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 direct. 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, up from 47% in 2024 and 45% in 2023, a three-year high. The overall average comes to $1,474 per month per adult child, with parents of Gen Z children ages 18 to 28 giving an average of $1,813 per month. Perhaps most telling: working parents who support adult children contribute an average of $1,589 per month to their kids and just $673 per month to their own retirement accounts, more than twice as much to the next generation as to their own financial future.
A separate November 2025 AARP survey of adults age 45 and older reinforces the scope of the problem. That research found 75% of parents in that age group are financially supporting at least one adult child, with average annual contributions of about $7,000. More striking still: 53% of those adult children are reportedly capable of meeting their own basic needs without parental help.
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, any available pension, and withdrawals from savings, a mix that offers little room to absorb large, sustained outflows.
Inflation sharpens that risk considerably. The consumer price index rose 4.2% for the 12 months ending May 2026, the highest annual rate since May 2023, driven in large part by energy costs that surged 23.5% year-over-year and accounted for over 60% of the monthly CPI increase. That surge has been fueled significantly by Middle East supply disruptions. That rate is well above what many retirees built into their long-term plans. Even a sustained 4% inflation rate can significantly erode the purchasing power of a fixed retirement income over a 20- or 30-year horizon. Money given away today is money that no longer compounds or serves as a buffer against rising healthcare costs, market volatility, or unexpected expenses.
Retirees must also account for sequence of returns risk: the reality that withdrawing or gifting assets during a market downturn locks in losses that future compounding cannot recover. The order in which portfolio returns occur matters just as much as the average return itself, which is why protecting retirement assets is especially critical for those without a wide 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 that have expanded the options available to savers. The SECURE 2.0 Act has introduced meaningful upgrades for 2026. Savers aged 60 to 63 can 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 financial 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 open-ended recurring monthly expenses. Married couples can combine exclusions to give $38,000 per recipient per year with no gift tax reporting requirement. For larger transfers, the lifetime estate and gift tax exemption rose to $15 million per individual in 2026 under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, up from $13.99 million in 2025, providing substantial room for tax-efficient wealth transfers for those with significant assets. The key in any case is that 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
Before giving money to your children, ask 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 that cover expenses, healthcare costs, taxes, and longevity. Do not anchor those projections to the lower inflation environment of a few years ago, and bear in mind that energy-driven inflation can arrive suddenly and linger. Plan for the possibility of living into your 90s, and factor in the rising cost of long-term care. The AARP data is a useful reality check here: three-quarters of parents over 45 are already giving, and more than half of the recipients could manage without the help. That gap between emotional pull and financial necessity is exactly where Orman’s rule does its most important work. If you have assets clearly beyond what you are likely to need under realistic assumptions, generosity becomes a genuine choice rather than a financial sacrifice. Protecting your own financial independence first is the surest way to ensure that a generous impulse today does not become a burden for the entire family later.
Editor’s note: This revision added the November 2025 AARP survey finding that 75% of parents age 45 and older are financially supporting at least one adult child, with average annual contributions of about $7,000, and that 53% of those children are capable of meeting their own basic needs. It also incorporated specific dollar figures from Savings.com showing working parents contribute $1,589 per month to adult children versus $673 per month to their own retirement accounts, and noted that Middle East supply disruptions have contributed to the energy price surge driving the May 2026 CPI reading.
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