an amount to be saved for a rainy day and say this is to set up and to have a small cushion but from now on she is responsible for herself. You could this in a very nice empowering way, making it very clear that you are giving her the tools to start her adult life and from now its up to her.

My parents gave me £1,000 to move to London which in those days covered one months deposit, flat share and my first 2 suits.

BTW we won't be able to afford to do any of that. Started too late and by the time DC are at uni, we will be close to retirement and still paying a mortgage!

I was horrified at the recent thread about middle aged children still treating their parents as a bank and refusing to take responsibility. No-one sounded happy. Independence is a gift.

cogito I theory I can see what you're saying.

However, in practice many industries simply don't have the density of employment outside London. Certainly not enough to cope with anything like the density of young people who would dearly love to enter it.

So we end up with the DC of the wealthy being able to try their luck in London, a tiny few managing positions in other big cities ( where cost of living , house prices and internships might still require parental assistance ).

I think it's a terrible shame .

My parents stopped supporting me (apart from free board & lodgings in the vacations) when I went to university - that was in the days of full grants and I was quite well off .

However they are extremely generous now - in their late 80s - with great pensions and frequently give my DBs and I very generous financial gifts. We are all adults in our 50s with our own homes so this isn't really subsidising us but trying to reduce their capital before they die . The best 'gift' they gave me was the tools to be financially aware, invest in a house as soon as I was able to (obviously much easier when I was young) and the understanding that it is important to save.

I would expect to stop funding my DS when he gets to university age - we may give him something towards the deposit of his first home as we are fortunately in a position to do so but I won't be handing out aimless sums of money to fund holidays or ipads etc .

Daughter just graduated. We helped with getting a old car and insurance for six months. From April she be giving money for food as well. She only working part-time on minimum wage. She trying to come out of her overdraft at moment.

The DCs of the wealthy have always had access to jobs not open to the rest of us. Money will do that. We can bellyache about it until the cows come home, but I don't think it gets us anywhere. There are not a 'tiny number of management positions' there are some very big organisations doing solid business. Manchester is a hub for media and advertising, for example. Besides, the world has changed in the last 25 years. You don't need to physically be in the meeting to participate with Skype. You don't have to be physically in an office to work for an organisation a lot of the time. As long as the broadband speed is up to scratch the idea of all living in the same 20 mile radius of Tower Bridge starts to look decidedly old hat.

Your daughter is surprised you don't want to support her financially when she is working full time and earning a perfectly normal salary?

Good grief. That's got to be the very definition of entitled hasn't it?! Does she think everyone in London either earns more than that or has mummy and daddy topping them up on a regular basis then?

Mind you, if she thinks £18-£22k isn't enough to live on you must be forking out huge amounts for her at the moment!

Parents give too much nowadays and it has led to kids expecting too much!

I totally agree.

When I got my first Saturday job I was expected to pay my parent 1/3 as keep. All the time I lived at home I gave them 1/3 of my earnings.

I moved out at 18 into a room above a business and could only used the kitchen after hours and everything had to be left pristine for next morning. It was cheap.

I put myself through uni as a mature student and worked 20+ hrs right through so came out with only £300 debt (although there were no tuition fees back then).

I had no expectations of affording my own flat or car or anything and cracked on with it. My parents couldn't have afforded to support me anyway.

DH had to pay his parents minimal rent as a teenager and got a lovely surprise of that being returned when he moved out to get him started in his shared flat.

I've already bought DD a starter house for when she's settled and I deem her mature enough. She doesn't know about it and her expectations are that she's working towards a house share as me and DH did and that we don't approve of adults who are supported by their parents.

It wouldn't have occurred to me to expect financial support from my parents once I'd left home, which was at 18 when I went to university. I lived on student loans and a part time job while I was a student, and then worked for £10k p/a in my first job, and lived like a student until earnings went up.

It's not a competition and I hope to be in a position to support our DC a bit more. But I would be most upset if they expect it in the way the OP describes.

I suspect she wants to go to London for the social life rather than career prospects, and thus will find it somewhat beyond her means to keep up to what she is used to on that salary. But such is life.

I got a weekend/holiday job at 15 and was expected to pay board after my GCSE exams. I'd left home before the following September. I think it's great that you've been able to help out with her A Levels and University costs.

I too picked up on the word "surprised". Makes me wonder if she truly appreciates the sacrifices you have made and how incredibly lucky she has been. Not in an ungrateful way, just in a kind of ignorant way.

I earned the princely sum of £6/10 shillings a week in my first job in 1961. From that I paid a couple of pounds to my parents for my keep, and the remainder paid for travel to the office, clothes, make up and going out dancing on a Friday and Saturday night. Things were a tad cheaper back then .

I think your daughter should earn enough to rent a room in a shared house in London but may be in for a shock at the costs associated with living in the city.

My ds love the idea of London but after a short internship the novelty of commuting and high cost of living made him look elsewhere. He now has a great job in another city and his salary enables him to have city centre living at a fraction of London prices. I totally agree with an earlier post - the best skills you can give your dc's is budgeting skills. My brother helped his dc's into their mid 20's and really regrets the decision as his dc's have no desire to strive for themselves.

We did provide car insurance and the deposit for the flat. We may help out with a flat deposit but there is no expectation for that.

No Chunderella, admittedly not in London but not in a particularly cheap area either.

But still, 18k-22k is a perfectly respectable salary and I can't believe any self-respecting graduate would expect their parents to top up their salary when they are working full time. It's just a ridiculous notion. My parents had 8 kids. The ver thought of them supplementing any of our incomes once we were earning is laughable. They still have three dependants of their own at home.

When my dc went to university we supported their rent and living expenses, but we were clear that we were not paying for their social lives (especially when their social lives were more exciting and more expensive than ours!!). We also had long discussions about student loans and made it clear that we hoped that dc would not use student loan to fund their beer and hobbies (what a shame to be paying for that for years).

Dc1 had a modest social life, so could save enough from holiday jobs to cover it. Dc2 had an extravagant social life so worked during term time too (without any apparent detriment to course grades). But basically what both of them learned to do was to cut their coat according to their cloth. I think that (and travelling on a budget) have been their best lessons in life so far. They've worked out that they can't always join in with expensive activities, they've learnt how to say 'no' to things that are beyond them, they've learnt how to save for things that are important.

Of course they are fortunate in that they also have the safety net of knowing that we would never see them face hardship, and whenever we see them we pay for meals out, or treats, or expensive little luxuries.

wow. I left home at 19 and that was it. I have supported myself in varying levels of capability since then, including completing 2 further degrees. At no point since I left have they supported me.

I think youre being very generous... My sister and I stopped being supported when we moved out aged 18 and even then had to pay £250 rent a month to live at home before that.

I would say you can live on that but yes she won't be able to live the life she is imagining! It will mean probably living in a suburb and a house share. Both you and she should be willing to do that (the amount of conversations I have had with people about how their darling child couldn't possibly live in a house share is amazing!).

I think it's very difficult for young people in today's climate. It seems very different from how it was for people my age leaving Uni nearly 30 years ago.

Rents, house prices etc are so huge. Food, petrol, also really expensive.

In my day I had a means-tested grant for Uni. Parents supported me, though not nearly as much as some of my peers as I am one of five kids.

After Uni I put myself through a post-grad course. Then when I started work I lived in a house share and worked every hour god sent.

My parents bought me my first (second-hand) car and eventually gave me 5k deposit towards purchase of my first flat in Oxford with my fiance. But 5k would be nothing now given house prices.

They will give me money even now, sometimes, but I never ask for or expect it. They're in their nineties. I am a lone parent with a poorly child.

But the best thing my dad did for me, was teach me about money: I have no credit cards. He taught me to loathe and fear debt. I have no debts (apart from a manageable mortgage), nothing on Hire Purchase etc. I budget carefully, save for my son (he is 6 but has his own savings account which we put spare change into a piggy bank for and his account has just reached a thousand pounds which he's really excited about)

I hope to be able to help my son in a similar way - first car, something towards either a deposit for a home or towards college fees) But he has it instilled in him that he must be financially aware and sensible.

HOWEVER, I think also, that as a parent, you are always responsible for your child, having brought them into this world, no matter how old they are, and that you should continue to support them as far as possible in the kind of ways outlined above. You can't shove them out of the house at 18 and say 'you're on your own'.