Tag: Adult

Money & Relationships: What to do if your adult children ask for money

money-kids-getty

Money is known to mar even the best of relationships. The conflict over cash could invade the privacy of spouses over something as innocuous as spending habits, rend the sibling bond over a legacy leading to legal disputes, or rip apart a friendship over borrowed money. While we do not aim to span the legal scope of financial disputes in this column, we will try to deal with financial dilemmas and reduce money-induced friction in relationships, be it family, friends or colleagues.

Should you ask your colleague to return the money he borrowed and forgot? What do you do if your relative asks you to be a guarantor to a loan? What if your sibling wants you to be a partner in his startup?

In this new series, we will help you tackle the awkwardness in a relationship caused by money. To start with, we explain what you should do if your adult child seeks financial aid. Should you give him whatever he asks for without considering its impact on your own financial situation? Or should you simply decline? Here are the six questions that will help you take a decision.

1. Is it a one-time help or has it been a frequent demand?
Your decision should be based on the child’s track record regarding such demands. If this is the first time or a rare instance that he is asking for money, you could consider it. If you know him to be facing a financial crisis, or is in a phase of life where your assistance could set him up professionally, you can offer the money, but on the condition that it is returned in a pre-determined time frame. If, on the other hand, this is only one in a long list of monetary demands that have sprung up from time to time ever since he achieved adulthood, it’s high time you put an end to it.

2. Is it likely to impact your retirement?
This is probably the most crucial question to ask yourself. If you do not have spare cash and dipping into your savings could slash your retirement corpus considerably, you should politely turn down the request. No startup or business venture is worth jeopardising your retirement.

If the child needs the money to tide over a crisis, suggest alternate sources of funding: he can monetise his assets by taking a loan against his securities, insurance or gold; he can sell his less important personal assets; use his credit card to meet an emergency; or as a last resort, take a personal loan. He will probably have enough time to shore up his depleted resources, but you may not be able to do so if you have a few years left for retirement. Also, he can take a loan to meet his financial needs; you can’t do the same to fund your retirement.

3. Is the money for a life-threatening situation or buying an asset?
If it’s the former, no parent can say ‘no’. In case of a medical emergency, parents would willingly empty out their coffers for their progeny. A better option is to be prepared for medical crises and advise the child to buy adequate health insurance. If such an option doesn’t exist, try to monetise your assets first.

If, on the other hand, the money is for acquiring a big financial asset like a house or a car, make sure it is offered as a loan and that you retain the joint ownership for the specified asset. Also lay down the terms of the loan clearly, with no ambiguity over the amount, time frame or ownership.

4. Is the money to be given as loan?
Except for medical emergencies, all funds offered as assistance to an adult offspring should ideally be in the form of loans. It is likely that you have already spent a small fortune on educating your children or for their weddings. If you have empowered the child to earn his own living and establish himself professionally, there should be few occasions for him to run to you for financial help. Avoid being the financial crutch for your child and let him meet his own financial challenges or find solutions to the crises he is facing.

5 Should you have a written agreement?
If the sum you are offering your child as a loan is large, make sure that you draft a legal agreement, clearly delineating the loan terms, including the purpose of the loan, exact amount or principal being offered, interest rate, time frame for repayment, options in case of defaults, and any other conditions you want outlined.

Even if the loan amount is not big, have a written contract in place to avoid family disputes later on. Both the parties should have a copy of the agreement and it should ideally be framed with the help of, and in the presence of, a lawyer. Do not be carried away by emotion and treat it as a business transaction to avoid an unlikely fallout at a later date.

6 Are the other siblings aware of it?
While the level of privacy involving the financial help to an adult child may depend on the dynamics of the family concerned, it is advisable to keep the other siblings in the know to avoid family disputes over inheritance. Also, if you are not in a position to offer the entire sum yourself, the other siblings could be asked to join in and reduce your financial burden.

Make sure, however, that all the transactions are in writing and all the parties have a copy of the agreement. In fact, you should also include the details of the loan in your will, so that if you die before the money is repaid, the amount can be deducted from the child’s inheritance and there is no ill-will involving other siblings.

If you have a wealth whine, write to us…
All of us have been in a financial dilemma when it comes to relationships. How do you say no to a friend who wants you to invest in his new business venture? Should you take a loan from your married brother? Are you concerned about your wife’s impulse buying? If you have any such concerns that are hard to resolve, write in to us at [email protected] with ‘Wealth Whines’ as the subject.

Disclaimer: The advice in this column is not from a licensed healthcare professional and should not be construed as psychological counselling, therapy or medical advice. ET Wealth and the writer will not be responsible for the outcome of the suggestions made in the column.

[“source=economictimes.indiatimes.”]

Kinky Cakes: Inside The World Of Adult Bakeries

Sweet n’ Nasty molds hundreds of adult chocolates in house, including these handcuffs and keys — which are used to top bachelorettes’ cakes or sold on their own with the phrase, “Eat your way out!”

Courtesy of Sweet n’ Nasty Bakery

In the early 1980s, Niki Novak’s sister bit into a cake shaped like a man’s, um, member. It was disgusting. It wasn’t the idea of the cake she found distasteful, mind you, but its actual flavor.

When Novak heard about the incident from her sister, she wondered: Why couldn’t you make risqué cakes that tasted good, too?

Thus was born Sweet n’ Nasty, a Boston bakery that specializes in confections shaped like boobs, butts and vaginas, as well as an alarming array of penises. While bachelorette parties are a natural source of business, you’d be surprised by how many other events the bakery has catered over the past 35 years.

Think birthdays, divorces, vasectomies, breast implants, job changes, prison releases, military deployments and even some bachelor parties. (“May your genitalia never fail ya.”)

And then there are the funerals.

” ‘Asses to asses, dust to dust,’ ” Novak says. “People just want it for their last send-off” — a final laugh. (In at least one case, she says, the cake was a final request from the deceased.)

Bakeries that make genitalia-themed cakes usually advertise them under a separate adult or erotic section of their websites. But Sweet n’ Nasty is hardly the only bakery to exclusively hustle these types of treats.

“Adult” doesn’t always have to mean dirty when it comes to cakes. Even traditional bakeries will churn out specialty cakes, like this divorce cake from Toronto-based Le Dolci Cakes, upon request.

Courtesy of Le Dolci Cakes

Kim Say says she hadn’t thought about making adult treats until around 2010, when someone asked her to make a cake with boobs on it. When Say realized that the customer was asking because the owner of the only adult bakery in Houston had died, she decided to start a new one, Adult Cakes by Kim.

For Say, “adult” doesn’t always mean “sexual.” Some of her cakes are infused with alcohol, or deal with the themes of adult life. “I have an entire selection of divorce cakes,” she says, noting that she can design these cakes to address specific marital problems.

For a woman who was divorcing a musician who had been cheating on her, “I got a bunch of [little plastic] guitars and then I broke them in half and I threw them all over the cake,” she says. One of Say’s customers is a lawyer who usually buys five or six divorce cakes per year to give to his clients.

Say also receives orders for breast cancer survivors. She has made flat-chested corset cakes to mark mastectomies and catered many “nipple parties” for women who have had nipple reconstruction surgery. You can order anything you want for these parties, including cupcakes that just look like huge nipples.

But there is one line neither baker will cross: tiered wedding cakes. Novak says they come with too much multiple-tastings drama.

Over the years, Novak’s bakery has received some celebrity attention. One time, when the singer Cher was signing autographs at Tower Records, a Sweet n’ Nasty employee ran over to present her with a penis pop. Cher, as Novak tells it, “was all over it.”

Novak says that her bakery is all about making people laugh while giving them something good to eat. But given the nature of her work, Novak sometimes hears customers worry about what Grandma will think when they’re picking up the cake. She says that if she hears back from those customers, “usually Grandma is the one that thinks it’s the most fun. She’s been around the longest.”

In fact, before a recent hip surgery, Novak’s 83-year-old mother worked at Sweet n’ Nasty on Sundays.

“She loves it,” Novak says. “My mother has a wonderful sense of humor. I think that’s where I get it.”

Becky Little is a writer in Washington, D.C. Follow her on Twitter.

[“Source-npr”]