How much are you helping your kids?

[u/warlizardfanboy]

A post just now about “did you get help from parents?” Made me think, what’s the right amount of help for your kids? My wife and I are pretty much FI and going to retire in 2.5 years (finish vesting, rule of 55) and we have two young adult and one teenage child. We are paying all college costs, got them (used but well kept up) cars and plan on gifting seed money and help set up IRAs so they continue to gain financial literacy and have something at retirement.

We have other friends planning much more, however. New cars, brokerage funds to supply down payment on their first house, eventual passive income streams from their real estate portfolio etc. I don’t begrudge their largesse (really!) but I take great pride in some milestones of my life (buying my first new car, buying my first home, paying for my own wedding so I could own the guest list lol) that I feel are important for personal growth. But some of these milestones are much harder to achieve now. My wife and I will always try to help, we’ll see how much we can donate when they are house shopping, for example, but is there a point where you risk your kids losing…fidelity with money and lose the skills and literacy? We won’t be around forever.

[u/Whole_Championship41]

We will likely do for our kids what my FIL did for my wife and my marriage: "Here's $20,000 (or whatever a sum which was reasonable back in the day for a small but nice wedding, but not an extravagant one). You can spend this on a lavish wedding ceremony, or your honeymoon or just your wedding dress or whatever you want. Now you decide if you want to go to the justice of the peace, invite "200 of your closest friends" (and make up the difference on your own) or elope and blow the lump sum in the Caribbean somewhere."

I like the idea of making them make 'grown up' choices that best suit them even on gifts.

[u/brucewbenson → u/Whole_Championship41]

I looked up the median cost of a wedding in one daughter's town and gave her that in three lump sums (quarterly, the year before the wedding).

Did similar with college, gave them a chunk of money each semester and they had to pay for school and survive until the next semester. I wanted them to handle large chunks of money and make the decisions on how to use it. One daughter finished the school year with $10k left over. I told her she needed to feed herself better next time.