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She’s 7 Years Old. Her Parents Are Saving to Support Her When She’s 30.
This is the final story in our series on what it costs to raise a child in 2025, and how families are making it work.
Leza and Anthony Dieli are saving about $1,000 a month for their 7-year-old daughter, Zoey. This money isn’t for college tuition or summer camp or medical expenses. It is to support her once she is an otherwise independent adult.
There is a novel strain of financial advice that suggests supporting grown children isn’t a reason to be ashamed. It is probably necessary, and sometimes even desirable. The Dielis decided to start saving early. Leza graduated college during the 2007-09 recession, worked a string of unhappy jobs and racked up credit-card debt. She doesn’t want that for Zoey.
“I want her to feel like she has options,” Leza said.
Whether they plan for it or not, plenty of parents are likely to find themselves in the same boat. About 60% of parents with children ages 18 to 34 said they had helped their kids financially in the previous year, according to a 2024 Pew Research Center survey. Parents are finding that the rising expenses that trail them from their child’s birth through college are now extending well into adulthood.
They commonly chipped in for housing, debt payments and everyday expenses such as groceries, according to a Bankrate survey last year. A third of younger millennial home buyers got help with the down payment from friends or family, according to an April report from the National Association of Realtors.
For some, it extends even further. Daycare bills for the grandchildren. Roof replacements. Vacations. One financial adviser described a 40-year-old woman still on her parents’ phone plan.
Funneling extra cash to the children is a luxury that many Americans can’t afford. Even for those who can, it isn’t always a good idea. It can stir arguments or awkwardness. It can stunt the development of fledgling adults or derail carefully laid retirement plans. Even those who currently pay for their grown children say there should be limits to the assistance, lest it last forever or keep growing.
But among parents who have already covered more pressing financial needs, and who have the means to help, there is a resignation of sorts. Rising rents, ballooning college costs and a recent dearth of entry-level jobs have made it particularly challenging for younger generations to find a financial footing.
“Parents are more permissive now and more likely to provide, but I also think the need is greater,” said Patrick Huey, who owns Victory Independent Planning in Naples, Fla.“ I think parents see that and say ‘I have the ability to help out.’ ”
In inflation-adjusted terms, Americans are earning 18% more than they did in 1980, when the last of the baby boomers were entering adulthood. The costs of housing have soared more than 400% since then, medical care has climbed nearly 700% and tuition and child care costs have increased more than 10-fold.
Robert Persichitte, a financial adviser based in Denver, considers it his mission to shake the stigma of helping children overcome these obstacles.
He lived rent-free with his grandmother until he was 26. He paid down student debt, saved up $30,000 and bought a home before his 30th birthday, something few of his friends have been able to accomplish even today, he said. Now 38, he tells clients to prepare ahead of time to help their children do the same.
“I think you either need to be comfortable with your kids struggling or you need to set aside some money now,” he said.
When Persichitte helped Leza Dieli calculate the monthly savings she and her husband would need for her daughter’s lifelong “allowance,” it was “shockingly lower than we expected,” said Leza, 38.Stowing away roughly $2,000 a month now would grow into a pot that could pay out about $3,000 a month for the rest of Zoey’s life, starting after she graduates college, they calculate.
The Dielis, who live near Fort Lauderdale, Fla.,started at a couple hundred dollars a month, when Zoey was 5 years old. They plan to increase their current savings of roughly $1,000 a month as their income grows. Leza added that they have separate savings for college and keep their living costs low to save aggressively.
When considering the plan, Leza said she polled several of her own family members. If given the choice, she asked them, would they rather have gone to private school, an expense the couple was also considering, or receive a monthly check indefinitely? Everyone picked the money.
Some families think of parental support as flipping the concept of a traditional inheritance. Tens of trillions of dollars of wealth will get passed down from aging baby boomers as they die. But why wait until death to part with the money?
Kyla Holcombe said she and her husband aren’t especially concerned about how much they leave behind. But they have set aside a few thousand dollars in brokerage accounts for each of their three children. They also plan to pull from some other investment accounts to help them with weddings, buying a house or other milestones. The Denver-area couple also have savings in a 529 plan that should cover the cost of four years at an in-state college.
Holcombe’s thinking: “How can I help them when I’m still around, when it’s earlier in their life and they need it more?”
Other parents find themselves wishing they had planned for the extra support they would still be lending their children. The years when a child is just setting off on their own are typically when parents are refocusing on their own priorities, such as making catch-up 401(k) contributions to save for retirement.
Melinda Cales, a high-school teacher near Cleveland, covers housing, car payments and tuition costs for her 24-year-old daughter, Peytin. Though she wants to support Peytin as she finishes her degree at a nearby community college, Melinda says the added costs have put a strain on her own budget. She has put off vacations and recently cut her monthly contributions to her own retirement savings in half.
Peytin said she had a bumpier transition to adulthood than expected after graduating high school at the height of the pandemic. Her mother said she has watched many other graduates of the school where she works struggle to afford college or land jobs.
Melinda has come around to the idea that parents should have an extra savings account to help young adults, if they can. Saving for the first 18 years of life, but cutting off support after that, she said, is “like saving for vacation and saying you’re only going to save for the hotel.”
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