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).

plus finding a graduate level job in a crowded market (otherwise what would have been the point of university in the first place?)

Well I worked in a call centre and most of us were graduates who all thought we were better than that and would be promoted. It was very competitive

Loads of people have degrees nowadays so she shouldn't be surprised if she can't find a job she seems to be graduate level.

I hope your daughter gets the results she hoping for
In her 20s on a salary she needs to be independent and not reliant on bank of mum
Yes it is hard going to get established,and she will likely need to persevere.but thats adulthood and responsibility.but she will learn resilience,her success will be her own,and she'll learn and grow.its a cycle of maturity.
You all need to loosen the ties a bit,and certainly her finances are her responsibility.

Hello

I would suggest making it clear when DD graduates that she gets any job. She will be lucky to get a graduate job immediately. She can always work in a shop or bar or something, whilst still applying for graduate jobs.

Giving money will not spur your DD to find bigger and better jobs and support herself

Being at university is like being in a bubble. But the real world of work, bills, life is tough and you have to earn, budget and make life decisions !

You need a bit of tough love

In the future, once she has job, you could offer your DD money to help buy property or for wedding, but only if she has saved up some money too !

Living in London is expensive
One coffee a day adds up to alot over a year !

Good luck

Grad jobs depends on her degree,if it's a vocational degree that leads to prescribed career path or general degree.
Certain fields are fiercely competitive and sought after eg media
Realistically she'll need to take a job as opposed to the job.to pay bills and scrape by. And to support herself overall.

I'm as confident as I can be she will get a job - not her dream job, at least at first - as she has rare skills and is very employable (I work, and recruit in, a field closely related to what she wants to do so I know what I'm talking about), and of course I've been able to help her build up her CV, while she herself has had very relevant paid and unpaid work in that sector already.

The question was at what stage do we stop her regular financial support - and your replies have been very clear and confirmed what I thought! Thank you to everyone.

Wonderful she has such suppirtive mum.best wishes with the finals

Hello Poppy

I would like to suggest

Try to sell it to your DD, something like. Not everyone has the opportunity to go to Uni. You have helped her to make a good foundation to start her life & now it is her turn to go out into the real world.

A little bit of struggle never hurt anyone.

House shares should be expected & struggling to pay for bills in the early days, that is part of the motivation to want to do better.

Some graduates expect to go into the world of work at graduate entry, but reality maybe different, there is alot of competition out there !

Good luck

My folks business went dangerously close to going belly up just before I went to university. They had to make some fairly drastic cuts to their household budget and aged 18 I pretty much stopped expecting my parents to help out financially from then on, it just felt wrong. I had always had weekend and holiday jobs from about the age of 14 onwards so I did not find it a huge drama to step up and start paying my own way. At uni I found a weekend job at a local estate agent and I did the usual pulling pints and working in an off license in the evenings. Along with student loans I managed to pay for my own rent/food/bills/transport/clothes and beers all the way through uni (not including fees of course which back then were still free, grants had been abolished though) and came out of it at the other end with the usual overdraft and about £3500 in loans to repay. At 22 I moved into a flat share with some of my graduate mates in London in a grotty part of town. We all earned rubbish wages and we all lived on pasta/baked potatoes/beans/tuna, the flat suffered from damp, bad décor, manky bathroom and was furnished with fixed up furniture sourced from street corners and classified ads. It was a dive but it was our dive and we had a riot living there and look back on those years very fondly. The idea of any of us asking for money from our folks was almost sacrilege and seen as a ‘failure’. We were always really skint for the last few days before payday, so we were forced to stay in and have toast with a can of sweetcorn garnished with an old jar of pickled jalapeno and some HP sauce. You cut your cloth to suit!

Your daughter needs to stand on her own two feet, £22k is more than enough to live on, millions of others can do it, so can she. Sure she might not have the same quality of life as she does in your home or the creature comforts, but tough, she can’t expect you to continue to pay her rent/bills or to maintain some kind of carefree lifestyle with you as the ultimate financial guarantee. She will be a better, stronger person for it in the long run. Nothing more pathetic then otherwise capable 20/30 something adults still expecting handouts from their folks.

I work for a company in central London where many fresh graduate earn less than £25k. They are not walking around looking starved. They share flats, keep costs down by bringing lunch from home, don't do fancy holidays. etc. They work hard and then move onto better paid jobs. I think your Dd need to do this and learn to live without your money

Go with your instincts and be guided by each child's personality. Each of my DCs needs help in different ways and at different times. They will stand on their own two feet but may need some intermittent help to get there.

Whatever you so - make sure it is fair and equal. Giving help to DCs must be done with skill and openness.

I know people in their 50s who still feel one sibling was favoured over another. Sad but true.

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I agree with others that you can live on 22k in London by house sharing and not getting a Starbucks every day!

Get her to get active in the Graduate programs now. Its competitive but a decent degree form a Russell Group will go a long way.

The BT graduate scheme is fantastic, Starting salary of 27k - 31k and we are crying out for Women in engineering, Science and Research. Mostly working from home with access to offices and customers. Travel paid, sometimes a company car and benfits.
www.btgraduates.com/our-programmes/technology/rewards-and-benefits/

I didn't join as a graduate and am slightly jealous of the opportunities I see the graduates getting compared to my rubbish start! For example having quality time with the CEO, getting experience across differant parts of the business, having an opportunity to do a Masters degree whilst working etc

27k - 31k seems like a high salary but actually this is fairly typical in the Top Graduate Schemes, if you haven't already go onto the Guardian and Times Top Graduate Jobs sites.

I left for uni at 18. My parents paid the small amount of fees and that's it. I paid everything else! When I graduated I moved home and commuted into London. I was earning £16k and paid rent to my parents. As a graduate I think you're daughter is old enough to look after herself otherwise when does financial support end?!

Well I want financially supported at uni really so hard to say. If she has a job I wouldn't be supporting her no.

I was during a post grad course a little later but only due to some unexpected money my parents came into and very kindly shared with me.

I bought my own clothes from 16-17 since I had a part time job. It kind if grew from there. I also never moved back in after uni as my mum would have charged me rent. So I didn't see the point.

My first graduate job paid 14k (this was about 3 years ago but not in London) and I was fucking skint for a long long time. Think one trip to cinema/meal out a month.

And 22k is more than I earn now - admittedly outside of London but I save nearly 400 a month and pay off a bank loan and STILL consider myself reasonably well off.

Oh definitely when she gets a job. You could always buy nice things for her flatshare or stock up the food cupboards every now and again.

Your Dd is more than old enough and capable of standing on her own two feet. 20+ years ago I did that before during and after uni plus I moved from Continental Europe to the UK to study and work and still managed without assistance.
I wouldn't have asked. And if I had asked I would have been told firmly no.

I don't think there is a problem with helping her with paying for her first interview/work outfit and perhaps getting a bed/matress for her room.

She can't expect to rent a flat alone. She will have to house share/rented rooms like virtually everyone has to when starting out on the career ladder in London. This isn't new. This is how it has been for at least 30 years.
Besides she would be lonely in a flat of her own. She may not realise this. But actually house sharing is fun and it's nice to come back to friends after a long hard day at work. And days are long and hard when you first start out.
Lots of my contemporaries had an extra job during weekends to make ends meet due to low starting salaries or those who had to pay for Professional Assessments (back in the 90s not all employers paid for this).

And nothing wrong with helping her with a deposit for a flat once the time comes.
But not monthly lifestyle expenses. That's ridiculous.

My DCs are 23 and 27. I've not given elder anything post university as went straight into well paid job. I'm fully funding younger DC's MSc. After that I might help if there are unpaid low paid internships before DC gets job, but not after that.
However, we will give help when either buy properties even though elder has deposit saved already.

When I left home at 18 to go and find work in London my mother gave me a lump sum of about £1000 (this was 20 years ago) and said that I could do what I wanted with it, but that was all she going to provide!

It was a pretty generous amount so I banked it and used it to fund a rental flat and support me until I found work - I'm pleased to say that since then I have been self sufficient.

However I know how different things are and more expensive than they2ere back then so I'm not sure what we'll do when our boys graduate (twins currently in 2nd year at uni). I think the idea of giving gifts and occasional lump sums when affordable is best - perpetually propping them up doesn't seem right (nor could we afford it!).

I've found this thread really useful, thanks OP! My DCs have one parent from each camp (longterm divorced) - I favour the 'support while encouraging independence' approach, while DCs dad likes nothing more than to splash the cash on them.
Eldest 2 went to uni, regular monthly support from both of us as per poppy's approach, I stopped mine on graduation but I suspect daddy dearest carries on doling out wads of cash.
My youngest isn't a Uni bird but would like nothing better than to get an apprenticeship (which would pay £10K or so for the year) in London.

My approach, after seeing Cog's sums above, would be that we top that up to £18K for the year (which means me dipping into savings - but gives the same support that sibs got for Uni) for living expenses, with an evening/weekend job for Starbucks and socialising ...I fear daddy dearest will think I'm being terribly harsh! What does the panel think?

Haven't RTFT sorry, but, um, I earn maybe 24k and own a flat in Zone 2 London. I am married, and we had help - but we do pay a mortgage. I'm 30 now, but lived in Zone 2 in London throughout my 20s, without ever troubling the 20k barrier, and for quite a long while, just scraping 10.

And that's proper living too - I went out, ate well, did things. I mean, I was (and I guess still am) 'poor' but not gritty poor, just broke poor.

I don't know if I know anyone earning much more than maybe £25k and most people I know earn in the 15-20k range. Your daughter will be fine, she just might not be living in the style she's accustomed to I guess.

I hope my mother and grandmother don't cut me off or me and ds would be homeless

it's a unusual set up to say the least, we all live in eachothers pockets.

I live in a studio flat at the bottom of the garden with ds, mother and grandmother live in the modest 3 bedroom house, dp flits in and out due to work. I pay my bills and some rent, dm payes for the the main utilities and I chip in, we split the food shop but not equally gm deservedly pays the least and I pay for anything for ds.

it's odd, I know .

walking do what you want, the father will subsidise anyway.

what do the kids do who's parents cannot afford to subsidise them? I had to get a loan to get through uni, and then work as well. certainly cut down on the expensive student social life! and worked full time through the holidays to continue to pay the rent on my shared house.

I had no financial support,it simply wasnt possible.i worked my way through uni
Im resilient and i work hard,its instilled sense of graft in me