#family-finances

#family-finances

In October 2024, my husband and I welcomed our first child into the world. I took a six-month maternity leave, which was provided through my senior user experience researcher job at Microsoft. During that time, I decided to turn it into a more extended career break. I resigned from my position, and my employment formally ended a few months later.

The pressure to provide and increase my salary is starting to feel interminable

My husband and I have been together since university and married seven years. We had a business windfall last year, and we chose to spend some of it on my family. We took everyone in my family on an overseas trip, all expenses paid. And when my sister had her first baby, we were able to gift her $10,000 towards establishing a college fund.

For Love & Money is a column from Business Insider answering your relationship and money questions. This week, a reader no longer wants to sell her starter home, as she and her husband had once agreed upon. Our columnist reminds her that it's not about who gets their way - it's about sharing a life they love. Dear For Love & Money,

My company pays for the employees' health insurance and then the employee can add (and pay for) additional insurance, including for kids. "Kids" insurance costs the same if you have one kid or six kids. When Anna and Ben graduated college and started working, I kept them on my insurance because I was already purchasing the "Kids" insurance for Caroline. Anna switched to her own insurance at 26 and Ben will be 26 soon and do the same. Caroline now has a full-time job with benefits, including insurance. Her insurance is not free, but costs significantly less than "Kids" at my company. I never had a stated plan to insure my children until they were 26-it just worked out that way for my older children and didn't cost me any additional money. But it's clearly a benefit they received courtesy of me that Caroline won't receive.

What if your parents have no retirement savings? This is an issue that a Reddit user is currently dealing with. His parents are Baby Boomers who, he says, exhausted their funds five years ago - although they only told him when they were on the brink of homelessness. Because of health problems and age-related constraints that make work impossible, the user stepped in to support them and to manage their finances.

When you added up the numbers between both of our family households, it was going to be something that we could not keep going long term,

In 2020, Lisa was earning roughly $110,000 a year in a remote, corporate manufacturing role when she received an offer for a hybrid job that paid about $150,000. After talking it over with her husband, she landed on an unconventional solution: Take the new job - and keep the old one, too. For 18 months, Lisa secretly worked two full-time roles, earning roughly $250,000 in 2021 and averaging 40 to 50 hours a week across both jobs.

A few years ago, my husband and I turned to gestational surrogacy to grow our family. It could cost tens of thousands of dollars, so we wanted to lower our living expenses while saving for it. Meanwhile, my mother-in-law, who had lost her husband a few years back, was living alone in a four-bedroom house. "I have all this space and I would love to have you all so close," she'd said.

My partner's sister is expecting her third child in December, it was quite a surprise, she found out at 20 weeks. I'm happy for her and excited about the baby, but concerned about the financial side. She and her husband haven't worked in nearly a decade. They're barely getting by on government support, and my partner has loaned her money over the years. She currently owes him over $1,000-though she pays small amounts back, she borrows more than she repays.

I don't know my parents' financial situation, but it's playing on my mind that maybe this is favouritism?

As families prepare to send their kids off to college or to start their first jobs, it's time to foster the next phase of their financial growth. Start by having an honest conversation about what you're willing to contribute financially. Many parents help their young adult children, often at the expense of their own retirement plans, so it's critical that you have a clear idea of what you can afford.