where do you draw the line on helping your grown children with debts or big purchases, such as a car, house or college loan?

Most of the stuff I read on kids moving back home with their parents focuses on the challenges for the parents: The loss of privacy; the need to share personal space; the noise level that seems to keep rising; the questions over who pays for what. I could go on–and you can read all about…

Hard times are here and there are lots of changes afoot: parents and their grown children are finding themselves more economically inter-dependent. Between 2000 and 2007, according to the U.S. Census, the number of parents living with an adult head of household increased by 67 percent. The numbers for 2008 and 2009 are bound to…

You never know where some gem or germ of wisdom will come from. Here's a little sensible advice from a law firm's blog. Of course, the writer is selling estate planning, but still, the comments make sense even if you're not drawing up an official plan. First, there's the question of whether you should share…

The 401k is melting; retirement seems further away than ever. And then there are the needs of our not-quite-independent adult children. They've got their college debts, the difficulty in finding a job in this economy. They may be threatening to move back home–it's an affordability measure. And, of course, all those hurts hurt us. We…

Here’s an interesting discussion about the pain a father feels about his daughter’s boyfriend. She’s moved back home and is involved with a man the father does not like. He sees the relationship as dysfunctional and possibly abusive.How hands-off should he be? What to do when your daughter is involved in a bad relationship that…

A few weeks ago I blogged about having “The Chat” with your grown children–the chat being about where your assets are and how they can track them down when you’re no longer here to tell them. When my mother had The Chat with me, it always gave me the creeps. And now I  am my…