[hammeringtime]

"My one big mistake in life has been providing a trust fund for my five children. I’m very comfortable paying for an education for as long as they want to study in a reputable university. However, providing additional funds so they could have a lifestyle beyond what they have achieved on their own was a mistake."

This is one I've actually thought a lot about. Having gone to an Ivy League school, I'm not sure that it would be worth sending my kids to any university. The quality is going down, the tuition is going up. The cost of establishing a household after school is going up, so giving that 250k and 4 years to a university is a huge opportunity cost. It seems like there should be a lot cheaper and more efficient ways of building a network and developing career skills.

But I also don't want to just hand a 20-year old a trust fund of $250k instead of college tuition. So my current thinking is that I'll say: "We've saved up $250k to get you started in life. You can either spend that on a college education. Or you can get a scholarship or get a job directly, and we'll give you the money for one of the following activities: 1) starting a business 2) going to grad school 3) buying a home to raise a family in 4) Up to 6 months of travel or independent artsy work. The money will remain in the investments accruing returns until it is disbursed."

[btilly]

Find a copy of The Millionaire Next Door and read it. Particularly the last third about what happens inside of families where the parents have money.

Long story short, the "one big mistake in life" quote is exactly right.

[endymi0n]

I'd be glad for a short TL;DR... care to provide one?

[nugget]

Why not put the $250k into a perpetual trust that yields an inflation adjusted 4% forever? That's a comforting but not overwhelming $10k/year tailwind that they can learn to manage over time. No worries about blowing all the money. Basic income is coming at some point anyway this just gives them a head start.

[applecore]

If you're going to give, do it unconditionally.

Parents forcing their children into servitude, so they can only choose among a set of activities deemed to be “acceptable,” sounds like hell.

[pauleastlund]

Really? Parents offering to subsidize some activities, but not others, are "forcing their children into servitude?" Give me a break. If your parents attaching a few conditions to the $250k trust fund they hand over to you "sounds like hell" try to imagine growing up without a $250k trust fund in the first place. (Or, far worse, without parents.)