Lucky for me my parents were both “I didn’t save anything for retirement, my kids will take care of me when I’m older”, so I don’t have to suffer through this.
Yes… That is their money. They should spend and enjoy it.
That is their money.
In 2022, 65% of people ages 65 to 74 had debt, up from 50% in 1989. In 2022, 53% of households headed by someone 75 or older had debt, compared to 32% in 1992.
In fairness, this article is pure bait. It neglected the rising cost of living for people on fixed incomes and treats these draw downs on savings as a frivolity, rather than a consequence of inflation on senior care and medical needs.
But liquidating household assets via instruments like reverse mortgages and loans against large savings accounts and pensions can mean saddling your children and grandchildren with big debts even after you’re gone.
Probably the rest of us won’t last much longer than them now anyway.
My parents worked hard all their lives and have had very little to show for it. As much as I didn’t realise it at the time, I never really wanted for anything, but I’m sure my parents skipped meals on occasion.
Now they’re retired they have a bit of money from state pension and superannuation funds, as well as a bit my mum inherited from her parents. It’s still not a lot, but they’re able to live in the comparative luxury they always deserved.
A couple of year back they splurged and took a trip to the UK, which had been on their bucket lists since before I was born. They seemed to feel like they had to explain why they were spending the money, and I reassured them that it was their money, not mine.
My wife and I are in good, stable jobs and we don’t need their cash. Let them enjoy themselves while they still can.
I think pretty much everyone agrees with your take here. People are just saying that if kids are struggling and parents can afford it, it’s weird for the parents not to help out financially.
Obviously the circumstances matter and if the kid is struggling because they’re lazy or a drug addict you don’t want to enable that but if they have their own kids and are working full time I would always support my kids financially if they needed that and I was able to.
Yo, all I asked for was for them to keep me alive long enough so that I can too become a productive member in society. They owe me nothing.
Yeah… How entitled are you? Do you NEED your parents money to get by? I barely make enough to afford rent and yet I still don’t ask my parents for shit. I love them will all my heart and they make good money.
But it’s money they earned, they are not obligated to give it to their kids.
And for those of you who are about to tell me “that’s not the point”, yes it is the fucking point. Your material worth is based on what YOU do to make ends meet. Your parents already lived through what we’re going through now.
Oh and also: I GUARANTEE 90% of you are going going to do the exact same thing when YOUR KIDS ask “Mom/Dad can you buy me a car”.
Of course not! You can barely buy your own car, let alone buy one for your kids and then THEY are gonna post the exact same thing about you on the internet. Because YOU didn’t save YOUR money. Instead you spent $50 a month on your monthly services like Hulu, Netflix, Crunchyroll, Disney+, also your Pandora, Spotify, Apple Music, and any other goods/services your spending your cash on.
You could, instead put that $50 a month and any extra money into your savings and by the time you retire, you would too would have money to spend. And if you raised your kids right, they would do the same thing instead of relying on OUR hard earned money.
So get the fuck off your high horse and start saving your money.
Obviously parents are entitled to spend their own money but generally if kids are struggling parents want to help.
Your post makes it sound like the current young working generation has the same lived experience as people who are retired. That’s just not the case at all. It’s much harder for the average person to save up money and buy a house now than it was in the past.
Do you NEED your parents money to get by?
For most people the answer is… Yes, to live the the same standard. This generation barely affording one car while the previous generation had multiple…
I don’t know what you think 50$ a month compounds to, but I’ve done the math and I’ll need to put away 7-800 per month to save enough to cover rent/food for a reasonable amount of time 40 years from now.
Sounds pretty selfish to have your kids in debt instead of using the wealth you’ve accrued to avoid your family paying interest to the bank. Pretty dumb way to hamstring your family’s ability to accrue generational wealth. Like damn I guess you actively dislike your kids and grandkids.
I make less than $18 per hour and I can still afford rent without roommates, buying my own car, buying my own food and STILL afford my own monthly services.
Is it cheap? Of course not. Am I saving money? Barely. But here’s the thing you’re not considering:
In about 20 years When all the Boomer/Z generations are retired and not working to earn money, where do you think all that money is going to be? If you think they will have all the money while our generation is running the government, then you sir/ma’am lack foresight into the future.
The money isn’t going to magically disappear, it will still be there and you will still be working to earn your fair share. It isn’t going anywhere.
Save your money now, so you don’t have to ask your parents for money later.
TLDR: Grow up and quit relying on your parents for everything. There’s a reason we become “adults” when we turn 18.
where do you think all that money is going to be
On the books of corporations, who will continue to fight tooth and nail to frustrate worker attempts to “earn their fair share”
Good job lucking into a low cost of living area. Check how much margin you could have moving to a higher col area to get a higher paying job. You might be able to contribute less to savings! Very lateral.
I worked and rented from the time I was 18, and took on debt to be able to eat. This is instead of living with my parents who were and continue to be over housed, or attending college to get a higher paying job sooner.
I will not be surprised if they cash out, hand the asset to a corp, and go ahead and burn the money on luxuries they don’t really care about.
Corps design their services to exploit their customers. Banking, transportation, housing, all of them. If you are old enough to retire and you are still dancing to that same marketing jingle y’all got some problems.
Once again. They earned that money themselves. You can’t blame our parents on what million dollars corporations are making. Out parents are not all part of the 1%, they earned their living just as much as you need to earn your own. If you want more money, get a better job, or start your own business. We have the resources necessary to do just that, right at our fingertips, literally.
It’s the amount of effort your putting in that makes a difference. But please, go ahead and keep living off your parents income. Might as well move back in and live in their basement too, so you can spend all your time on the internet, squalling over how much your parents are not giving you money.
Oh and by the way, just remember that when you were a kid, they bought your clothes, they paid your rent, they bought your food, and they paid for your schooling. And you have the audacity to ask them for more.
You can’t blame our parents on what million dollars corporations are making.
I forgot they have no choice about what products they buy or who they voted for for the last decades.
keep living off
If you could read, I never have. If I was able to take advantage of things they had and did not utilise, like spare rooms, I would have a higher level of income and savings right now.
I did not have a choice to do better things, they had the choice to provide or deny these things.
when you were a kid,
They did the minimum needed to stay out of jail. Neglecting children you choose to keep is a crime.
And yet, you’re still here. Your still alive. If you’re not living off your parents income and yet believe your obligated to some of that money, you’re part of the problem. Where do you think that money comes from?
The only thing your proving to me right now is that you don’t want to put in the effort to make more money.
And just an FYI: there are people in our generation that DO make a decent living, working good paying jobs, and NOT living off thier parents money. And do you know what they’re doing right now? I’ll tell you what, they’re NOT bitching about wanting their parents money, because they have the skills necessary to get it themselves.
You tell me congratulations on living in low income? It wasn’t that hard, a simple Google search is all it takes to find out where the low income housing is. And although I DO live in low income housing, I pay full price for it, because I make too much money. Let me reiterate that: $18 an hour is too much money to qualify for low income housing. But, my apartment is a studio that is about 35x35 sqf. You’re damn right it’s cheap, because I don’t need a 4 bedroom 3 bath house to get by. I get by just fine living with my cat. I put my money into my 401K just like my parents did, and guess what? It worked out for them, and they lived during the Great Recession. They lived a life just as hard as yours.
Look, I’m not saying there aren’t greedy, shity parents out there who don’t give a damn about their childrens future. They obviously exist.
But blaming an entire generation(s) on the problems of ours is not going to fix said problems. They aren’t going to give us the money, no matter how much we beg, just like their parents didn’t do for them. The only thing we can do is stop looking at the past, and focus on the future.
I know it looks bleak and the grass is always greener on the other side, but the world is not going to end because our parents decided to splurge on themselves. There are 3rd world countries out there that make even less than any of us do, and they’re surviving. What right do you have to ask someone else for money if you aren’t willing to earn it yourself?
I make great money, around 90k, probably 95 next year. I put over 500$/month to my RRSP.
I wasted a ton of money on the way here. A utilitarian solution would have been, don’t waste that money.
It’s not about entitlement, it’s about being smart. My kids, nieces and nephews will have savings from an early age and will not waste money paying interest if I play my cards right. I think it’s my responsibility to make sure the resources we have are utilised in the best way, being I want all of us to be happy and successful.
Parents say they want their children to be successful, it’s a clown choice to do nothing to support that when there’s the option to do something.
Reading this thread, I feel like having a nice rant:
“Waah, all our problems are caused by the boomers! They’re all rich and selfish, they had the easy life and got all the money and the houses and ruined the environment while our lives were ruined!” Keep believing that and stay distracted! while the oligarchy laughs it’s ass off at you.
Pay no attention to all those poor boomers who could never get a house, who are scraping to get by–those are the exceptions that prove the rule, they must have been especially lazy or stupid boomers, if they’re not rich like the vast majority of boomers! Yeah, that’s it.
Pay no attention to the corporations that have bought up all the housing so they can rent it to you at any price they like, that has nothing to do with housing costs–it’s the boomers who were too selfish to leave you their house when they died who are to blame! Yeah, that’s it.
Pay no attention to the oil companies and big corporations that control congress to keep their profits private and costs socialized so they can spew their effluent into the environment as the world burns and the ice caps melt, it’s the boomers’ fault! Boomers only started the environmental movement and demonstrated and pressured the government into creating the EPA, Clean Air Act, and many more, but so what, all the bad things are still their fault.
Stay distracted! Keep believing what you’re told and blaming who you’re told to blame as you get older and older and the boomers all die, and then enjoy how Gen B and Gen C, etc. hate you and rail against you and blame you for all their problems. Why didn’t you–yes you! stop global warming? You could have, but you didn’t give a fuck. You who had it so easy, living your selfish life with your fresh water and electricity and air conditioning and video games and all those nice things, while their lives were ruined? It’s all your fault!
Never the oligarchs, though. Not them.
[I can also do another version of this for the right wingers, substituting immigrants for boomers].
Yeah my parents:
explicitly told me they’re giving me nothing
told me they’d give my hypothetical grandchildren something because (and I cannot express to you enough that they explicitly stated this OUT LOUD WITH WORDS) that they would love the grandchildren more than me. My mother has talked to me at length about how she already likes these people that don’t exist more than me.
Are constantly critical of my appearance. When I tried to wear makeup as a child they didn’t want me to look “promiscuous” (because somehow using an SAT word makes it ok to tell your 10-year-old they look like a whore). My mother was constantly critical of how short clothing looked on me because I was so tall or how my chest looked in shirts because it was too big. Now that I’ve gotten those tits removed and I dress more masculine even though I never even really “came out” as anything because I just don’t care enough about gender that’s also not ok because I’m not acting my gender.
They don’t comfort me when I’m upset. They either tell me I’m upset about something stupid or say that I should be worried about more other things. I worked in Healthcare while in nursing school through the first half of COVID them graduated mid-pandemic and every time I’d mention stuff about how broken our Healthcare system is they’d want to have a “fun debate” about MAGA shit then make fun of me for getting emotional. One time I was sitting suicide watch because a guy kept ripping the ventilator mask off and begging me to let him die. The only thing that got him to keep it on was me summing up the plots of the last five books I read because after the first four hours I ran out of things to talk to him about to keep him distracted. Y’all. They thought my PTSD flashbacks were funny.
My parents are both rocket scientists but they’re not sending people to the moon or Mars. I don’t know how they reconcile a belief in Jesus with arms dealing but I’m pretty sure those dead Palestinian kids are paying for my nursing degree.
Anyway I unloaded the exact content of all those PTSD flashbacks on them, told them their voting choices were going to lead to them dying in a ditch full of maggots, then dumped all the shit my whole family talk behind each other’s backs in the groupchat and changed my phone number. Its been a year and I haven’t felt the need to drink since.
Love me? You don’t even like me. Die alone, assholes.
Sir, this is a Wendy’s.
Those are the sort of parents I left in the past, I feel you with a lot of that.
As for the grandkids, feel free to use my excuse. “I can’t afford them”. (Partially because I have to support one of them, but also kids are freaking expensive). So they can whine about not having grandchildren all they want. Kids are now 800k+, who can do that?
Well they’ve said they would support me IF-
I just went ahead and told them it’s because they didn’t stop my cousins from doing weird sexual shit to me.
My mom is “choosing” to spend it at a retirement home because we can’t have her live with us and my brother is an asshole. And honestly, I’d rather have her spend her last years in comfort (we won’t even be in the same country) than get some windfall when she dies.
Retirement homes aren’t cheap. She’s in her early 80s, but both of her parents lived until their 90s, so I’m guessing there won’t be much of any inheritance left over.
Also they will spend it on expensive overpriced healthcare they voted for.
Honestly, that and retirement homes sort of exist to extract the last wealth from the dying.
Jokes on you, i grew up poor and never had an expectation of shit.
Read the body of my post
I mean, didn’t they do the exact same thing with the planet?
To be fair, the silent generation is not guilt free on that
“Fuck you, I got mine.”
-Boomers on everything from pensions to affordable housing and education to inheritances to having a habitable planet to live on
The attitude you describe is, I believe, the result of capitalist and religious propaganda that reinforces individualism rather than collectivist and non-religious yet spiritual philosophies. Those like Hinduism, Confucianism, Zen and Toaism.
Not to sell any one in particular but the common thread in the East is a different perspective than a boss in the sky eternally judging each individual.
Even if you aren’t religious, advertising will tell you you’re a special, unique and seperate individual. Desiring to stand out as famous, beautiful, smart, funny, strong etc is just a trap but one desired by many. Unfortunately, to be above others, then others must be below you. To be rich, there must be poor.
An understanding of this force of balance shows that to minimise the extremes of poverty you must minimise the extremes of wealth.
The East sees our true self is the larger whole of which we as Humanity are a small part of. While your name may seperate you conceptually, none of us are separate from the air we breath or the stars we see. Nothing is seperate even though the mind feels and believes it is so. Are you really in control? Do you beat your heart? When you make a decision, do you first decide to decide?
I only say all this because, when one genuinely switches thinking this way, then naturally you want to be generous and caring towards all others because you see everything as yourself includeing all that is non human.
These philosophies are not the complete answer to our problems because many of these philosophies were born in China and, even though it’s embedded in their culture, they are still struggling like everyone else. But a more modern widespread common understanding of the true nature of the situation may be beneficial.
The people who are cool with this going “why shouldn’t my parents enjoy what they made, why would you want anything you didn’t work for?” are sort of missing the point. The real phrasing, that they probably would agree with, is “why should I support my children and future generations, my enjoyment is more important than their survival and secured future”
If you really think that you should only get what you work for, give back every Christmas or birthday present or any gift you’ve gotten or are getting in the future immediately. Turn down any bonus you get at work. Hell start paving your own roads.
Supporting others, especially family, is a good human trait, and shouldn’t be erroded.
I grew up in the boat of not ever expecting any type of inheritance. Then my dad remarried and it is a thing, and that discussion that makes me really uncomfortable. I am in the first camp. I don’t feel any sense of ownership or entitlement to that money.
She wants to go on a fancy trip to Bali? Good for her.
New car? Awesome.
He raised me, that was his responsibility. He did a great job and that’s all I needed.
I am sure there will be something left but I’m not hedging all of my bets on it. Work bonus stays with me, though.
I’m sorry if this is worded weirdly; my dad passed away two years ago and I am still getting used to the past tense.
I don’t think rejecting Christmas gifts is on par with telling your parents not to enjoy themselves because you want their money when they die.
I’m going to spend my money and wealth as I see fit. I will not raise my children to bank on me dying before they turn 60 (realistically they’re gonna have to deal with me for a long time) so they can inherit some sum of cash.
For context, I never expected any inheritance from either parent when they died. Neither did I get anything except for a pair of gloves.
I’m setting up my kids for their own success. 529 plan, lessons in work ethic and social skills. I donate often, and might leave some funds behind but real support shouldn’t have to be monetary.
Yeah, my parents go on regular vacations all over the world, have redone their kitchen THREE times in the last decade (along with every room of their entire 3000 sq ft house), and can’t be bothered to help me out when I encounter a major expense.
I don’t know what they think is going to happen when they are too old to take care of themselves, but I can barely afford to take care of my immediate family so there’s no way in hell I could support them too. Hope they set aside some of those fat stacks of cash for a nursing home because my retirement plan is dying poor at my workdesk (or on the street if I become too old to work).
Minor suggestion. Try dying poor at your boss’s desk. You have nutrients and minerals that can be extracted for our use, don’t be a hog.
This is my parents. I found out from a relative that after my mom suffered an injury, that her husband was spending $2000 a month on fast food. Literally TWOOOOO THOUSAND dollars on fried chicken a month.
When the topic came up of them writing a will, they said that I’d be getting the family pictures. That’s it.
Holy shit that’s a lot of chicken
Edit: if he’s getting a 10 dollar meal that’s 200 orders of chicken. A 31 day month with 3 meals has 93 meals meaning over double what a person typically eats. If you get a 18 piece bucket looks like the price might be between 62 and 100 bucks. Let’s say 62 for fun that’s approximately 32.25 buckets or 516 pieces of chicken a month. I mean I like chicken but damn not that much
But he’s going Cartman on those buckets
The hospitals and retirement facilities plan to absorb every cent left.
Yea the picture is not related at all. Elder care is bleeding their money dry, they’re not choosing to spend it on lavish vacations.
Once you get to a point where you run out of insurance and health savings, you have to go to Medicaid, which will take your house and the rest of your savings after you die. (And if you try to give your house to your child before you die, unless you do it 5 years before enrolling in medicaid you will get a huge delay in services)
They’re trying to victim blame boomers for being robbed by these industries.
