As our older kids are getting close to graduation we’ve had them set up their own savings and checking accounts as part of the normal adulting process. But even with those the old accounts we set up up at the credit union when they were young have been kept to enable easy money transfers back and forth: he needs rent money, she owes me for car insurance, etc.
As far as what they know about our finances, it’s pretty sketchy. They all got hard budgets for school and know our EFC, but as far as 401k balances or whatever they don’t need to know much. Honestly we don’t have a lot of investments or savings because over the years we’ve spent most of it on tuition, but they know everything is in the file cabinet.
My parents have named me as executor and I know their money guy, but the will just has vague language like “the accountants will structure these funds to minimize taxes and let you know” or whatever, so the actual accounts, trusts, etc are not in the docs. Charlie knows where the assets are at any point in time, and I know where to reach Charlie. But I will say I did sit in on one of their periodic check-ins with Charlie and had my eyebrows raised a couple times. They were always aggressively generous when it looked like any of us kids were in a bind and now I know why. (I asked my mother about this one time and she acknowledged it and added “But don’t worry, one of your parents is keeping very detailed notes and it’ll all be evened up later.” I laughed, as the personalities involved made it very clear who was who. Probate can be funny when everyone is healthy.)