The challenges facing today’s retirees are much different than what people were planning for two or three decades ago. One of the things we see much more now than we did before is what’s now being referred to as the ‘sandwich generation.’

This is the group of people that are sandwiched between taking care of their aging parents while also supporting their children. Meanwhile, this generation is also trying to do that without jeopardizing their own retirement.

That’s the situation that one podcast listener emailed and asked about. They are currently trying to manage their own finances while also doing as much as possible to help their adult child who is dealing with health problems that limit their ability to work consistently.  

This situation for the sandwich generation is actually pretty common. The first step to addressing it begins with financial planning because you need to determine just how much support you can actually give without losing the security you’ve built for retirement. Plus, a good advisor can also help you find resources to help with your daughter as well.

At the end of the day, we can’t tell parents what to do with their kids. They ultimately know what’s best but we work with them to understand their options and the best possible solutions. It’s also critical to know the possible repercussions as well.

So many people who come and meet with us feel like they’re all alone in dealing with this. They’re almost always surprised when they find out so many other people are dealing with similar situations involving their children. We have the benefit of working with many different people and scenarios that we get to see the variety of ways that things get handled and that experience gets passed along to our clients.

The other question we got this week on the Money Wisdom podcast was about real estate. Is it better to buy an investment property or just purchase a REIT?

In the research Joel and his wife have done for their own investing, he’s found that it can be difficult to be as successful as the people that do it all the time as their primary focus. If you enjoy fixing things and taking on that home improvement role, it might make sense for you. But the key is to be aware that it’s often much more time and effort than people realize before buying an investment property. Joel chose to keep things simple for his family and didn’t go down that real estate path.

For these and any financial questions you might have, our Money Map retirement review process is a great place to get started. Get in touch with us if you’d like to take advantage.

0:19 – Mailbag question on helping parents and children

2:04 – Advice for providing for adult children

5:19 – Mailbag question on real estate investing

7:08 – Money Map retirement review