Should you save for your kid's retirement?

Should You Save For Your Kids’ Retirement?


No doubt, your kids are probably in need of some serious retirement savings help — eight in ten Gen Y workers, for example, will not be able to meet all of their financial needs in retirement unless they “significantly” improve their saving and investing behaviors, according to a 2010 study by HR consulting firm Aon Hewitt. But the question is: should you be the one to give it to them?

The first rule of thumb when pondering this question is to make sure to “put your own retirement savings first,” says Rick Rodgers, CFP, and author of “The New Three-Legged Stool.” In effect: If you don’t have enough saved for your own retirement, don’t start handing over your hard-earned dollars to the children.

But if you’re on track for retirement yourself, it can be personally rewarding, not to mention extraordinarily helpful to your children, to start helping them save for retirement, he says. Rodgers outlines four ways to do it:

http://blogs.smartmoney.com/encore/2011/07/07/should-you-save-for-your-kids-retirement/?mod=rss_&link=SM_home_blogsum

No wait - that is a good idea.

You want to give them money, give them the money.

I'll be working until I'm dead.

I know there are probably people who are smarter and better planners than I who will be retiring at some point in their lives, but I really don't want to think about that as it heightens my despondency.

My kids are learning by my example what not to do and will probably be fine.

:wtf:

Right?

The only way I see low and middle income families could possibly help in their offspring's retirement is if they have a good retirement plan of their own. And then leave any remaining to them when they pass. Prior to that the children should plan as if they will not receive much if any.

I just hope one of my kids ends up with a decent job so I can park my van in their driveway and use their bathroom.

--with enormous student debt on McJob wages?

unable to save for retirements, so parents might want to save for them.