Pay it back

NEFE reported that 75% of adult children living with their parents are helping out in return. More than half are chipping in money for groceries; others are helping with the mortgage, putting gas in the family car or paying the cable bill. Roughly 42% are contributing in nonfinancial ways as well, such as cooking or cleaning, or taking care of younger siblings. Helping adult kids to transition into independence doesn't mean walking them through all of the same steps that parents did. It's a very different economy now. "We change jobs so frequently that by age 35, we will have changed jobs 10 times," says Kimberly Palmer, author of Generation Earn: The Young Professional's Guide to Spending, Investing and Giving Back. "We need help and we need a lot more help than people used to.