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A Reddit user discovered his parents had spent all their retirement money.
He’s now supporting his parents, but he set some limits on their budget.
Many other young people could be asked to help out Boomer parents with too little invested.
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What if your parents have no retirement savings? This is an issue that a Reddit user is currently dealing with. His parents are Baby Boomers who, he says, exhausted their funds five years ago — although they only told him when they were on the brink of homelessness. Because of health problems and age-related constraints that make work impossible, the user stepped in to support them and to manage their finances.
He persuaded them to sell their large, debt-laden home (despite their request that he simply continue paying their mortgage). Now they live in a modest cottage near him so he can regularly assist them. While his mother complains about the neighborhood and his father bristles at having someone else foot the bills, the real burden is the toll this situation takes on the user’s own finances.
To cope, he’s working two jobs. He’s hopeful that the home he bought for his parents will appreciate and ultimately yield a profit, but he’s also anxious: his child is about to graduate, with new expenses looming. At the same time, he’s committed to building his own nest egg so he doesn’t burden his son down the road.
Unfortunately, many Boomers are entering retirement without sufficient savings — so this Redditor is far from alone in having to decide how much help to offer. The encouraging news is that the original poster (OP) made several prudent moves while handling his parents’ finances. Others confronting broke Boomer parents may find lessons worth emulating.
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Baby Boomers are, unfortunately, woefully underprepared for retirement. Of course, some have plenty to live on. But, the Federal Reserve reported that 43% of 55 to 64-year-olds had no retirement savings in 2022. Many more have some savings, but far too little to last for life while still maintaining a comfortable living standard. As these Boomers leave work, a growing number of their kids will face the issues that the OP in this Reddit thread is dealing with.
Unfortunately, this means the next generation is going to have a tough choice to make: Sacrifice their own security or leave their parents to struggle and potentially face serious hardship.
This is an almost impossible choice, as most people don’t want to abandon their parents during their time of need. However, at the same time, if they spend too much money supporting the previous generation, they could find themselves repeating the cycle and putting their kids in the same tough spot.
The best and most logical solution is for those who are being asked to help support parents to consider both how much they want to help and how much they can afford. The former may be determined based on their relationship with their loved ones, but the latter should be based solely on their budget after prioritizing their essential expenses including retirement savings.
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If you are going to help mom and dad during retirement, you also want to do so in a way that genuinely benefits them and doesn’t just throw good money after bad.
The Reddit user was really smart here because he didn’t just start giving his parents money. Instead, he set conditions on the help he was willing to offer. He made them sell their large house, for example, and he put the house they are now living in into his own name since he was paying for it.
Helping your parents doesn’t necessarily mean allowing them to continue with damaging financial habits or even to continue living the same lifestyle they were on their own dime. If you are going to provide financially, you need to make sure your parents start to be wiser about money going forward so they don’t drive both you and themselves broke.
Undoubtedly, being asked to help out Boomer parents is not ideal. The OP did a decent job here of making things work, and if you follow his lead, you can also set limits to minimize the damage to your bank account.
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