How do I model an adult child remaining in the household for life?
ESPLanner removes a child from the household at age 19. However, our son, now 24, lives with us out of medical necessity and will probably remain our dependent throughout his life.
I entered him as leaving the household at age 65, after the deaths of both parents. But the reports seem to calculate that we will have only two adults before the death of the first parent, and one after that. This greatly distorts the living standard per adult that we will actually need.
Cordially,
Ruth
RSS
Ruth, I think the program is working with one small glitch wrt taking into account the presence of your child. I ran a test case just now. I think our program is assuming that your child leaves the household the year before the last adult dies. It seems definitely to be picking up the child's presence in its consumption recommendations. I ran it with and without the child entered and the results are different and sensible. I think we need to allow the child to be in the household in the last year of the household and to ask users to enter bequests as a means of financing the child's living standard if the child will be dependent beyond the household's lifespan.
You might ask, why not just determine sustainable living standard until the child reaches age 100 and use his year of reaching 100 as the last year of the household. I guess this is possible, but it's not something we've set the program up to do.
Bottom line. I think you should enter your child as you have and also enter a special bequest or, even better, a gift that you'll make to your child, which you'll enter as a special expenditure, in the last year of your household.
Call me at 617 834-2148 if you have further questions.
best, Larry
Larry,
Thank you! The special bequest idea works.
Ruth