The numbers are pretty convincing. Eighty percent of parents with adult children are paying or have paid expenses for those kids after age 18 according to a poll by Nerd Wallet.
The poll found more than half were buying groceries, 40 percent were paying for health-care and about the same amount were paying cellphone bills.
As many as 60 percent of baby boomers are helping their own parents too with groceries and medical bills.
The end result is those baby boomers are spending money they should be saving for their own golden years.
It means their kids will likely have to pay for them and the cycle continues.
“You really can't finance retirement, whereas you could've financed maybe the college loans or something else,” said Lora Hoff.
Hoff is a financial planner who tries to help people caught between funding their parents and their kids.
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She said the problem is growing and encourages the so called sandwich generation to stop being so generous and instead be honest of their finances and what they can realistically afford to provide for others.
“All parties really need to sit down and kind of set expectations and parameters so you could say, 'OK, I'm willing do this much, this many hours per week, per month, this many dollars' really try to get other sibling involved," said Hoff. "I mean, don't let it just all fall on one person just because maybe that person lives in the same town as the parents and the other siblings are able to, you know, keep it out of sight, out of mind. You really need to make it a team approach [with] as many people as could possibly be involved, involve them.”
