The boomers' share of the nation's wealth is greater than 50%.
finance.yahoo.com
This was a big blind spot of mine that my wife just let me in on. She knows of plenty of her friends that get money from their parents (we are late 30's early 40's). Neither of our parents have helped us at all since we graduated college...but I guess we were responsible enough we never really needed it. I suppose there is some luck there but we have survived two periods of unemployment for 6 months and never needed or asked for help.
I don't know of my of my friends that get help, but I suppose if I were getting help I wouldn't tell my friends because there'd be some shame in that (for me, at least).
I always knew it was happening but never really understood how often and to what level. Take the example I used of the kid that got 80K given to him.
He got married and his wifes car wasnt the best but worked. His parents told him to sell it and he could have their "old" car (about two or three years old old). He then got the 80K when he bought their townhouse (townhouse was about 140K). He then got a job and had to move for it. His parents paid the mortgage on the townhouse until he could get it sold so he could buy a new house where he moved to. (probably three to four months) The offer that they ended up accepting to sell the townhouse had the contingency that they had to finish the downstairs bathroom, that mommy and daddy paid to finish. A couple years after all of this, he totaled his pickup and his grandpa gave him his old (probably five to six year old pickup) to drive until he got a new one. He drove it for over a year.
This all happened before he was 25-26 years old. Kid started out with a 100K in help.
My wifes cousin, her parents and his parents pay for their cell phone bills. That would save my wife and I 100 bucks a month. They also rotate through the promos for new phones, so one of them is getting a new phone for cheap to free every couple years.
My aunt and uncle gave their kids their first car when they went to college. Not super nice cars but they were probably worth 10K at the time (2006-2013ish).
My mom has helped me some, not a lot. She paid for some groceries when I was in college and bought some plane tickets so I could be there for family vacations. My grandma would send me a couple hundred dollar check every year for Christmas, she bought a lot of books in college. She passed away a couple months ago and gave a big finger to her kids and left a good portion of her estate to her grandkids. So, I wouldnt say I havent had help but it hasnt been to the level that some people I know have gotten it.
I remember filling out FAFSA and it would give you your estimated parental contribution to your education. I am the youngest so my mom made decent money on paper but not in real life. It would generally state she could contribute 4K a year or so. I would also call her and jokingly ask if she wanted to send that to me in cash or check.
If you dont have what the people above have had, you cannot compare your life to them and think you are behind. They got a head start that you have to catch up to and the honest truth is, you probably will never catch up to them.
