Talking Turkey: Financial Advice for your Adult Kids

Doling out financial advice to grown kids is a lot like the classic Operation game. There's a small margin for error that requires near-surgical dexterity to successfully navigate. Oversell the advice, or come off as overbearing and you will be dismissed and lose out on your chance to help your child.
Yet it's clear that plenty of adult kids are still looking for some parental guidance. A recent Schwab survey of young adults between the age of 23-28 reports that 43 percent say they still turn to their parents for financial advice. Presumably that includes the one-third that say they rely on their parents for financial support as well.

Better Late Than Never In the Schwab survey just 17 percent of young adults say they feel well-prepared when it comes to saving for their future and 40 percent described themselves as "poorly prepared." While young adults are undeniably juggling plenty of financial challenges -- student loan debt, a credit card debt hangover from their college days, and the jolt of "real life" expenses (the "surprise" most often cited in the Schwab survey) -- parents could give their kids a major assist by having the retirement planning talk.

A Link is Worth a Thousand Words
Maybe even better than a "you'll thank me later" chat on the wonders of compounding over decades, send your kid to the new LifeTuner website aimed at helping young adults figure out their best financial moves. The Age to Start Investing calculator doesn't exactly grab you by the eyeballs with a catchy name, but it lays down a compelling graphic case for how getting an early jump on retirement savings will pay huge dividends. Your kid can plug in three different start dates for saving and then see how that may play out over the years, including a snapshot of how much of their future nest egg will come from their own contributions vs. market returns. It's a refreshingly clear illustration of how much easier it is the earlier you get going.

The site, still in beta, also hits on all the usual financial-planning suspects-budgeting, credit cards etc.-in a Gen-Y friendly way, including a feature where your kid can enlist his or her Facebook minions to weigh in on the merits of big-ticket purchases.

It remains to be seen if LifeTuner's target audience will take issue with the site's backer: AARP. Yes AARP. Last I checked it wasn't exactly stuck with a narrow marketing niche given the 90 million+ Americans at least 50 years old. So is this super-aggressive advance marketing to future clientele? Perhaps. Or diversification into a new demo? Perhaps. Or maybe it's an acknowledgment that a large swath of today's AARP membership is in deep trouble because of all sorts of poor financial decisions they made in their 20s and 30s. And that's something one generation should never wish on another.

Photo: Habsro.

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