<p>Our friends arent alone in their struggle to afford their own lifestyle in addition to providing financial support to their kids and parents. A new survey from Ameriprise Financial shows that baby boomers continue to prioritize their familys needs over their own despite increased uncertainty about their own financial security. </p>
<p>…</p>
<p>What we found is that 93% of boomers say they have provided some kind of financial support to their children. The support varies from helping them cover college tuition, assistance buying cars, or allowing them to move back home and covering utility and food costs.</p>
<p>In the other direction, 58% of boomers report assisting their parents in some way, but the aid comes in a more basic form: assisting with groceries and paying medical or utility bills.</p>
<p>Qdogpa - I agree wholeheartedly. I am trying to give them an education/good start while also impressing upon them that they need to work to financial independence after undergrad. H thinks we may be making it a tad too easy for them (e.g. no student loans, paying for car insurance and cell phones). Time will tell if we got the balance right. </p>
<p>I just hope my kids never need to pay any of my bills. We help H’s parents and it irks me; they spent their early retirement spending all their money on high end travel and eating our every night. Now they insist we help with property taxes and other items. I will not do this to my kids. We are working on tuition and our own retirement savings!</p>
<p>Oh PLEASE…back in the dino days my parents helped me with college tuition, gave me money towards a USED car, and allowed me to live at home for three months after college graduation before my job started. If this is what 93% of MY generation is doing for their kids…it’s called being supportive parents…not “choosing to help family over retirement”.</p>
<p>Not expecting anything in the estate; which I have zero problem with. I do have a problem with effectively supporting part of their luxurious lifestyle of recent years and now. </p>
<p>They would have plenty of money now if they did not insist on staying in their large - expensive to maintain - home (lots of land in a high property tax community), keeping two new cars, and eating out all the time. None of this would concern me at all (their life, their choice) if I was not asked to contribute cash.</p>
<p>I will take no money from my kids unless it is for some dire situation. I would also love to finance multi generational family travel and grandchildren’s college - but only after our retirement is secure (as much as can be conservatively anticipated).</p>
<p>I also take issue with the survey lumping tuition in with other ways people help their “adult children.” Letting your 48 year-old son move in with you (as mentioned in the article) is a completely different kettle of fish from paying for your 20 year-old’s junior year of college.</p>
<p>What might be different from previous generations is the number of people who are retirement-age while their kids are in their early 20’s. My father was nowhere near retirement when he paid my college tuition. Putting off retirement wasn’t in the equation.</p>
<p>Now, he did put off retirement for me when I was in my 30’s and pregnant with my second child. He was planning to retire but was concerned that if anything happened to me, he would want to be able to provide for his grandchildren, so he delayed his retirement a year or so. Some people never stop parenting, no matter the age of their children.</p>
<p>This article was very superficial - there must have been word or space limitations, or their target audience prefers not to read long articles. (: What they could have explored is the extent to which today’s retirement-age boomers do not retire because they were later-life parents and their kids are just now going to college. Or they are supporting their adult children who are having difficulty finding or keeping jobs. Or their elderly parent has moved in, requiring keeping that extra bedroom. For many of us contemplating retirement, particularly those with small public sector pensions, retiring is possible only if we can “downsize” - sell the family house and move into something smaller in a less expensive location. But that requires the kids to be out and on their own. Folks in our position have to keep working in order to be able to continue to afford our house, which is still filled with “children” and often includes an elderly parent. A man in my office who is in his early 70’s is still working because he is supporting his adult daughter and her children, after the daughter’s husband walked out on them. I’m sure there are many out there like him.</p>
<p>It’s my husband who cannot say no. Thanks to good opportunites, good health, and hard work, we have the ability to help to some degree (although I am staying in a job I hate for the salary and it means we are frugal with ourselves). He has never been able to turn them down; it feels disrespectful to him. He knows how I feel. We have discussed it from time to time, but I just live with it so he can avoid saying no. I am cordial and inclusive (but not warm and fuzzy!) to his family despite thinking they are being selfish and unreasonable. To make a big deal of it (beyond my venting here) would cause a lot of stress in the family and my marriage. </p>
<p>I agree with oldtimey. I find it fascinating to consider those of us working longer due to the younger and older generations needing our assistance. I used to think I would work full time until the youngest was through undergrad. Now, I am thinking longer for a lot of reasons (health care access, my retirement, H’s parents, no interest loans for grad school to the kids…)</p>
<p>I think the housing market is a big part of the problem.A large portion of my parents’ retirement funds came from equity in the family home when they sold (rising market over 30 year mortgage; no refinancing or extending to use the equity before maturity). I have one friend that did sell the family home and move into a small condo in the city when the kids were in their early twenties. The kids were welcome back anytime but understood that they would be in a loft in the den with very little storage space if they moved home. All the kids now have places of their own. Loving and effective strategy!</p>
<p>My spouse & I make joint decisions when it affects both of us.
My mother did leave an inheritance, didn’t expect her kids to pay any of her bills, but I wouldn’t have minded if she had needed help as long as it was balanced between myself and sibs.</p>
<p>H and I also make joint decisions. In this case, I compromised because it was very important to him. He acknowledges that it is tough to support their luxurious choices, but to say “no” would cause considerable heartache. Even with the best of intentions to make joint decisions, one of us will defer to the other from time to time. There is not always a resolution that we are both fully agreed to.<br>
As I stated above, I too would be happy to help family that really needed it (and we do financially support a different inlaw with no complaint from me). This situation is about my inlaws living beyond their means by choice for selfish reasons for decades and expecting us to help with their bills. H’s only sibling is not in a position to help. </p>
<p>I did not mean to hijack the thread. Back to the OP’s topic…</p>
<p>I find your situation to be quite interesting. Marital negotiations, supporting a lifestyle that you know is unsustainable without external help, working where you don’t want to, etc. - all modern problems.</p>
<p>I find it helpful when making joint decisions, that once the decision is made, to support that decision, unless it needs to be revisited & then we do so.
It doesn’t help to “give in”, and then bear a grudge. Cause despite best intentions, it leaks into other things.</p>