How to ask your rich parents for money (and actually get it)
Listen and Follow Heir Necessities: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube
Your parents told you they want to give you money.
But they haven’t done anything yet.
And it's been months, or even years.
So what can you do to move things along?
Would you believe me if I told you a PowerPoint is your best next step?
Seriously, head on back to junior year of high school and dust off those animation and fly-in skills.
In this episode, I teach you how to build an A+ presentation that will get your parents to give you money.
This is a skill set I've been building since I was sixteen, and now I'm giving you all my tips and tricks:
Finding the right setting
Framing a shared fear
Getting vulnerable with your balance sheet
So you can stop dancing around family money conversations and get down to serious business.
Whether you’re seeking help with a house, college funding for your kids, or just more open money conversations in your family, this episode has what you need to know.
🗓️ Schedule a FREE call to talk more about how I can help you navigate a current or future inheritance.
Transcript:
Hey. I'm Katherine, and thanks for joining me at Heir Necessities, the podcast that turns complex financial topics into real talk for Gen X, Millennial, and Gen Z inheritors. Each episode of this podcast, I break down a different topic related to generational wealth and inheritance.
My goal is that you can stop trying to figure out how to manage your money by asking Google or ChatGPT what to do, and come here instead for real talk, real solutions, and real advice that you can start implementing today.
On this episode of Heir Necessities, I have something really special in store for you. I am giving you all of the secrets that I have used over the past 20 years to craft PowerPoint presentations that are specifically tailored to get my parents to give me money.
I've gotten over $2 million from my parents this way, and I'm going to be breaking down all of the secrets you need to know if you want to get on my level.
Does Asking Your Parents for a Financial Gift Actually Work?
Before I dive into it, a quick plug. If you are a long-time or a new listener of Heir Necessities and you've been enjoying the show, I'd be so appreciative if you could take 30 seconds and leave us a five-star review wherever you listen to podcasts. It is hugely helpful for the show and more importantly, it helps me connect with and support more inheritors just like you.
Now, let's dive into the episode that you didn't know that you've been waiting for. I want to set the stage first. My parents and I have a very open money relationship. We have never had secrets around money.
We've always talked about my wealth, my family's wealth, very freely. And I have never been hesitant ever about asking my parents for money.
The first time I made a PowerPoint presentation to try and get money from them, I was 16 years old and I was primarily interested in increasing the amount of money that I had to buy shoes at Nordstrom's. Real Seattle kid kind of a thing there. But over the years, I've refined my strategy into something that is not just about me.
How Does Family Financial Transparency Affect Your Ability to Ask for a Living Inheritance?
It's also about my parents and it's about the way that we talk about family wealth, that we talk about money, and honestly in my mind the way that we talk about their legacy. I had it easier than some of you because my family started from a place of radical financial transparency and also because my grandparents were really active in supporting my parents.
And giving my mom money to buy a house, money to support her lifestyle while she was still young and when she could really use that money. So my family has a tradition of giving large gifts, living inheritances, whatever you want to call them to support younger family members and getting them launched versus the tradition of holding onto the money really tight until you die and then giving all the money away.
So I am not saying that if you use my PowerPoint strategy, you are immediately and magically gonna transform your money-avoidant parents into my family. It's not gonna happen, I'm not gonna promise it.
I'm not even going to promise you that if you use this strategy, you're going to be successful at getting money from your parents. Because I have had clients that I have helped build amazing, well-researched, well-thought-out presentations based on what they heard from their parents, then they deliver it and it's a total shutdown. They're not willing to engage.
Can a PowerPoint Presentation Really Help You Get Financial Support From Wealthy Parents?
But what I will tell you is that if you use this PowerPoint strategy, you are giving yourself your best shot of being taken seriously by your parents as an adult who has a well-reasoned proposal that is not only beneficial for you, but also beneficial for your parents.
And so if you're trying to get more support from your parents financially, whether it's ongoing support, one-time support for a down payment, college funding for your kids, whatever it is that you're looking for money for, this strategy is your number one best option.
Again, it doesn't guarantee success, but it does give you the best chance that you could have. And I'm gonna stand behind that until someone tells me otherwise.
Where Should You Have the Money Conversation With Your Parents to Set Yourself Up for Success?
So let's set the stage. Before I run through how you should structure this presentation, I want you to think about physically where you are with your parents when you have this conversation. Okay? Are you at your house? Are you at their house? Are you on the phone? Are you on a Zoom call? Are you in some neutral third-party location?
Where are you sitting? If you are in person at one of their houses, what room are you in? What is the space where all of you feel the most comfortable and the most relaxed together? And also when you have had these conversations together, not necessarily many conversations, but kind of like difficult family life conversations, where do you have those conversations?
So for me, we always had our family meetings in my parents' living room. My mom sat in her chair, my dad sat in his chair, kids sat on the couch. That was always where we did it.
And so when I pictured these presentations, that's always where they've happened. As we've gotten older, we've done them in Airbnbs, different places, but it's always kind of in that same structure. And the reason that's important is because you want to set the stage and kind of get everyone primed that this is a serious conversation. This isn't their petulant child coming to say, why aren't you giving me more money? This is an adult who is coming to them with what is essentially a business proposition.
How Do You Invite Your Parents to a Financial Conversation Without Making It Awkward?
You don't need to say that but you want to give it some gravitas so that everyone takes it seriously and they know this isn't just some whim. Because what you want to avoid at all costs is them feeling like, this is just my kid who's begging for more money. You want to be taken seriously as an adult.
So you've set the stage, you figured out where you want to have this conversation. Next step is to actually invite your parents to it.
Send them an email, a phone call, however it works for you all to communicate. Promo to them, there's something that I want to talk to you about.
And ultimately throughout this whole video and all of the advice that I'm going to be giving you, I am the expert on strategy generally about how to get money from your parents. But you are the expert on your parents.
What Is the Best Way to Frame a Financial Request to Your Parents So They Take It Seriously?
And so it may be that you actually need to promo this conversation for months in person with your parents before you actually invite them to it. Or it may be that you could have one conversation with your parents where they say, yeah, we'd like to help you with a house. And then you can follow up with an email saying, hey, I heard that you'd like to help us buy a house. We actually have some thoughts that might be helpful for you as you think about how you can make that happen. Can we talk about them at this place in this location?
Really important when you make this request — you are bringing them thoughts and ideas to consider that will make their life easier. First and most important — point number one — this presentation will improve their lives. Now it will also improve your life, but you are not the point here. They are the point.
You are catering this presentation to their needs. And that has to start when you approach them about having the initial conversation. This is not, hey, we want you to give us money for a house. Can we talk about it?
This is, hey, you mentioned that you might be interested in supporting us in this way and we have some ideas to facilitate that to make your life easier. Can we talk?
How Do You Use a "Shared Fear" Strategy to Get Your Parents to Give You Money?
So, we know that the most important thing is making your parents feel heard, making them feel supported, showing them what's in it for them. How do you do that? When you are crafting your presentation, the first thing that you need to lead with, implicit, not explicit, is a shared fear.
You need to, in your presentation, conjure the image of what both of you are afraid of. And this shouldn't actually be in negative imagery. It should be kind of honestly showing the inverse.
So a lot of times people are going to be asking for help with money for a down payment on a house, right? Like this is the biggest time this comes up — money to buy a house because housing is expensive and most people who are rich and a lot of people who aren't rich get support from their families with a down payment.
So thinking about that use case in particular, what is the shared fear there? Your fear is probably that if you don't buy a house, you're going to get priced out of the housing market forever. You're never going to have a house, right? Is that your parents' fear? Probably not. What do they want? They want you to be safe, to be reasonably comfortable, not too comfortable, and to live a life that you can afford.
How Should You Frame a Shared Fear When Asking Your Parents for Financial Help?
And so the shared fear aspect may be: rent is getting expensive and we would like to buy so that we can start building equity for our future. But we can't do that without some help from you. Do you see that flip there? Now we've talked about something in a positive direction — how they can help.
But you've also put the seed of that fear in there. Well, if they're renting forever, well, that's not a good thing. I don't want my kids to rent forever, right? Home ownership is the American dream. Obviously, it's not going to work in all families. I want my kids to be able to buy a house, to be settled.
If you have kids or you're planning on kids, that can sometimes be a big draw too, right, for your parents, specifically in the housing situation. So you create and allude to that shared fear, that shared concern.
Without going negative, right? The whole tone — this needs to be a positive presentation. You are here, you're peppy, you are appreciative of their time, regardless of the outcome. This is not an outcome-based presentation. It is a goal-based presentation, the goal being positive family money communication, or at least getting more information.
What Is the Thesis Statement Structure for a Successful Financial Gift Presentation?
So, you've opened with this version of a shared fear, whatever that shared fear is, depending on what you're trying to get in your relationship with your parents. The next step is to bring in some clarity.
You've said what you're afraid of, what they're afraid of, you've alluded to it. Would it be helpful for you, parents, to know what we're asking for and why?
Here is a preview — the thing that we are going to be building towards in this presentation. We would like your support with a down payment to buy a house. You're not putting numbers here.
Numbers are coming later. This is the thesis statement of your presentation. My pitch, and I'm gonna show you over these next slides, over this next conversation, however you're structuring it, is that it would be mutually beneficial if you gave us money to buy a house. You're not gonna say it like that, right? But that's the vibe that you're going for with this piece. So you build a shared fear, and then you tell them where you're going.
How Does Showing Your Budget and Net Worth Help You Get Financial Support From Your Parents?
What is this presentation going to do to alleviate that shared fear or that shared concern? You're providing clarity in that piece about what you're going to be talking about and how the facts and the figures that you're about to be presenting are going to ultimately again lead back to that shared fear and alleviate that shared concern.
After you've laid out that thesis statement for the presentation, you're gonna lay out things as they currently stand. And this is where you, the child, are going to take the first step into opening your family's money relationship into radical financial transparency. You are gonna do this by showing them everything first. You're gonna show your parents your budget, how much you're spending, and what you are bringing to the table.
Again, if we're talking about trying to get money from your parents towards a down payment on the house, you are showing them how much you spend on rent, what your other expenses are, how much you're saving, and everything you're bringing to them. You need to show them that you are financially mature.
You need to show that you are saving and that you are doing everything that you are supposed to be doing, but you still can't make it work.
What Level of Financial Responsibility Do You Need to Show Before Asking Your Parents for Money?
And if you're sitting here being like, Katherine, I'm not saving and I can't do this and I can't do that, well, I don't think you're ready to give your parents this presentation yet. Because in order for this to succeed, you need to be able to show financial responsibility to your parents.
And if you can't show that to them, then this whole presentation is moot, right? It's not gonna work.
But if you can, if you are doing everything right and you're still not gonna be able to buy the house because no one can buy houses without help from their parents, then you literally put all your cards on the table. The reason that you do this is so that when you make your ask you can show how it would be transformative in your life.
By showing them the difference in your balance sheet, right? Like your A/B. This is how much we're spending on rent right now. If you gave us $500,000 for a down payment, this is how much we would be spending instead. And that means we could be saving this much more. Or that means that, you know, whatever the outcome is that's positive for you, you can show it in terms of the dollars and cents, and it's gonna impress your parents.
Should You Offer Your Parents Multiple Options When Asking for a Large Financial Gift?
And more importantly, talking about shared fears — your parents are always afraid that you're not financially responsible enough. Even if they know you're financially responsible, they're always afraid you're not, right? And that's just like a parent thing. And so showing them that you're financially responsible by showing them your balance sheet, your net worth, your income statement, all that for your family is gonna go a long way.
Once you've shown them all this information, you're going to jump into the proposal — what you're actually asking for. And it's really important here that you show two options.
I generally go with the option that's better for me first, but you could change that structure around depending on your relationship with your parents. So for example, I asked for $500,000 for a down payment for a house. So my first ask was, after I showed them our budget, I said, we're asking for $500,000 to be able to afford a house like this. And then I showed some comps, gave some more information on that.
And then I said, alternatively, if you're not ready to make that commitment yet, here's another option, which was, I think, an interest-free loan. It doesn't really matter what it was. I knew they weren't gonna go for it. But the important piece is I wanted to say to them, I am here for flexibility, right? Like, I'm making a proposal, but if you don't like it, we can workshop. And here are two different options.
How Do You Close a Family Money Presentation Without Seeming Like You're Just Asking for Cash?
Both of which are totally okay with me, or some option C that you propose that we can now consider and talk together. It removes this sense of just money-grabbing when you provide these different options and show that you would honestly be grateful for anything, not just kind of your ultimate goal in this presentation.
So after that, you stop. You ask for questions, you ask for feedback.
And this is to remind you again that going into this, you need to not have an attachment to outcomes. You need to see this presentation and this process as part of a journey of building radical financial transparency with your parents and seeing how they react.
Because what happens a lot of times in families is this will kind of get bandied around like, yeah, we'll give you money to buy a house or sure we'll fund the kids' 529s. But then nothing actually happens.
What Happens After You Give Your Parents a Financial Presentation — and What If It Fails?
And so if you want to take some agency into actually bringing these things into action, you need to take this step — like actually put together the pitch and then see what the response is.
If their response is like, absolutely not, this was a terrible idea, then you've learned, okay, I can't rely on my parents for money. And they will say these things like, sure, we'll give you money. And they don't mean it, right? And that's valuable information.
And if they say yes, then it's like, well, great, you know, it worked. Because it does oftentimes work. You know, and if they say they need to think about it, then at least you've moved the ball forward.
But if you're going to do it, you need to actually put the work in and blaming your parents because they said they'd do it and then they didn't do it just isn't a good look. If you want to make this happen, then you need to do the work to make it happen and to see how it's going to go with your parents from there.
I've just dropped a lot of information on you in this episode and I know that it's hard to build this presentation. I have been practicing it for 20 years and I never knew that this would be a valuable skill, but now one of my favorite parts of my job is helping current and future inheritors like you build these presentations to have more in-depth and honest family money conversations with their parents.
If you're interested in learning more about how I can help you broach this subject with your family, you can shoot me an email, katherine@sunnybranchwealth.com, send me a DM on Instagram @sunnybranchwealth, or if you're not ready to chat yet, you can catch me on next week's episode of Heir Necessities for more real talk for current and future inheritors. I'll talk to you then.
Let’s take the next step together
Understanding how to protect, invest, grow, and/or give away a multi-million dollar inheritance isn’t easy. Inheritors can encounter a wide variety of different situations requiring knowledge and finesse to manage. If you need more help, reach out to Katherine Fox, CFP® and CAP®, financial planner for inheritors, to learn how Sunnybranch can help you evaluate your financial situation and build a plan for your financial future.
