We are in the “soft launch” category . . . expecting the kids to move steadily towards independence and self-sufficiency but always a soft place to land should the need arise (though they know we will not subsidize a slacker lifestyle).
So far so good. Have one that is completely launched and self-supporting, but I also recognize that we are extremely blessed by this.
I agree. But I’m guessing for many it does cost extra. We are lucky that it doesn’t cost extra so we will definitely keep our kids on as long as possible. Good health insurance is so important!
We will play it by ear on what else we will help with (we are not quite there yet…but very close). I agree with the general idea that as long as they are not sitting around playing video games we are happy to help.
I like this comment from @MomfromKC: " We have been launching him little by little all along."
That has been our strategy. One successfully launched into the “adulting” world but we’ll provide a safety net if there are bumps along the way. However, our child is very independent and is likely to only ask for help if truly needed in an emergency situation. I was the same way but it was comforting to know that my own parents were there, emotionally and financially, had I ever needed the support. I didn’t but feeling that it was there gave me the confidence to go out and tackle life, take some calculated risks, and to be successful, if that makes sense. To use the millennial vernacular, I feel that type of “privilege” - the support of family - contributed to my successes.
I have one child and live by myself. I am here for her whatever she needs. I would do whatever is in my capacity. I believe she has a good head on her shoulders and is cooperative and responsible so after graduation if she were to live with me she would be actually be doing me a favor because I would love the company. I know if she moves somewhere else for grad school she is the type that would still be concerned for me and keep checking in to make sure that I was doing ok. Whatever I have is for her only so I don’t have an issue of helping out if I am able to. I have always lived below my means so that her needs could be met.
I wonder what you would really do momofthree if kids #3 doesn’t have a job upon graduation or takes a job that doesn’t pay enough for a decent place to live and is within commuting distance of your home. I see lots of kids living at home for a while, until they save enough to find a place and pay first and last month etc. Kids that had to help pay for college, even just their own expenses, and who get relatively low pay starter jobs often need to live home for a few months to save enough to move out.
I really don’t understand the idea of charging rent and then handing it back to the kid. Are they incapable of saving on their own?
I don’t understand it either (although I know that many people do it).
How would you feel if your kid left your home after two years and you gave him back his rent money, only to hear “Six months ago, I had an opportunity for a terrific job in another city, but I didn’t have enough money for the deposit on an apartment. If I had known that I was going to get my rent money back from you when I moved out, I could have taken that job and gotten an apartment there. But I turned down the opportunity because I couldn’t afford it.”
If the young person doesn’t understand his true financial status, how can he make well-thought-out decisions?
Interesting topic…so, we have two kids, five years apart. D17 graduates from high school this spring, and the agreement has always been we will help pay for her first four years of college. If she wants to attend grad school/move to an expensive city/bum around Europe for a year after getting her undergrad/whatever - it’s on her. It isn’t that we don’t want her to succeed; it’s that we expect her to take some initiative and formulate a plan. We have a second kid who will get the same option she gets; it wouldn’t be fair or reasonable for us to tell him “Sorry, kid, we need a launch plan for big sis so you’re on your own for undergrad.”
Now, if D17 comes to us in four years and tells us “I am planning to enroll at for graduate school, the reason I’m going to grad school is , I could use some help with rent/deposit fees/books/” we would look at our financial situation then and determine where we can help.
So, in response to the question “How would I feel my kid left home after two years and I gave him the money, only to hear “Six months ago, I had an opportunity for a terrific job in another city, but I didn’t have enough money for the deposit on an apartment. If I had known that I was going to get my rent money back from you, I could have taken that job and gotten an apartment there. But I turned down the opportunity because I couldn’t afford it.”” - that’s on the kid. If my child asks for help, I will do what I can to assist. But eventually, my child has to learn to stand on her own and ASK for help instead of expecting a rescue.
I was talking about a situation in which the grown child would stand on his own by NOT asking for help and relying on his own resources. The problem, as I see it, is that the young person wouldn’t fully understand what resources he has.
I want my kid to have the obligation of paying rent, even if it is below market. Whether I give it back to her or not is my option. No, I don’t want her to think she has more disposable income just because she is living at home.
D2 is making less money working in a public sector. She has told me it was her passion to work in public service and she didn’t want to choose a career just for money. If I didn’t charge her rent then she would feel she has a lot of money to spend. Now after 3 months of living on her tight budget, she is having second thoughts. I have always told my kids, “You are free to make your choices, but you need to live with it.”
I know there are a lot of very frugal kids out there, especially CC parents’ kids, but I know my kids will spend what they have. It is especially tempting when the amount isn’t much.
We had no launch plan for either of our kids. We paid D’s rent through the end of her senior-year lease, which expired in July. She didn’t have a job, and we offered to let her come home until she found one. Instead, she got a job at Starbuck’s, worked full time, found someone who wanted a roommate & moved into her inexpensive apartment, and eventually landed a good job 9 or 10 months later. She paid everything but her health insurance costs (we have a high deductible plan, and we paid any costs she incurred) - although when someone rear-ended her & totaled her car, we did give her our old car (we got a new old car). She makes twice what I make, so no further launching required.
S, who is 24, was a bit trickier. He went school locally & so was living with us when he graduated. We told him he had 6 months to find a job and 12 months to find his own place. Just about the time the 6 months rolled around, he started substitute teaching (no, we didn’t give him money for stuff while he wasn’t working - we did give him food, shelter, and paid his insurance). He hated it, but he still dragged his feet on getting a better (and better paying) job. When 12 months was bearing down on him, he got a new job … but it didn’t pay enough for him to be on his own. We told him that as long as he was working toward a better future & wasn’t spending what little money he made on frivolous things, he could continue to live at home. After another 8 months, he moved out & into an inexpensive apartment with a roommate. 8 months later, we continue to pay his health care and car insurance - and we bought him a used vehicle when his died a couple months ago - but that’s all. He recently started a new job that has good potential, and he should be off the car insurance policy when it renews next spring. That is pretty minimal launching, I think.
We are happy to help our kids when/if they need it, but we also want them to have to make their own way in the world. We won’t subsidize the good life for them, but we have been happy to help them with necessities as they got their adult lives started. One thing I do NOT want is to be paying a $1,500 mortgage for my 60 year old kid — as my in laws (in their late 80’s) do for my SIL. They can afford it, but it keeps them from doing some things they would like to do for themselves. I think by that time in life, they should be able to use their money for themselves … SIL should be launched by now! 
I ask that my daughter put money into a savings account in exchange for our continuing coverage of her insurance (car, health) and phone. She’s learning to live with a budget that covers the essentials. It costs us no additional to keep her on our health insurance policy, but when she turns 26 she’ll have to purchase it through her employer at a cost of $200/month-- so she puts that much aside each month into her account. For phone it costs us about $20/month; but she budgets and saves $50/month because that is what she’ll have to pay when the day comes that she is no longer on our plan. Same deal for car insurance- it costs less as part of our multi-car package than she would pay on her own. So she is living on what she earns as if she is covering all her expenditures- but in reality- she is making a significant monthly contribution to a savings account for her own future educational expenses. In our case, this is a well discussed and agreed to plan-- that was part of our launch plan- helping her build and understand a reasonable budget- while planning for future expenditures.
I think this is quite similar to the idea of asking them to pay rent -but holding it for savings.
The scenario presented in post #45 sounds unrealistic to me. One would think if a child is living at home, has applied for and received a job offer in another location not within commuting distance, this would not be known within the family unit? With the kid living at home? There’s a problem if there isn’t better communication than that and its not the parents charging rent.
Honestly, I think charging rent and returning it is a kind thing to do. Yes, it would be great if the young adult saved the money on his/her own but it doesn’t always work out that way.
My parents (who are not wealthy people at all) generously let me move home with them after graduating and live there rent free. After six months (I had a job, but not a good/lucrative/career-oriented one), I moved away. Five or six years later, they helped me out once again, this time by helping me financially for a couple months. That assistance was not expected–or required–but it was tremendously helpful and for it I’ll always be grateful to them.
Now, many years later, they’ve retired and my income is quite high, and those times they came to my aid are often in the forefront of my mind. I haven’t needed to assist them yet, but if I ever do, I’ll drop everything and do so immediately. And in the meantime, their vacations are on me.
S came home after graduation to look for a job. During that period he worked part-time and covered his personal, vehicle, and job hunting expenses. He continued living at home for a few months after he landed a full time job, paid me “below market” rent and mowed the lawn. It worked out well because he was able to save up money to move into his own place (and later across the country), buy a new car, and build an emergency fund. Even though he has employer provided insurance, I kept him on my insurance until he turned 26. It didn’t cost me anymore and I satisfy the deductible every year.
I suspect I won’t get off as easy with D (she’s always been my expensive child). I plan to help her with reasonable launch expenses - relocation, deposits, wardrobe and apartment essentials - if necessary. My insurance premiums are outrageous so if she gets a job with good coverage, I’ll switch from family to employee-spouse coverage. Otherwise, I’ll leave her on my policy until she’s 26. I plan to help with her out of pocket cost because she has medical issues and I don’t want her cutting corners on health care.
Daughter graduated in May - she had a job lined up right after (took off only a few weeks) - I did co-sign her lease (the lease was signed a few months before graduation so technically she was not employed at the time.
My launch was to buy her furniture for her apartment - she is off our health plan (on her company plan and it saved us money as we only have one child). It is very important to her that she feels like she can support herself (which she can). I like to help by doing things like giving her gift cards to her favorite lunch spots, giving her a roll of quarters for the laundry, etc.
All of her friends who have graduated but not yet found employment are back at home with their parents actively job seeking.
@Overtheedge and @Marian, thanks for the advice/input. I have begged and pleaded with him (and shouted, etc.) to get him to use the career services of his college, offered to help him with a resume, etc. Right now I am kind of taking a “time out” from him, as much as I can. Overall, he’s a good kid, and I’m hoping “this too shall pass.” Advice from parent isn’t what he wants to hear right now.
Launch plan? Hopefully, after four years of college, my D will have established her own launch plan. The timing of this thread is funny though because the topic came up yesterday with myself, one of my best friends, and D while hanging around on floats at the beach, our last full day together My D was very surprised that kids actually graduate after four years of college without a plan or a job. My friend’s daughter graduated in May, moved back home and has been working three part-time, entry-level, minimum wage jobs all summer with no concrete plans for a career move. Even my D can see there’s a problem with this. And it seems pretty common in this area. That, and thousands in parent loans.
So, here’s the truth ~ I had a high school launch plan for both my kids…go to college, go in the military, or get your own apartment by Labor Day after graduation. My S just separated from the USAF after 8 years, joined mid-year though his senior year of high school and left for book camp that August. He just signed a contract on a townhouse in MD and started a new job as an engineer. D is about to begin her sophomore year of college and is starting to talk about internships. Of course, she can move home for a few months if something doesn’t pan out but the “launch plan” is that she will at least have a full time job when she graduates.
I guess growing up low income and raising my children in a low income, single family household probably skews my perspective but, while I would always welcome my kids home for short respites as needed for emergencies/myriad of reasons, moving home at 22 to figure themselves our or find the perfect job isn’t one of them.
I feel like that’s a total lame-o excuse. If you get a job offer in another city, you take it and live at the Y until you have a couple of paychecks under your belt to work your way to a better place.
It sounds like the kid was guilt rolling the parents for his own failure.
I’m pretty sure my kid would discuss this opportunity with me when it came up and I could then tell him about what I had been planning to do with the money he was paying in rent. I’m sure it’s happened in some cases but in our family it would be implausible that we wouldn’t discuss something like this at the time.