Do you or someone you know give money to your parents?

My parents gave us everything they could growing up and had very little for themselves. They're good and honest people.

I gave them a secondary credit card on my account and told them to spend up to 1k per month on it.

They rarely reach that level and my mom is always checking in with me to see if purchase X is ok. I have to remind her that I consider that money hers anyways, she can do what she wants with it.

They can afford to live without that money but to me it's the extra that makes their life more enjoyable. They sometimes go out to restaurants (which they pretty much never did), go see shows from time to time and have gotten themselves some new clothes also which they hadn't done more than a handful of times in the last decade.

I'm gonna pay for dental work they need and also vacations together with them.

Not answering your actual question but I hope everyone in this thread who dreams of being able to give back to their parents is able to do so one day.

Former (US) tax lawyer here. You can give up to the maximum allowable gift amount each year, to each of your parents. If you are married, your spouse can do the same (for your parents and their own). This year, the annual gift amount is $17,000, which means you can give up to double that ($34k), and you + spouse can give up to quadruple that ($68k) to your parents.

I never worked on this type of matter directly (I was on the corporate side, not personal), but IIRC there is a form you can fill out to make one gift and have it tap both your and your spouse's gift amounts. But if you're just doing checks, you can easily make them out in four separate checks. The form is useful if you're giving them a car or painting that is below the $68k but above the individual-to-individual gift amounts.

1: https://www.morganlewis.com/pubs/2022/10/irs-announces-incre...

I regularly 'help' my family with out of pocket purchases and expenses. I avoid giving money directly unless as cash because they prefer it that way. I also subsidize one parents rent by offering her reduced rent at a property I own. We still have a contract, but she doesn't pay the full amount I would charge other tenants.

The reality for many of us who grew up in poverty and may have 'made it' to a greater or lesser extent is that our families are likely didn't. It's shocking to me how many M's and Z's don't see themselves as being responsible for their families. I find it highly disappointing.

I would love some input on this too. I have plans for my retirement at 65 and it requires to save me a good chunk of money. I ran some simulations and if I have to pay long term care for all our parents (me + my wife), we will end up bankrupt in old age.

My biggest concern remains my mother, she is frugal for the small things, but she was highly incompetent with her financial life. She started way ahead (super expensive home from parents, education), she faced a divorce and sold the home, but those money are still lasting nowdays (30 years later), but not very much. She never invested any of that and faced economical challenges to grow me and my sister. Now, back to myself, I started life with 0 money from my mother but education was fully paid (pretty common in the country I come from, since it's public education). She obviously gave me plenty growing up, but she didn't plan anything for retirement.

I will of course feel the urge to help, but it's frustrating to think that given the money she had once sold the home, she could have invested those money and live without working and still own a smaller property.

Essentially, I have this mixed feeling of having to care for a person that started with way more than I started with, but due to poor management, it got all wasted.

I don't even know how to handle those emotions.

If you're giving $30,000 per year as a gift, you should definitely be paying for an accountant and you should ask them about what options there are for tax optimizing this.

There may in your jurisdiction be nonobvious ways to structure this kind of thing that would be advantageous to both you and your parents.

How to ask a question poorly. Which tax jurisdiction? Are your parents living in the same country or a different country?

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=tax+benefit+of+supporting+parents&...

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=tax+benefit+of+supporting+overseas...

My dad had an ischemic stroke a few years shy of social security eligibility. I set up a checking account he's an authorized user on, and I top it up to a few hundred dollars a month. He has a debit card and knows it'll have a balance of $x00.00 on the first of every month.

30-40 % of my income goes to my parents. I pay tax on it first before sending.

Do you give money to your parents because they need it (i.e poverty), or because it's a cultural thing?

Here in Norway, it's more or less unheard of to give money to your parents, unless they're financially screwed (in other words, debt) - but that's usually a very temporary thing.

But I've worked with people from all over Asia, and many of them would regularly send money back home. Especially Indian co-workers would send significant sums back home.

I actually take all my mom's money every month and put them in one of my accounts.

Then I pay her fixed expenses and give her cash whenever she wants. She mainly spends money on yarn and LPs.

After retiring, her only trouble in life is her health and her children who beg money from her.

She can't refuse them, but she kept saying she doesn't want to. Eventually we agreed that I admin her money.

We're planning that she moves in with me and my spouse.

Cooking for her every day and removing all economic worries is the best I can give her.

When she leaves Earth, she can decide who her money goes to. (I'm not on the list.)