We want to travel more extensively! We want more flexibility with our time for volunteering! Give me more days at the beach!
While helping our clients plan for a fulfilling and impactful retirement, we hear many goals such these. We encourage our clients to be both ambitious and creative.
Recently, we have witnessed a new trend in retirement goals: the desire to leave a living legacy. Why should I wait until I have passed away to benefit my children? I want to make them happy now while I’m alive and around to see them enjoy it. However, I’d rather not simply give them money directly. What can I do?
Contribute to a college fund for your grandchildren
Parents with young children voice common concerns: How in the world are we going to afford college? We know the costs, and we know they’re going up. We also know that we don’t want our kids burdened with debt. However, we would like to pay the mortgage, travel a little, and maybe even retire at some point. Is there any way we can make this work?
As a grandparent, you have a great opportunity to make a family impact that could last generations. By helping your grandchildren save for college, you provide several important benefits:
- Potentially open the doors to better schools
- Minimize the potential for debilitating student debt after graduation
- Encourage post-graduate education
- Enable your adult children to save toward other ventures
- As always, there are various ways to go about this. Some provide more benefits than others for you and for the future student and their parents. If this is something you would like to explore, let’s talk.
Help with your grandchildren’s activities
Most parents not only want to provide the necessities for their children but also give them opportunities to play sports, explore music and socialize with their friends. Many of our clients take this opportunity to help their children provide these and other experiences for their grandchildren. A few examples are:
- Sports camps or equipment for school sports
- School trips or other youth group travel
- Sports, music or other private lessons
- Offer to help with the travel back and forth from practices, lessons or other activities. This may draw even greater appreciation than a monetary contribution ever could!
Offer to babysit for a night or weekend
You’ve been there—running back and forth to soccer practice, band competitions, and birthday parties. Add in time spent grocery shopping, lawn maintenance and all the other typical home responsibilities that consume your calendar. For many parents, a few hours of rest, let alone a whole day or weekend, is a major relief. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it feels like a vacation.
What a great opportunity for you to flex your grandparent muscles. Not only can you provide an amazing reprieve for your children, but you also can create deeper relationships with your grandchildren that can last a lifetime.
Support their favorite charity
Are your adult children involved with a local charity or non-profit organization? If so, they are likely devoting plenty of their own time and money into a cause that is important to them. They would surely appreciate your support with a donation of money or, better still, your time by volunteering alongside them. This family partnership can create a legacy of giving back that could last for generations.
Keep your eyes and ears open for opportunities
There is no better source of information on how you can help than your children themselves. However, they may not ask directly or wear their stresses on their shirtsleeves. The best thing you can do is to actively listen for cues as to what they are feeling and where they may need help. Did they comment about how expensive college books will be this semester? Have they mentioned that they haven’t had time for a family meal in weeks? Have they said that they just need a few days to themselves but the outlook looks grim?
By staying tuned in and communicating often, it is likely that you will find plenty of opportunities to provide a living legacy for your family. For many of the clients we serve, this is a core goal for retirement and something that makes them happier than they ever imagined.