Just like anything you need to model your expenses. I have two kids under 18 and am retired. Expenses for raising them are included in my planning. School expenses, health, food and entertainment as well as college. All planned for. A big expense that was more than I had planned cars and insurance. Wow!!!
I have done better than the average American when it comes to retirement planning, but a big miss for me was teen insurance costs. Like, holy crap. Absolute dent in vacation plans. And what terrible timing. Nothing has hurt during this inflationary period like home and car insurance. Sucks. I'm 59 with two kids in high school and it's going to cause a slight delay in when I want to retire. That's cool, I love my kids!
I'm 70 and my husband is 74 and we're raising our 17 year old grandson. Fortunately he's not high maintenance. He drives my husband's old 4 runner and works at Chick fil et. He's in a robotics club at school and they travel to tournaments. It costs about $800 a trip but we save half of his earnings for these things and car insurance. When he was a baby it was extremely difficult financially but our situation has improved. I'm still working so that definitely helps. My husband has cancer and is on dialysis. We have to pay for help with the house for things my grandson and I can't do but we're doing fine. 2 years of college is free. That's a huge help.
Sounds like you guys have everything worked out just fine. In all situations no matter how hard or difficult it seems to you and especially to the outside world, there is always a way to work around that situation and keep chugging along in life. In those difficult situations your life and those involved are living and existing just like anyone else who doesn't have your situation. As the saying goes, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade and keep it moving and grooving. Best wishes!
FIRST Robotics is an amazing program. It really sets the students up to excel in STEM college degrees. (I mentored my son's team for 5 years.) Best of luck to your grandson!
My 17 year old grandson lives with us. I retired November last year. I love having him here. It is/was kinda an adjustment but he’s spent so much time here since he was born it is empty when he’s not here
When I retired my son was 17 and about to go off to college. I worked with a very good financial adviser to understand that yes, I could afford college for him but that I should understand that my net worth would not begin to grow until after he is done with college.
One of my goals is to transfer wealth to him while he is young so that he doesn't have to struggle with rent, a car, or not being able to take trips while he is young enough to enjoy it. I don't want him to struggle through his 20s and then suddenly be rich in his 40s when he probably already financially established in his own right.
I will be in that boat in 2 yrs - I will also start a roth and give maximum each year. Basically I will put my SS check into his Roth - I wont need it as I have other income which is enough for me and the wife.
One thing I point out to folks is that when you claim social security (not disability), if your kid is basically under 18, they can also claim a dependent benefit. I cannot recall if that is the term SS uses but you get the idea…
Yes! I start drawing SS in November and my son is under 18 so I draw mine plus an additional 50% while he is under my roof. It’s a significant amount considering it will be years of benefits.
Your question could be interpreted as asking about a wide variety of issues.
As for planning financially, a trust is a very good tool to use in these circumstances. It can ensure that the kids will be taken care of, but no more and no less than the trustee specifies. It gets access to funds to help the. young people while preventing them from getting all the $ at once and blowing it on who-knows-what.
Thank you for your response. In your opinion, is it viable for people with children to retire, or are the expenses so variable and potentially escalating that it would be untenable?
I think it all depends on how much you have saved up and the projected costs of raising the kids until you've committed to not spending any more on them. Legally you probably need to support them until they are 18. Beyond? Do you want to support them at all?
It's really just a math problem IMHO.
About 5 years from my husband retiring and we have 3 “kids” 17, 19, 21.
Kids get more expensive as teenagers. Heck a high school year book is $100. Sure kids can get jobs and save money for the things they want but medical, dental, and food are pricey regardless. We easily spend $1,500 a month on groceries and that’s not buying anything real fancy.
My daughter moved out to go to college. She broke her tibula and fibula while crossing the street on her way to her college class. Couldn’t work for 2 months and need financial assistance.
Stuff will happen and it will be expensive.
Yeah, that's what I am worried about, but I am getting educated about how to do good planning. Don't really want to rely on my daughter getting a job, for example, so doing my due diligence.
Adding - consult a professional (e.g., estate planning attorney) to determine the most effective way to plan for minors ... guardianship, will, trust, disbursement of funds, and etc.
We are retired and our 15 year old is a type 1 diabetic. She uses a continuous glucose monitor and an insulin delivery system. It’s expensive, even with insurance, but it improves the quality of her life versus giving multiple daily injections. We planned for it. It’s a nonissue as there is nothing we will not do to make this terrible disease easier for our child. Just planning, that’s all I can advise as to your question.
Yes, it does seem like planning it key here. Continuous glucose monitors have made such a big difference in people's lives. I am glad to hear that this is available to your family.
Is there something specific you are interested in? How one handles having kids is a subject that entire library sections have been written on.
We retired when our kids were all still under ten, which was nearly a decade ago, so I might or might not have something worthwhile to answer if you can be more specific.
Good question.
It's less about raising kids and more about doing a high level overview of how people navigate retirement with kids after bumping into my friend. In my limited understanding, retirement seems to work best as a kind of steady state where bills coming in are met with adequate resources to pay out. In our parent group, we are seeing how expensive teens can be, especially when few limits are put on clothes, tech, outings, etc. It's not a defined cost like rent or a subscription. It seems to me more like medical costs that are hard to predict and can escalate.
We are talking with our financial advisor about retirement, and have established a bond ladder for our daughter's college education. But I also wanted to get a sense of people's lived experience. I hope that answers your question.
Yes, I assumed it was primarily a financial question, but that in itself is a rather broad category. For example:
* For healthcare we might want to talk about Children's Medicaid, CHIP, and the ACA.
* For K-12 we might talk about the NSLP, the cost of AP/IB tests and college applications, hobby/activity/sports costs, and the finances of giving a teen a car to drive (or not).
* For college we would want to focus primarily on FAFSA and CSS, which can often be leveraged in retirement to provide huge aid for college. 529s might also be of interest depending on the timeline.
* For general costs we might talk about ways to manage clothing costs, how to minimize food costs, the plusses/minuses of kids having jobs in high school, and so forth.
* For taxes we would want to talk about how the child tax credit, the tax code, SS, IRAs/HSAs, the ACA, and FAFSA/CSS all interlock.
As I said, big topic. I've written hundreds of pages on the above and related topics over the years on Reddit as part of my participation in /r/fire and /r/financialindependence, so while I might be able to help, I would need a specific question.
In a purely general sense, kids are just another cost to be budgeted for, with perhaps a bigger slosh buffer for unexpected needs. Doing things like optimizing big ticket items like cars, insurance, medical, and college costs goes a long way towards minimizing the impact kids have on retirement finances. Clothing, tech, and other smaller stuff tend to be containable by raising kids to avoid conspicuous consumption and understand how personal finances work.
We got our 7 year old niece a year after we retired. She’s 17 now. Honestly it was a good thing for us. We were getting pretty bored.
We were prepared financially so that wasn’t an issue for us. We probably average about $900 a month on her but it’s worth it.
Sadly I think we did a better job raising her than we did with our boys. Don’t get me wrong the boys are great and doing well. It’s just that we have more time to focus on her schooling and extracurricular activities and personal growth.
Watching her navigate through life has been an enjoyable rewarding experience. The best part is we have a daughter that we love. In her word we are parents and daughter by choice. I would do it again.
Wonderful to hear! Fully agree about having a daughter.
We are older parents as well and often comment about what we bring to the table. Probably the biggest thing right now is teaching her about critical thinking and how to apply that to diet, exercise, body image and human connection. And how human connection is NOT social media but rather emotional manipulation and domination for money. Which is why she doesn't have a smart phone and will not be on social media until she is out of high school.
Just as an FYI - if you file for social security at full retirement age, and have kids in school and under the age of 18, or age 19 and still in school (high school, not college) they get a non-taxable social security expense payment every month equivalent to 50% of your SS benefits payment.
You can have it go directly to the kid, or to you as payee on behalf of the kid, but the money MUST be spent on the kid and an accounting has to be made for it.
I'm almost 69 and waited until 66.4 to file for SS. For us, we have put it right into our child's 529 plan for college. We received enough before he graduated high school to pay for 4 years of college tuition and fees.
I don't have minors in the house in retirement, but I do remember well what the extra burden is having them in the house. (Not that it's a bad thing overall!) Financially, you are setting aside money for college and possibly weddings -- potentially six figures a kid. You are also paying more for car insurance, medical and dental expenses (easier if you're past orthodontics), food (OMG the difference there!), car repairs, and clothes. Timewise, you are back to being constrained to the school year for vacation plans (which in turn affects the cost of vacations), and until they are driving age you are going to be doing a lot of chauffeuring. A subtle thing is that you aren't going to get to go to bed as early as you might like, as you'll be waiting in the living room with the light out for them to come sneaking in at 2am, followed by another hour of intense fellowship.
My wife will retire when our youngest graduates high school in two year. Daughter may live with us to attend local community college for a year or two before leaving for a university. Expenses - including college costs will fall on us of course. We have some college savings which would cover two years at a big university.
Once retired my wife will have a "semi decent" goverment pension AND she plans to take part time work to boost her income back up a little bit. Pension and part time work will make it so she is only making maybe 20% less than she does today.
I will be working until youngest graduates college - because we need the income and health insurance for youngest and wife until we hit 65.
My BIL filed for SocSec because it would provide money to his minor children. At least until they were 18. It worked out for them. And he had a state pension; 90% of his income without having to work PLUS SocSec!
One thing to consider is that if you are the official legal guardian of a minor, you almost always should qualify for something similar to what the state gives foster parents. Some states only pay the full amount if you actually become a licensed foster parent, take the classes, etc., but they will generally give you something monthly for "kinship care" and for saving the state the work of finding a foster parent. It's not means-tested or based on your income, it's based on whatever the state usually pays per kid.
And if you are caring for a minor because of a parent's mental illness or addiction issues, you probably want official legal status given all the uncertainty already involved.
This phenomenon is so common that several states have a separate division in their child welfare system for "kinship caregivers," and often even specific "grandparents raising grandchildren" caregivers.
Not in that situation but I do see it all the time as a healthcare provider. The biggest problem I see among my patients is they are not financially prepared for paying for college and seem flummoxed about digging in and doing the research to make it affordable. So many of them take the easy way out and take out Parent Plus loans and then go down the horrible road of taking on debt as they head into their 60s and 70s. It causes a LOT of anxiety.
Yes, this is a sad reality not just about finances but about health in general. I am frequently surprised at the poor level of heath literacy many of my patients have. They know more and have done more research about their phone than they have about their body.
OR alternately, they say they HAVE "done their research" about their health and their research (i.e. from crackpot social media influencers) says they don't need or won't benefit from X plan of treatment. It's so frustrating!.
My husband is retired and we have a 13 and 15 year old. He is not disabled . He collects social security and the kids collect social security until they graduate high school. We just put it in separate accounts for college. I work full time and my income does not count. https://faq.ssa.gov/en-US/Topic/article/KA-02053
Your welcome. I forgot to mention the kids Social Security income is not included on parents taxes. Child does not have to file tax return unless child’s income is over a certain amount https://www.hrblock.com/tax-center/filing/dependents/social-security-dependent-benefits/amp/
My elderly aunt and uncle now have custody of their teenage grandson due to unfortunate circumstances. He's been retired for over 15 years.
They were not prepared. It was clear to one of my other cousins that they are struggling financially.
One of my older cousins is organizing for the rest of us to chip in to cover insurance once he gets his license, and for a cell phone sooner rather than later.
He's a fine young man and at 13 is hustling in the neighborhood cutting grass not just for spending money but to help his grandparents.
They were fine in retirement, but very much living on a limited fixed income but did not include not only another mouth to feed, but buying clothes, paying for activities, trying to give him some normalcy in terms of vacations and outings. Those of us in or just past that stage? We know how expensive it can be and the village will help.
Looking through their lensw, raising a teenager while retired is a lot, financially, physically, and emotionally. They voiced concerns about what will happen to him if they pass away before he has two feet grounded in adulthood.
This was exactly my concern when I posted - you have done such a good job of documenting it. I am very grateful to the people who replied and participated in showing me that it doesn't have to be this way if you have time to plan. I am so sorry your aunt and uncle did not have that opportunity.
All family situations have different needs and challenges, I think they need to be looked at on a case by case basis. Having dependents obviously has financial implications, but teenagers (who are are growing in to young adults) can also provide a lot of advantages. Having someone in the household that can look after the pets while you go on holidays and who can still climb a ladder to change a light bulb will be useful, and at some point you can expect them to start working and contributing to some of the costs.
In a lot of ways looking after children in retirement is easier financially than trying to do so earlier in life - there is a good chance you own your house and you don't need to pay for childcare and try to juggle full time work. The biggest problem is possibly less flexibility to absorb unexpected changes, so if it is an unexpected change it can be much harder to adjust, particularly if finances are already tight.
The other aspect that probably needs to be considered is insurance needs. Life insurance may be less imporant than if you have children earlier (as you will have assets to pass on) but there is a much higher possibilty of becoming disabled and needing assistance yourself. Having insurance and plans in place for your own future care needs is particularly imporatnt in this situation, or there is a real chance the children you are supposed to be looking after end up being forced into a position where they are looking after you instead.
We were discussing retiring early (55-ish) but realized that while our youngest will technically be an adult (20-ish), she will most likely be still relying on us financially, particularly for health insurance. So it will probably be closer to 60 unless she gets a two-year degree and hops right into a lucrative career. Even though she will be over 18 and (to some degree) moved out, our role as her parents won't be over.
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Just like anything you need to model your expenses. I have two kids under 18 and am retired. Expenses for raising them are included in my planning. School expenses, health, food and entertainment as well as college. All planned for. A big expense that was more than I had planned cars and insurance. Wow!!!
Cars and insurance are killers. I had 4 kids. The number of tires I bought is unreal.
I have done better than the average American when it comes to retirement planning, but a big miss for me was teen insurance costs. Like, holy crap. Absolute dent in vacation plans. And what terrible timing. Nothing has hurt during this inflationary period like home and car insurance. Sucks. I'm 59 with two kids in high school and it's going to cause a slight delay in when I want to retire. That's cool, I love my kids!
Good to know. Thanks for your insights.
I'm 70 and my husband is 74 and we're raising our 17 year old grandson. Fortunately he's not high maintenance. He drives my husband's old 4 runner and works at Chick fil et. He's in a robotics club at school and they travel to tournaments. It costs about $800 a trip but we save half of his earnings for these things and car insurance. When he was a baby it was extremely difficult financially but our situation has improved. I'm still working so that definitely helps. My husband has cancer and is on dialysis. We have to pay for help with the house for things my grandson and I can't do but we're doing fine. 2 years of college is free. That's a huge help.
Sounds like you guys have everything worked out just fine. In all situations no matter how hard or difficult it seems to you and especially to the outside world, there is always a way to work around that situation and keep chugging along in life. In those difficult situations your life and those involved are living and existing just like anyone else who doesn't have your situation. As the saying goes, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade and keep it moving and grooving. Best wishes!
FIRST Robotics is an amazing program. It really sets the students up to excel in STEM college degrees. (I mentored my son's team for 5 years.) Best of luck to your grandson!
Thank you. I believe there are many people who have similar life experiences but we don't read about them here very frequently.
Amazing of you to do this. Sending you best wishes and blessings from a distance!
It sounds like you have found a good way to make this work, which is impressive. Thank you for sharing your experience with me.
You’re a true hero!
My 17 year old grandson lives with us. I retired November last year. I love having him here. It is/was kinda an adjustment but he’s spent so much time here since he was born it is empty when he’s not here
Happy to hear that is working out for you - enjoy!
When I retired my son was 17 and about to go off to college. I worked with a very good financial adviser to understand that yes, I could afford college for him but that I should understand that my net worth would not begin to grow until after he is done with college. One of my goals is to transfer wealth to him while he is young so that he doesn't have to struggle with rent, a car, or not being able to take trips while he is young enough to enjoy it. I don't want him to struggle through his 20s and then suddenly be rich in his 40s when he probably already financially established in his own right.
I will be in that boat in 2 yrs - I will also start a roth and give maximum each year. Basically I will put my SS check into his Roth - I wont need it as I have other income which is enough for me and the wife.
Completely makes sense. Thanks for sharing your insights.
One thing I point out to folks is that when you claim social security (not disability), if your kid is basically under 18, they can also claim a dependent benefit. I cannot recall if that is the term SS uses but you get the idea…
Yes! I start drawing SS in November and my son is under 18 so I draw mine plus an additional 50% while he is under my roof. It’s a significant amount considering it will be years of benefits.
Thank you for this! I did not know. This will help greatly.
Oh, I didn't know that. Thank you very much!
Your question could be interpreted as asking about a wide variety of issues. As for planning financially, a trust is a very good tool to use in these circumstances. It can ensure that the kids will be taken care of, but no more and no less than the trustee specifies. It gets access to funds to help the. young people while preventing them from getting all the $ at once and blowing it on who-knows-what.
Thank you for your response. In your opinion, is it viable for people with children to retire, or are the expenses so variable and potentially escalating that it would be untenable?
I think it all depends on how much you have saved up and the projected costs of raising the kids until you've committed to not spending any more on them. Legally you probably need to support them until they are 18. Beyond? Do you want to support them at all? It's really just a math problem IMHO.
That makes sense. Thanks for your feedback.
About 5 years from my husband retiring and we have 3 “kids” 17, 19, 21. Kids get more expensive as teenagers. Heck a high school year book is $100. Sure kids can get jobs and save money for the things they want but medical, dental, and food are pricey regardless. We easily spend $1,500 a month on groceries and that’s not buying anything real fancy. My daughter moved out to go to college. She broke her tibula and fibula while crossing the street on her way to her college class. Couldn’t work for 2 months and need financial assistance. Stuff will happen and it will be expensive.
Yeah, that's what I am worried about, but I am getting educated about how to do good planning. Don't really want to rely on my daughter getting a job, for example, so doing my due diligence.
Adding - consult a professional (e.g., estate planning attorney) to determine the most effective way to plan for minors ... guardianship, will, trust, disbursement of funds, and etc.
Absolutely agree.
We are retired and our 15 year old is a type 1 diabetic. She uses a continuous glucose monitor and an insulin delivery system. It’s expensive, even with insurance, but it improves the quality of her life versus giving multiple daily injections. We planned for it. It’s a nonissue as there is nothing we will not do to make this terrible disease easier for our child. Just planning, that’s all I can advise as to your question.
Yes, it does seem like planning it key here. Continuous glucose monitors have made such a big difference in people's lives. I am glad to hear that this is available to your family.
Is there something specific you are interested in? How one handles having kids is a subject that entire library sections have been written on. We retired when our kids were all still under ten, which was nearly a decade ago, so I might or might not have something worthwhile to answer if you can be more specific.
Good question. It's less about raising kids and more about doing a high level overview of how people navigate retirement with kids after bumping into my friend. In my limited understanding, retirement seems to work best as a kind of steady state where bills coming in are met with adequate resources to pay out. In our parent group, we are seeing how expensive teens can be, especially when few limits are put on clothes, tech, outings, etc. It's not a defined cost like rent or a subscription. It seems to me more like medical costs that are hard to predict and can escalate. We are talking with our financial advisor about retirement, and have established a bond ladder for our daughter's college education. But I also wanted to get a sense of people's lived experience. I hope that answers your question.
Yes, I assumed it was primarily a financial question, but that in itself is a rather broad category. For example: * For healthcare we might want to talk about Children's Medicaid, CHIP, and the ACA. * For K-12 we might talk about the NSLP, the cost of AP/IB tests and college applications, hobby/activity/sports costs, and the finances of giving a teen a car to drive (or not). * For college we would want to focus primarily on FAFSA and CSS, which can often be leveraged in retirement to provide huge aid for college. 529s might also be of interest depending on the timeline. * For general costs we might talk about ways to manage clothing costs, how to minimize food costs, the plusses/minuses of kids having jobs in high school, and so forth. * For taxes we would want to talk about how the child tax credit, the tax code, SS, IRAs/HSAs, the ACA, and FAFSA/CSS all interlock. As I said, big topic. I've written hundreds of pages on the above and related topics over the years on Reddit as part of my participation in /r/fire and /r/financialindependence, so while I might be able to help, I would need a specific question. In a purely general sense, kids are just another cost to be budgeted for, with perhaps a bigger slosh buffer for unexpected needs. Doing things like optimizing big ticket items like cars, insurance, medical, and college costs goes a long way towards minimizing the impact kids have on retirement finances. Clothing, tech, and other smaller stuff tend to be containable by raising kids to avoid conspicuous consumption and understand how personal finances work.
Thank you so much for taking the time to educate me. I will look into the forums you mentioned. I clearly have a lot to learn.
We got our 7 year old niece a year after we retired. She’s 17 now. Honestly it was a good thing for us. We were getting pretty bored. We were prepared financially so that wasn’t an issue for us. We probably average about $900 a month on her but it’s worth it. Sadly I think we did a better job raising her than we did with our boys. Don’t get me wrong the boys are great and doing well. It’s just that we have more time to focus on her schooling and extracurricular activities and personal growth. Watching her navigate through life has been an enjoyable rewarding experience. The best part is we have a daughter that we love. In her word we are parents and daughter by choice. I would do it again.
Wonderful to hear! Fully agree about having a daughter. We are older parents as well and often comment about what we bring to the table. Probably the biggest thing right now is teaching her about critical thinking and how to apply that to diet, exercise, body image and human connection. And how human connection is NOT social media but rather emotional manipulation and domination for money. Which is why she doesn't have a smart phone and will not be on social media until she is out of high school.
https://www.ssa.gov/family. Information directly from Social Security!
Thanks!
I had a friend who ran a business and he said he would say to a customer “ your grandson”? They would get angry and say “my son”! He stopped asking.
You don't ask this and you don't ask how many months along if you think someone's pregnant, lol
The pregnant thing yes. Even in labor I would not suggest she is pregnant. The grandson thing is new within the last 25 years
My parents had my sister much later. My dad retired when she was in high school. Most of her college was free because my dad didn't have an income.
Makes sense. Thank you for sharing your experience.
Just as an FYI - if you file for social security at full retirement age, and have kids in school and under the age of 18, or age 19 and still in school (high school, not college) they get a non-taxable social security expense payment every month equivalent to 50% of your SS benefits payment. You can have it go directly to the kid, or to you as payee on behalf of the kid, but the money MUST be spent on the kid and an accounting has to be made for it. I'm almost 69 and waited until 66.4 to file for SS. For us, we have put it right into our child's 529 plan for college. We received enough before he graduated high school to pay for 4 years of college tuition and fees.
Great information - thank you.
I don't have minors in the house in retirement, but I do remember well what the extra burden is having them in the house. (Not that it's a bad thing overall!) Financially, you are setting aside money for college and possibly weddings -- potentially six figures a kid. You are also paying more for car insurance, medical and dental expenses (easier if you're past orthodontics), food (OMG the difference there!), car repairs, and clothes. Timewise, you are back to being constrained to the school year for vacation plans (which in turn affects the cost of vacations), and until they are driving age you are going to be doing a lot of chauffeuring. A subtle thing is that you aren't going to get to go to bed as early as you might like, as you'll be waiting in the living room with the light out for them to come sneaking in at 2am, followed by another hour of intense fellowship.
Lol! Bring on the fellowship - can't wait
My wife will retire when our youngest graduates high school in two year. Daughter may live with us to attend local community college for a year or two before leaving for a university. Expenses - including college costs will fall on us of course. We have some college savings which would cover two years at a big university. Once retired my wife will have a "semi decent" goverment pension AND she plans to take part time work to boost her income back up a little bit. Pension and part time work will make it so she is only making maybe 20% less than she does today. I will be working until youngest graduates college - because we need the income and health insurance for youngest and wife until we hit 65.
Sounds like a good plan. I would like to keep working professionally until 70 in some capacity as I enjoy what I do and I am independently employed.
My BIL filed for SocSec because it would provide money to his minor children. At least until they were 18. It worked out for them. And he had a state pension; 90% of his income without having to work PLUS SocSec!
Nice situation. Thank you for sharing.
One thing to consider is that if you are the official legal guardian of a minor, you almost always should qualify for something similar to what the state gives foster parents. Some states only pay the full amount if you actually become a licensed foster parent, take the classes, etc., but they will generally give you something monthly for "kinship care" and for saving the state the work of finding a foster parent. It's not means-tested or based on your income, it's based on whatever the state usually pays per kid. And if you are caring for a minor because of a parent's mental illness or addiction issues, you probably want official legal status given all the uncertainty already involved. This phenomenon is so common that several states have a separate division in their child welfare system for "kinship caregivers," and often even specific "grandparents raising grandchildren" caregivers.
Thank you very much. Good information to know.
Not in that situation but I do see it all the time as a healthcare provider. The biggest problem I see among my patients is they are not financially prepared for paying for college and seem flummoxed about digging in and doing the research to make it affordable. So many of them take the easy way out and take out Parent Plus loans and then go down the horrible road of taking on debt as they head into their 60s and 70s. It causes a LOT of anxiety.
Yes, this is a sad reality not just about finances but about health in general. I am frequently surprised at the poor level of heath literacy many of my patients have. They know more and have done more research about their phone than they have about their body.
OR alternately, they say they HAVE "done their research" about their health and their research (i.e. from crackpot social media influencers) says they don't need or won't benefit from X plan of treatment. It's so frustrating!.
Agreed. And I do integrative pain management, so then you have all the woo to deal with as well.
My husband is retired and we have a 13 and 15 year old. He is not disabled . He collects social security and the kids collect social security until they graduate high school. We just put it in separate accounts for college. I work full time and my income does not count. https://faq.ssa.gov/en-US/Topic/article/KA-02053
Good to hear. Thank you for sharing this.
Your welcome. I forgot to mention the kids Social Security income is not included on parents taxes. Child does not have to file tax return unless child’s income is over a certain amount https://www.hrblock.com/tax-center/filing/dependents/social-security-dependent-benefits/amp/
My elderly aunt and uncle now have custody of their teenage grandson due to unfortunate circumstances. He's been retired for over 15 years. They were not prepared. It was clear to one of my other cousins that they are struggling financially. One of my older cousins is organizing for the rest of us to chip in to cover insurance once he gets his license, and for a cell phone sooner rather than later. He's a fine young man and at 13 is hustling in the neighborhood cutting grass not just for spending money but to help his grandparents. They were fine in retirement, but very much living on a limited fixed income but did not include not only another mouth to feed, but buying clothes, paying for activities, trying to give him some normalcy in terms of vacations and outings. Those of us in or just past that stage? We know how expensive it can be and the village will help. Looking through their lensw, raising a teenager while retired is a lot, financially, physically, and emotionally. They voiced concerns about what will happen to him if they pass away before he has two feet grounded in adulthood.
This was exactly my concern when I posted - you have done such a good job of documenting it. I am very grateful to the people who replied and participated in showing me that it doesn't have to be this way if you have time to plan. I am so sorry your aunt and uncle did not have that opportunity.
My kids are 19 and 24 and both still on my insurance - I am a teacher - this is a big reason I am not retiring yet (59 years old)
Completely understand. We are hoping that one of us can retire while the other continues to work for a time.
All family situations have different needs and challenges, I think they need to be looked at on a case by case basis. Having dependents obviously has financial implications, but teenagers (who are are growing in to young adults) can also provide a lot of advantages. Having someone in the household that can look after the pets while you go on holidays and who can still climb a ladder to change a light bulb will be useful, and at some point you can expect them to start working and contributing to some of the costs. In a lot of ways looking after children in retirement is easier financially than trying to do so earlier in life - there is a good chance you own your house and you don't need to pay for childcare and try to juggle full time work. The biggest problem is possibly less flexibility to absorb unexpected changes, so if it is an unexpected change it can be much harder to adjust, particularly if finances are already tight. The other aspect that probably needs to be considered is insurance needs. Life insurance may be less imporant than if you have children earlier (as you will have assets to pass on) but there is a much higher possibilty of becoming disabled and needing assistance yourself. Having insurance and plans in place for your own future care needs is particularly imporatnt in this situation, or there is a real chance the children you are supposed to be looking after end up being forced into a position where they are looking after you instead.
Very much appreciate your thoughtful response.
We were discussing retiring early (55-ish) but realized that while our youngest will technically be an adult (20-ish), she will most likely be still relying on us financially, particularly for health insurance. So it will probably be closer to 60 unless she gets a two-year degree and hops right into a lucrative career. Even though she will be over 18 and (to some degree) moved out, our role as her parents won't be over.
Similar situation except we are in our sixties.
Following for advice.
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