Parents ‘sapping back’ from adult children

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NEARLY one in 10 adults has given money to his or her parents, handing over an average of £6,500 each.

According to insurer Scottish Widows, about 7% of people said they had helped out their parents financially, with 13% giving them money on five or more occasions.

Nearly six out of 10 people who have given money to their parents said they had wanted to help them, while 35% said they handed over the cash because they could afford to do so and 34% said their parents needed the money more than they did.

But 5% of those questioned said their parents had asked them for money but they had been unable to help because they could not afford to or did not have any savings to give them.

More than a third of parents who accepted money from their adult children said they needed the cash to repay debt, while 15% spent it on a new car and 14% used it to meet day-to-day expenses.

The group said one reason why parents were having to turn to their adult children for help was likely to be because they had given them money in the past that had been earmarked for their retirement.

Previous research by the group found that 22% of parents had handed over an average of nearly £13,000 to help their children get on to the property ladder or repay debt.

Anne Young, a savings expert at Scottish Widows, said: “It’s obvious that parents have felt the pinch as a result of being ‘sapped’ for thousands of pounds from their adult children, and are now turning the tables on them and ‘sapping back’.

“As over one-third of parents planned to use the money they handed out to their children for their own retirement, they are finding that they are missing the money in their later years.

“I do expect the trend of parents having to go back to their children for money to increase in the future.”