{"id":649448,"date":"2026-06-20T19:34:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T19:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/649448\/"},"modified":"2026-06-20T19:34:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T19:34:10","slug":"at-23-ive-not-had-a-penny-from-my-parents-unlike-my-friends-i-know-how-to-save","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/649448\/","title":{"rendered":"At 23, I’ve not had a penny from my parents. Unlike my friends, I know how to save"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve realised there are two versions of adulthood in Britain. The first is the one where you pay your own rent, cover your own bills and watch every pound that leaves your bank account. The second comes with a regular transfer from Mum and Dad<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Among my generation, financial support from parents is remarkably common. Most of my property-owning friends<\/a> were either given interest-free loans from their parents or received an inheritance from grandparents that covered all, or most, of their deposit. Others get help with car payments, phone bills or the unexpected expenses that crop up throughout adult life.<\/p>\n

This financial privilege is looking to continue. New research shows that almost a quarter of Gen Z adults are not saving for retirement as they\u2019re relying on inheritance from their parents.<\/p>\n

In today\u2019s economy, it\u2019s hardly surprising. Rents are sparing, house prices stubbornly out of reach and a weekly food shop somehow costs twice what it did a few years ago. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot harder for youngsters coming into the workforce to find a job so parents want to give them a helping hand<\/a>. The amount that they might be helping is increasing because of those elements,\u201d says Alex Pugh, a chartered financial planner at Saltus, whose recent data shows that 73 per cent of high net worth parents have provided financial support for their adult children over the past five years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey want to give money to them at the most helpful point of their lives which is where you\u2019ve got university, house deposits being common themes of an earlier helping hand. There\u2019s also a personal perspective of the joy it brings, parents get an inherent amount of joy bringing their children forward and helping them in these circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n

Collectively, parents have handed their offspring \u00a338.5bn since 2021. According to UK Finance, those receiving family assistance can afford an average deposit of \u00a3118,073 and a property worth \u00a3317,846. Those without help manage a deposit of \u00a360,741 and a home worth \u00a3279,381.<\/p>\n

Of course I understand why parents do it<\/a>; they feel they have little choice but to help. If I had a child struggling to afford rent while working full-time, which is the reality for many Gen Z workers, I\u2019d want to help too. But I\u2019m beginning to wonder whether all this financial support is actually as helpful as parents think.<\/p>\n

Kara Gammell, a personal finance expert at MoneySuperMarket, says: \u201cThe research found that money habits that people have as adults are instilled by the age of seven, which is quite shocking. It\u2019s almost ingrained whether they\u2019re going to be a savvy shopper or an impulse spender by that age. However I think teenage years and early adulthood is a very important time to be taught how to manage money. It\u2019s about getting the right balance so they\u2019re not dependent on you forever. Parents need to encourage their children<\/a> rather than being there to fix things all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the most valuable things I\u2019ve learned in my five years of adulthood is how to manage my finances. Admittedly, I\u2019m no expert. But without the financial Plan B that many of my peers have, I had to learn how to budget a small salary from a young age.<\/p>\n

When unexpected costs arose, they came out of my own earnings. I had to turn down holidays and weekends away that friends could afford because half their rent was being covered, while mine was swallowing over half of my income. I\u2019ve spent months carefully calculating every purchase before I made it.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say I\u2019m hard done by, nor that I\u2019m somehow morally superior because I\u2019ve paid my own way (if someone offered me an interest free loan just to help me out, I\u2019d take it). But those difficult financial decisions taught me lessons that can\u2019t be learned when somebody else is always there to absorb bad spending habits.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a difference between helping your child through a difficult time and funding their lifestyle. I have friends in both situations. Some needed temporary support during genuine hardship. Others have never had to stand on their own two feet.<\/p>\n

Gammell says parents should set<\/a> a monthly budget for their children. \u201cIt can help them take ownership of their finances and have a better understanding of what they can and cannot afford to spend.\u201d Pugh adds that her older clients are often wary of \u201cchildren going over onto the side of them having an expectation that they don\u2019t need to work for anything and they\u2019re going to have a charmed life\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a tricky balance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Young people undoubtedly face more challenges today. Bloomberg\u2019s analysis of government data found the average salary for working-age graduates is around 30 per cent lower than it was 15 years ago. Meanwhile, the Institute of Student Employers found 1.2 million applications were submitted for just 17,000 graduate jobs in 2023-24.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no question that young people need support but there is a danger that the Bank of Mum and Dad<\/a> is being used to cover the cracks of an economy that no longer works. Parents see that wages haven\u2019t kept up with housing costs and how difficult it is to land a stable job so they help. And then they help again and again.<\/p>\n

Normalising the idea that adulthood requires a financial safety net is producing a generation depending on parental wealth<\/a>. Not only is it unsustainable for the generations to come after us but it\u2019s also producing many people who will never learn to handle their finances. \u201cDon\u2019t worry, mum will cover it,\u201d is what my friend recently said when her car brakes started squeaking. Another has quit their \u201cboring\u201d job and having their parents support them until they find one that takes their interest.<\/p>\n

The inequality between those of us without inheritance for financial privilege and those with backing is only getting larger. So while parents maybe helping their children in the short term, they\u2019re also fuelling a generation of adults where independence is a luxury none of us will be able to afford, or pass onto our own children. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I\u2019ve realised there are two versions of adulthood in Britain. The first is the one where you pay…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":649449,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[84,3363,242,4176,10719,4174,4175,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-649448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-cost-of-living","tag-features","tag-finance","tag-generation-z","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=649448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/649449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=649448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=649448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}