I thought this was a retirement thread, I’ll try to get it back on track…
My “plan” is to try to have an amount saved where I can replace my current salary with retirement funds. That seems like a reasonable goal. I understand.my expenses may go down in some areas in retirement and also may go up in others. For me I just see this as a clear target to aim for. I figure I should be “mostly good” if I can replace my salary. Luckily I have been saving since my mid 20s to try to make this happen. Hopefully when I’m ready that’s enough to make things go smoothly.
My wife, who was also saving before we met and got married, has also saved well for retirement. We’re still too many years away in her book but we’ll get there. In the end it’s nice that we’re both similar in our retirement saving habits.
We are not basing our retirement decisions on needing to support adult children. They make their own choices and should live with the consequences, and, while it can be difficult to watch, it’s none of our business. We likely will have something to leave them when we pass, but that’s icing.
Yep, we’ve intentionally spent a rather large fortune on our kids education. It’s the biggest gift we’ll ever give them and they know it. We’ll always plan to do things in a modified manner so as not to waste money. We’ll likely have things set up well as we age so they will inherit a pretty good amount. Actually, we’ve made very good investments so it could be a very large number. Plus real estate. But we’re never going to tell them how much. And I’d have to go back to inflationary worries I have which would take the entire plan way off line. I saw a jar of mayonnaise for $6.99 yesterday. That tells me that the numbers we live on today aren’t going to be ok long term.
We want our kids to be independent, live their lives and pay for their own expenses. I would feel very different if any of our kids had an issue and needed financial support because they could not work ( physical, mental health, other impairment). In that case, I’d set up a trust to take care of them.
I like the idea of paying for grandkids education down the road via generational trusts. That to me, is the ultimate gift. We haven’t explored that fully as we are pretty young and need to get retirement plans finalized before anything else. But the idea in our minds is always to use the principal and spend the interest. Grow the pie without eating it.
On real estate, as you, I was absolutely shocked at the very high prices now (recently) on the less than desirable area we moved from (had our home 7 1/2 years and tried to sell it over the last few years and then did sell by owner in 1988/1989 just about breaking even - no appreciation). The school district is still terrible. I think we have so many people moving into our area that are interested in having a place now versus moving here and learning the area first. I do believe our current home will continue to climb in value - we just need to do some upgrading and improvements. In our current home area (best public school district), we did save on private school cost for 3 years with one DD - and she absolutely benefited from everything offered with a big band program where she was on top all 3 years (first chair in top band) and with EC small and highly selective jazz band all 3 years. In hind sight, we benefited in ways with the private school costs; it definitely was beneficial with HS because the majority of the students were capable of higher level classes and the norm was college prep. DD who wanted to stay in public school through HS did admit to her dad that her transition to college was good and she saw others struggling because their public HSs (many students she personally knew from her earlier classes who were smart kids) made things too easy/not enough studying. Some never studied at all in HS.
Probably almost everyone on this thread may be ‘done’ with any cost considerations for their children unless they took Parent Plus loans and are still paying those off prior to being able to retire.
Some, like us, are concerned for the grandkids having the opportunities our DDs have had. We hold our finances close to our vest; we did indicate to DDs that we did take out a 10 year mortgage as DH wants to remain here - and we are working on our investments and are doing fine in retirement. When the time is right for us to gift out some funds we will do so, but not expected and we had distinct emphasis that they need to have careers where they can be employed and live on what they can earn after UG college degree (although if they did aspire to graduate program, we might have considered helping). They focused their energies and both have good careers.
We also didn’t plan our retirement with the thought we would support adult kids. If we give them money gifts, it’s because we want to…not because they have asked (which neither has ever done). But part of our retirement plan is also gifting money to our kids while we are alive, so we can see them enjoy it.
I told our financial planner that my goal is to die with $1 left in my accounts.
I told my kids they would each inherit a single item and whatever’s left. They know how much we love to travel and they know that all the expensive habits and hobbies we’ve put on hold while raising a family will be back. Golf, food, wine just for starters. Both my spouse and I have a single but different expensive endeavor we like. Both hobbies could easily eat up lots of fun hours and $$.
We are another couple that are planning no financial support for adult children while in retirement. My wife and I got next to no help coming out of college. We had ~$62K of loans between the two of us. We made it on our own with no help for down payments for homes or new cars.
D19 is on track to graduate undergrad with no loans. We will have to see about D23 still too early to tell. To me that is gift enough at the moment.
Ironically my Mom has started to give my brother and I some of our inheritance now. Nothing crazy just a nice amount. Mom who isn’t crazy rich is setup where she will never have to worry about money for the rest of her life while in retirement. That is result of pension and living below your means. My folks couldn’t give us much while growing up so this bit of funds is nice. My wife was super skeptical about it. We just have never been given anything in life.
Most likely my kids will inherit something down the road. If 25 years from now I am doing fine will probably do something similar to what my mom did for my kids.
Your own college loans and having to do all on your own - at your graduation time $62K between spouse and you was a good bit of debt but it may be years after DH and I graduated college (1978) when salaries were higher. Still it took time and living frugally to pay it off and make your home and auto purchases.
My parents had the cash flow to pay for my college - dad worked hard to grow his business and made wise investments; DH had about $7500 in student loans (he received state and federal pell grants based on parent income and number of kids in college), which we paid off in our first year and got our first home in 1979 (dual income no kids, and shared one vehicle, lived on one income and had the other income to quickly pay off student loans and save for house down payment). We remember the price we paid for each piece of very middle class furnishings purchased in 1978 (coffee table; couch, etc). Built up credit by buying an inexpensive dining room set/kitchen set (Formica table and 6 vinyl chairs - it was 1978…). We lived very frugally for years, cash flowed my MBA while in our 2nd home after relocating (DH’s company paid for the move). We only were gifted $10K from my parents (all 4 siblings also received) about a year or two before my dad died in 1995 – he realized they had a lot – and only one sibling was high earning and no kids (so they could see the gift money being helpful). Mom lived another 15 years but property investments had such good cash flow and her spending was with very comfortable living and well below her financial position; we all received a nice inheritance with trust closure/sale of all property. DH’s mom died March 2021 and had some teacher retirement settlements/life insurance and other, in addition to the home - all split equally between the four. DH’s mom (dad died a few months earlier) only was in skilled care for 2 weeks, so her assets were not spent down (the plan was to get her into skilled care sooner, but then Covid hit); she resisted (which included increasing dementia) when her health declined and she needed to be in 24/7 care - family members cobbled together living with her before the move to skilled care, including DH for very long periods as a recent retiree. I know she would be pleased that she had some estate left including the house.
Until SIL gets employed, has career track going (at age 32 no less), their household has the cash flow with DD1’s earnings. But having stability with them is a concern for us as grandparents with the oldest to begin kindergarten Aug 2023 - less concern if they stay in current city but move into better school district, and continue having DD1’s income while SIL gets into a job that he is satisfied with. The parents have to fix their own situation, while we watch on the sidelines.
DD2 has a good rental place and her rent is only going up $100 for her yearly lease (July 2022 - June 2023) – so she has time to build up her savings and continue to work on career advancement as an engineer.
We plan for events with family and friends. We are adjusting to both of us in retirement and continuing to make the adjustments overall. DH had enough global and US travel with work - he likes/wants to be a home body. Will see how May travels go with 3 weddings/extensive road trip (start at WI and end in Boston). Still finalizing DH’s health issue (had cardiac ablation last week). Even though we are 65, I am very conscious myself and being careful with tripping/falling! How health issues put a kibosh on people’s plans for retirement adventures - as Covid put a kibosh on people’s travel plans for a prolonged time. Things sometimes still seem overwhelming - transitions are a bit difficult for me – I have to slowly introduce things in my schedule and plans.
I have watched over the years a couple I know belittle their son-in-law. He never worked any job for long and their daughter worked hard. The daughter told me that she could focus on what her husband didn’t do or she could focus on his positives. They have been married close to 30 years and her parents still are bothered. They like him as a person and he is smart and social but he has never provided for his family. If one wants a relationship with their children and grandchildren one needs to be able to keep the opinions to themselves.
We don’t plan on spending everything we have but we won’t not do things in order to give our kids an inheritance. We have already gifted them part of a profitable asset. We just had our first grandchild born and we will set up a 529 plan for our grandchild. We full paid our kids so I’m learning about 529 plans.
My MIL had five kids. I never heard her say a bad word about any of the kids husbands or wives. And some of them are really out there. I hope I can work on that skill so by the time my kids marry, I’ll use her example. My spouse and I talk about family things, but try to keep the kids out of family squabbles/gossip. They are the next generation so if they keep a close relationship with all the cousins, Aunts and Uncles we’ll be thrilled. The cousins LOVE each other. They often drive 4-5 hours to see each other.
I am definitely not basing our retirement decisions on needing to support adult children either.
And I really can’t (and refuse to work until I am 80 because they made bad choices or refuse to support themselves, etc.)
I gave them a pretty nice childhood, love, an education, and life skills.
I am not going to let them live in a car or cardboard box, or if they get sick, we are there to help (free place to live, watch the kids, etc.) Married to a super jerk? You (and only you) have a home here.
But you want to be a basket weaver (apologies to any legit basket weavers out there!) you had better learn to live on a basket weavers salary.
I think it is smart to do everything you can to be supportive of the in law kids, even if you have doubts. If there are issues later you can at least assure yourself you did all possible on your end to encourage an intact home for the grandkids and if there is a divorce, it is wise, in my opinion, for the ex-spouse not to see the parents in law as enemies, but rather neutral.
I think of life this way about what I can or can’t say to my kids. If I am paying for something or providing funds I get to give my opinion. If I am not then my kids can do what they want and marry who they want. Now who my children choose to be around might affect me wanting to be around them. The only caveat is if I suspect abuse then I will interject myself.
I can remember being 18-20 myself and I didn’t want anyone telling me anything and that gave me the drive to be able to support myself.
Basically I have mantra to my teenage kids if you don’t want to be told what to do then leave, but I would suspect they would quickly realize the little we ask pales in comparison to the amount of effort it would take to support themselves. It doesn’t come to that really but they understand it.
My parents rarely commented on dating/partners/never on spouses. I’m sure they liked some and thought some were off. But I do know that if a parent dislikes a boyfriend/girlfriend it can make that person all the more attractive.
Have to think about this more. My kids are of an age that we still give our opinions. They aren’t always well received but we give them. Less tied to financial considerations than just being a parent. That might change as kids get older. The kids will often roll their eyes but I know that they often consider what’s been said.
One thing I’d say. We’ve never tied their decisions to anything financial/clothing etc. I have friends who will buy their kid this or that if they do this or that and we just don’t operate like that as I think it’s manipulative. We have invented them to reach a goal and then get something as a result.
Parenting is tough.
I do not speak to SIL about his issues. He explains what he is pursuing but it is all always ‘in the future’. Someone who professes to be ‘head of household’ doesn’t quit a current job before he secures the next. If DIL continues to provide for the family in her current job, she will provide fine. However others on this thread do not want to hear about this hiccup that could potentially affect our retirement funds and our activities in retirement related to the situations that may develop. We have a fine relationship with our DDs, grandchildren, and are cordial to SIL and DD2’s BF. Our DDs know we are a safety net in a catastrophe - that is within our family care and concern.
