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Today's young adults often rely on their parents for help with rent or car payments, but it looks like parents are also providing their grown children with a digital safety net, too. More than two in five parents with "kids" ages 18 to 35 still pick up the tab for the youngsters' cellphone service, often well after their offspring are out of the house and living on their own, according to a Wall Street Journal-commissioned study.
We do pay the phone bills for our boys, but they are still in college. In some cases, adult children living at home stay on their parents' plans because it is much cheaper. I know others who get a discounted rate through their jobs, making it pretty inexpensive to keep the phones on one account, even when the "kids" are out of the house.
Our kids are on their own, house payments, car, etc.... except for cell phone.
NO way they can get a plan on their own for the $10 a month they cost our plan.
Yea, thinking about this,, I'm going to tell my 79yo dad to get his own plan.
I'm tired of paying the $12/month... for his cell phone.. After all in 12? years I plan to retire who is going to pay for mine? My Son? .. but wait I might still be paying his also....
Hah, more like the other way around in my husband's family. My BIL has his mother and father both on his cell plan. Think he pays for their Netflix as well - pretty sweet for them, considering they retired in their fifties We pay for my husband's uncle's Netflix, too.
When our kids are of an age to "need" a cell phone, we'll likely keep them on our plan, but have them pay what the cost to us would be. $10 a month should be affordable to anyone over the age of 16.
We kept our young adult kids on our plan as well as AAA coverage but we called it their birthday and christmas gifts every year and it was just fine for everybody. Eventually one got on her job's plan and the other one moved out of the country. BTW we did not pay for texting and they both decided they didn't need it if it meant paying for it themselves!
Practically every 20-something I know is on the same plan as their parents because it is way cheaper than getting an individual plan. Usually they send their parents the money for the plan, or the parents cover it and call it a birthday/Christmas gift. All of the people I know pay for the actual cell phone themselves.
Edit: My sister also piggybacks off my parents TV. They don't use the option to stream from the internet but it comes with their account anyway so they don't care if she watches TV from her computer at her college. It doesn't cost them anything extra.
I would like to see the data broken out showing 18-24 vs 25-30. Many in the younger bracket are still in school. We pay our son's cell phone bill. We also pay for college. We anticipate that he will be independent after he graduates. For now, we keep him on the family plan and we pay the bill.
I have a friend that is nearing retirement, having trouble making ends meet and
pays the cell phone bill for all 3 of her kids that are nearing 30, two of which are are married..
Someone needs to do workshops on cutting the apron strings with adult kids, because
most of my 50 year old plus friends are paying the way for 25 year old plus kids.
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We pay for my husband's uncle's Netflix, too. 
