Financial advice personality Suze Orman has a clear rule about giving money to your children: do not do it until your own retirement is completely secure. Orman has consistently emphasized that parents must prioritize their own financial stability before gifting to children, advice that can be emotionally difficult for many families to follow. As she has said publicly, “true generosity means that giving must not drain you in the process.”
The logic is straightforward. Your children can borrow for college, cars, or homes. You cannot borrow for retirement. Yet the pressure to help is real and growing. According to 2025 data from Savings.com, half of U.S. parents with adult children provide at least some financial support, a three-year high. The overall average monthly contribution is $1,474, with parents supporting Gen Z adults ages 18 to 28 giving considerably more, at roughly $1,813 per month. Perhaps most striking: working parents contribute more than twice as much monthly to their adult children as they put into their own retirement accounts.
Where Orman’s Advice Holds Up
Orman is right that running out of money in retirement can be financially and emotionally devastating. Unlike your children, you do not have decades of earning power ahead to rebuild savings. Retirement income typically comes from a fixed combination of Social Security, pensions if available, and withdrawals from savings. Once those sources are depleted or strained, there is no backstop.
Inflation compounds the risk sharply. The consumer price index rose 4.2% for the 12 months ending May 2026, the highest annual rate since April 2023, with energy prices surging 23.5% over the same period and accounting for more than 60% of the overall monthly CPI increase. That is well above the pace many retirees budgeted for, and even a sustained 4% inflation rate can severely erode what a fixed retirement income can cover over a 20- or 30-year retirement. Money given away today is money that no longer compounds or provides a buffer against rising healthcare costs, market volatility, or unexpected expenses.
Retirees must also account for sequence of returns risk: the mathematical reality that withdrawing or gifting assets during market downturns locks in losses that cannot be recovered through future compounding. The order in which portfolio returns occur matters just as much as the average return itself, which makes protecting retirement assets especially critical for those without substantial margin for error.
Where the Advice Needs Context
Orman’s framework is intentionally strict: secure yourself first, then consider helping others. But what qualifies as “secure” depends on individual circumstances and recent legislative changes. The SECURE 2.0 Act has introduced meaningful upgrades for 2026. Savers aged 60 to 63 can now contribute up to $11,250 in “super catch-up” contributions to eligible retirement plans, while those 50 to 59 and 64 or older have a standard catch-up limit of $8,000. Separately, the law created a pathway for rolling unused 529 college savings funds into a Roth IRA for the same beneficiary, up to $7,500 per year with a $35,000 lifetime cap per individual, subject to the account being at least 15 years old and other eligibility conditions.
There are also strategic ways to give without undermining your own security. Parents might consider one-time, bounded gifts structured around the 2026 annual gift tax exclusion of $19,000 per recipient, rather than taking on recurring monthly expenses with no defined endpoint. Married couples can effectively double that figure to $38,000 per recipient. The key is that any giving should come from assets clearly beyond what you are likely to need, not from funds earmarked to sustain your own lifestyle.
How Retirees Should Think About This
The scale of the problem is broader than many parents realize. A November 2025 AARP survey of adults aged 45 and older found that 75% are financially supporting at least one adult child. Nearly half of those parents in the Savings.com study reported sacrificing their own financial security to provide that help. The impulse is understandable, but Orman’s point is that good intentions today can create financial hardship for everyone in the family tomorrow.
Before giving money to children, ask yourself one question: Can I afford to never see this money again? If the answer is no, it is likely too soon to give. Run realistic projections covering expenses, healthcare costs, taxes, and longevity. Do not anchor those projections to the more benign inflation environment of a few years ago. Consider the real possibility of living into your 90s, and the rising cost of long-term care. If you have assets clearly beyond what you are likely to need under realistic assumptions, generosity becomes a choice rather than a financial sacrifice. Protecting your own financial independence first ensures that a generous impulse today does not become a burden for everyone in the family later.
Editor’s note: This pass corrected the Savings.com parental support figures, distinguishing the overall average monthly contribution of $1,474 from the Gen Z-specific average of $1,813, and added the finding that working parents contribute more than twice as much to adult children as to retirement savings. It also incorporated the BLS detail that energy prices rose 23.5% year-over-year through May 2026 and accounted for over 60% of the monthly CPI increase, and added a November 2025 AARP finding that 75% of adults 45 and older are financially supporting at least one adult child.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Top Gaining Stocks
Top Losing Stocks