HSD: Our Kids are Costing Us a Fortune

If the government figures are to be believed all us baby-boomer parents (in Australia anyway) gave our kids AUD$22 billion in 2011 and we will give them about AUD$25 billion in 2012. This is not including the cost of any ‘free’ accommodation provided, food, or clothing. This $22 billion is for stuff like help with deposits for houses/land, buying them cars, petrol, entertainment, and other ‘help in life’ costs such as buying them mobile phones, computers, etc.

Based on the figures released we are giving our ‘kids’ much more ‘help in life’ money than our parents ever gave us.

Oh! I should point out that ‘kids’ here refers to children from 16 to 25.

It seems that, on average, us baby boomers (yep, I am one) gave our 16 to 25 year old kids something like $6,280 each in 2011, and we will give them about $7,000 each (on average) in 2012.

Now I realise that averages make it hard to work out what is really going on. Some baby-boomer parents probably give their 16 to 25 kids nothing—or almost nothing. Then there will be other boomer parents giving their kids much more than $6,250 in 2012.

I am pretty sure my 22 year old (in a few days anyway) has had way more than $7,000 this year so far so I am paying out above the average for sure.

Apparently, in today’s dollars, our parents provided us with about $1,500 per year of support, or about a fifth of what we are giving our kids. So kids these days really cannot complain about how much us baby-boomer parents are helping them.