My wedding cost $3,000, I don’t know the conversion rate off hand but I know we were told we would have to spend a MINIMUM of $20,000, O_O. We were blessed by a sister in law who does cake decorating and donated the cake, we had family and friends make dishes to serve during the open afternoon tea reception and they all donated the cost of the ingredients, and the bridesmaids purchased their own outfits (I chose items that, put together, looked very formal, but could actually be worn after the wedding) but other than that we paid for everything ourselves.

In contrast, we’re going to a mess of a wedding this weekend, between two kids who will be living with the husbands parents, and those parents are (unhappily) paying for everything. They’re not having anything fancy, but even so… :S As far as I can tell the parents didn’t know they’d be footing the bill until it was kind of too late to back out, the bride had a great full time job that she quit, to do door to door sales hoping she would strike it rich. The husband… don’t ask

I would absolutely help out with my kids wedding, depending on where I was needed, but the brunt of the cost needs to fall on them, if they want a fairy tale $50,000 wedding they’ll be paying for it.

In my experience kids who go to uni on their own dime appreciate it far more than those who have it paid for. If my kids wanted to go do a tafe (technical college) course I might pay for that as my parents did for me (which would range from $500-$2000),but if they’re going to full, 4-year uni, not a default in my mind, they’ll have to do with a student debt. Having said that, I would allow them to live at home for free, or with a minimal board payment, depending on the situation, so that would help them out.

A home deposit? Where are these parents that pay their kids home deposits?!? Am I too old to be adopted!?! Seriously, who does that? The closest I’ve seen is a set of parents who used the equity on their home to secure the loan for their children (so technicly the loan was split between them) but only the children made the actual payments and they made the payments for the money under their parents name first to clear their name from the loan. That wasn’t so much paying a deposit as putting your name as a garuntee your child would pay the loan regularly, it was all on paper, no money actually left the parents pockets.

I want a home, desperately, but we’re having to work for it like everyone else, and are stuck renting in the meantime. Now to be honest, if I find myself a millionare in 20 years I would totally pay my kids home deposit as a wedding gift! It’s a hard thing to save and the money wasted on rent in the meantime is sad, but short of becomming a millionare, no way I could even if I wanted to. I guess it’s different if you only have one baby, but I doubt my husband would say he’d rather have a home than his 7 siblings.