Caught Between Adult Kids, Aging Parents, and Your Retirement | Dwight Heck

What if the money you are quietly sending to your adult kids every month is the same money that was supposed to fund your retirement, and nobody is putting a number on it as it disappears?

🎙️ Give A Heck Podcast

Real conversations and solo episodes about purpose, financial stewardship, mindset, leadership, and intentional living.

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🔍 Episode Overview

In this solo episode, Dwight Heck unpacks one of the most pressing financial and emotional pressures facing Canadians right now, the sandwich generation. These are the parents and adult children caught in the middle, financially and emotionally supporting adult kids on one side and ageing parents on the other, while still trying to fund their own retirement.

Drawing on more than 24 years in financial services and his own lived experience as a single father of five who has raised, supported, and continues to help some of his adult children, Dwight breaks down the real numbers behind the pressure. He covers the 2025 RBC and iPaaS data showing 71 percent of Canadian parents say stress about their kids’ financial future is affecting their wellbeing, the Statistics Canada figures on intergenerational households, and the brutal economics of Alberta and British Columbia long-term care costs in 2026.

More importantly, Dwight names the three invisible withdrawals that quietly bleed the sandwich generation’s financial future, walks through the practical toolkit Canadians have at their disposal, from RRSPs and TFSAs to segregated funds, and shares the conversation every parent and adult child needs to have this week.

This is not an episode about blame. It is an episode about clarity, and about deciding to carry the weight on purpose instead of by accident.

📚 What You Will Learn in This Episode

Why more than one in three Canadian young adults under 34 are now living with at least one parent, and what the math actually says
The three invisible withdrawals that quietly drain the sandwich generation’s retirement
How compounding losses make a paused contribution in your forties cost four or five times more by retirement
Why the RRSP is not always the right tool, and when the TFSA or non-registered investments should take the lead
The real 2026 cost of long-term care in Alberta and British Columbia, and what families need to plan for
The three questions every Canadian needs to ask to start living their financial life on purpose
Why segregated funds quietly outperform other tools for the right kind of client
The exact conversation to have this week with your adult kids and with your ageing parents

📑 Chapter Summaries

00:00 — Welcome and Introduction

Dwight opens the show with the Give A Heck purpose statement and frames why so many Canadians are living in quiet desperation around money.

00:57 — Why This Solo Episode Matters

Dwight introduces the sandwich generation topic and shares why he is living a piece of it himself as a single father of five who still helps his adult kids when the need is real.

04:30 — The Pressure Is Real: 2025 RBC and iPaaS Data

A look at the November 2025 study showing 53 percent of Canadian parents feel negatively about their kids’ financial future, and 71 percent say it is affecting their own wellbeing.

07:00 — A Global Pattern, A Canadian Reality

The sandwich generation dynamic is showing up in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and parts of Europe, but the Canadian numbers in 2026 are particularly stark.

09:30 — The Other Side of the Sandwich: Ageing Parents

The real 2026 cost of long-term care in Alberta and British Columbia, from subsidized rates to private facility pricing, and why the gaps are growing.

11:30 — The Three Invisible Withdrawals

Direct financial support, opportunity cost on missed contributions, and delayed retirement are the three ways the sandwich generation quietly bleeds its own future.

16:00 — Three Questions to Live on Purpose

What kind of parent do you want to be, what kind of son or daughter do you want to be, and what do you actually want your retirement to look like?

18:30 — The Canadian Financial Toolkit

A practical walk-through of RRSPs, TFSAs, non-registered investments, spousal RRSPs, and permanent life insurance with cash value, and how to know which tool fits.

24:30 — Why Segregated Funds Earn Their Keep

The case for segregated funds for the right client, including maturity and death-benefit guarantees, potential creditor protection, and the ability to bypass probate.

27:00 — The Conversation to Have This Week

The exact language to use with your adult kids and with your ageing parents, and why the cost of waiting is measured in both dollars and heartbreak.

30:00 — How Dwight Can Help and Final Thoughts

Dwight explains where he is licensed to help directly, where he can still help families think through the bigger questions, and why living on purpose is a daily choice.

🎯 Key Takeaway

The financial weight is real. The emotional weight is real. The sandwich generation pressure is not going away. But you do not have to carry it by accident. Once you know your numbers, have the harder conversations, and learn to say yes when yes is right and no when no is right, both with love, you stop bleeding your future one e-transfer at a time. That is the difference between carrying this by accident and carrying it on purpose, and those are two completely different lives.

💬 Continue the Conversation

If this episode resonated with you, these episodes go even deeper on the same themes:

🎙️ I Was Teaching Financial Freedom While Living Financially Broken

Dwight shares the brutal wake-up call that came from teaching financial planning while his own life was financially broken, and how he rebuilt his financial freedom mindset from the ground up.

🎙️ The 91 Percent Retirement Crisis: Financial Independence and Retirement Planning

A deep dive into why 91 percent of Canadians will not achieve real financial independence in retirement, and the habits and mindset shifts that separate the 9 percent from everyone else.

🎙️ Are You Drifting Through Life? The Silent Thief of Direction and Purpose

Dwight breaks down how life drift quietly steals direction in finances, career, relationships, health, and purpose, and shares the four-step clarity process to stop drifting and start living intentionally.

🎙️ Trust But Verify: How Blind Trust Cost Me Tens of Thousands in Business

A hard lesson in why blind trust in advisors and consultants is one of the most expensive mistakes you can make, and how a trust but verify mindset protects both your money and your peace of mind.

🎙️ The 91 Percent Problem: Fired at 63 and Financially Free by 69 with David Nassief

David Nassief was fired at 63 with only two years of financial runway, and rebuilt his entire financial life by 69 using disciplined saving, simple low-cost investing, and a one-page wealth compass.

🔑 Key Themes Discussed

Canadian sandwich generation
Adult children living at home
Ageing parents and long term care planning
Retirement planning in Canada
RRSP, TFSA, and non registered investment strategy
Segregated funds and protected investment vehicles
Living life on purpose, not by accident
Financial conversations across generations
The hidden cost of supporting adult kids
Compounding and opportunity cost

👤 About Dwight Heck

Dwight Heck is the host of the Give A Heck Podcast, a best selling author, speaker, and financial coach with more than 24 years in financial services. A single father of five who raised his children through some of the hardest financial years of his life, Dwight now helps Canadian families build coordinated financial strategies that protect their retirement, support the people they love, and create the freedom to live life on purpose, not by accident. Dwight is licenced to help clients directly in Alberta and British Columbia, and works with families across Canada and around the world on the bigger life and money questions that follow people wherever they go.

🤝 Connect with Dwight Heck

Dwight Heck (click below to access)

🎧 Listen and Watch This Episode

🎧 Search Give A Heck on your favourite podcast platform to listen to this episode and many more

📺 Watch this episode on the Give A Heck YouTube channel

💭 Final Thoughts

This solo episode is one of the most personal I have recorded, because I am living the sandwich generation reality myself. If you are sitting at your desk doing mental math on whether you can keep helping your adult kids, or staring at the ceiling at 3 in the morning, wondering how you are going to fund retirement while everyone else still needs you, I want you to know that you are not alone, and you are not failing. The math is real, but so is the choice. You can carry this by accident, or you can carry it on purpose. Those are two completely different lives, and the work of choosing the second one starts with knowing your numbers and having the conversations you have been avoiding.

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Full Transcript:

Caught In The Middle? The Canadian Sandwich Generation

Welcome to Give a Heck. I am your host, Dwight Heck, and for much of my life, lived my life in quiet, desperation wondering how I was going to pay the bills, take vacations, save for retirement, and one day wondering if I would get off the hamster wheel of life and have purpose, a life that most of society lives, which takes us to work, then home, then repeat, and pays us hopefully enough.

Just to survive the harsh truth that most live with more months than money and have no idea how to live life on purpose, not by accident. This ensures the mass majority are living not just financially broke, however, emotionally and mentally as well. Due to financial pressures and each episode, I will introduce you to thoughts, ideas, and guests that can help you to learn how you too can live life on purpose, not by accident.

[00:00:57] Dwight: Welcome back to the Give a Heck podcast. I’m your host, Dwight Heck, and today I’m flying solo. No guest, just you and me on a topic I have been turning over for a long time because I am living a piece of it myself and I am watching my clients live the rest of it every single day. The topic is, are you caught in the middle, the Canadian sandwich generation and the quiet cost of helping everyone but yourself If you are a parent of adult children or you are the adult child of ageing parents, or in some cases both at the same time, this episode is for you.

And if you are not there yet, but you can see it coming, this episode is for you too because the worst place to figure this out is in the middle of it. Today we are talking about what gets called the sandwich generation. The people who are financially and emotionally caught between supporting their adult kids on one side and supporting or preparing to, uh, to support their ageing parents.

On the other, and I’m going to be honest with you, the title sounds tidy, but the lived experiences anything. But let me tell you why this one matters to me. I have five children, four daughters, and one son. I raised them as a single dad through some of the hardest financial years of my life. And I will tell you, I never thought I would still be writing checks, sending e transfers, utilising my credit and figuring out how to help them in their adult years.

But here I am and I will not pretend otherwise. Now I want to be clear about something because I think it matters. I do not help all my children financially. I cannot, and frankly, I would not want to even if I could, because some of them are doing just fine on their own, and they have earned the pride of standing on their own two feet where their need is real and where helping make sense.

I help. That is the line. I try to walk, help where it is needed and resist the temptation to rescue where it is not. My kids are not lazy. They are working, they are trying, but the world they’re trying in is not the world I started in. A host in British Columbia or Alberta is no longer a starter purchase.

For most young adults, rent has become a wealth transfer from their pocket to someone else’s. Groceries have nearly doubled in some categories and the wages have not kept pace. So when I look at my adult kids, I’m not looking at failure. I am looking at a generation that needs longer runway than mine did, and I have had to make peace with that.

But making peace with it does not mean writing a blank check, and that is where most parents get into trouble.

November of 2025, a polling firm called iPaaS released a study they conducted for RBC and it put a number on something I’ve felt in my chest for years. 53% of Canadian parents, of kids age 13 to 24 feel negatively about their children’s financial future. 71% say that stress about their own kids’ finances and about their kids’ financial future, it’s affecting their wellbeing.

Now think about what that actually means because it is not just a statistic. It starts as quiet desperation in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon when a parent is sitting at their desk doing mental math on whether they can keep up. It shows up in racing thoughts during a workout. It shows up in a short fuse with their spouse over something small.

And then yes, eventually it shows up in their sleep patterns. The 3:00 AM wake up, the lying there staring at the ceiling, and from there it begins to affect mental health, physical health, energy levels, relationships, absolutely everything. That is what 71% really looks like when you walk into it from the inside.

And here’s the part that does, does not show up in this survey, but shows up in my practise every week. The parents who are losing sleep are the same parents who are quietly rating their own retirement to keep their adult kids afloat. And that is a problem I want to talk about today because it is bigger than money.

It is about living on purpose and not by accident that it added. Now I want to be clear about something before I go further. What I’m about to describe is similar in most countries in the world right now. Wherever you are listening from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, parts of Europe, the dynamics are remarkably similar.

Adult kids needing more support for longer housing markets that have outrun wages, ageing populations needing care. So if you’re turning in, tuning in, pardon me from outside Canada, you’ll still recognise this story. That said, let me give you the lay of the land in Canada in 2026 because the specifics are useful in the lessons travel statistics Canada tells us that more than one in three Canadian young adults under the age of 34 are living with at least one parent.

In Ontario, it is over 40%. In Toronto, specifically nearly half, and British Columbia and Alberta, the rates are climbing year over year as housing costs of outrun wage growth. That is not a moral failure on the party. Young adults, that is math. The math says that for many of them moving out and renting a alone would mean spending 60, 70, sometimes 80% of their take home pay on housing alone before food, before transportation, before a single dollar gets saved for their own future.

So they stay home or they come back home and the parents make space and that is fine. That is healthy in many cultures and has been for generations. But here is what the data also tells us. Statistics Canada released the study just this year showing that in these intergenerational households, the financial support flows primarily from the older generation down to the younger that parents are subsidising.

And listen to this number because it stopped me. Cold parents between the age of 65 and 69 living with their adult children of a 32% employment rate compared to the 24.6%. For the others in the age group, parents who should be retired, who have earned their retirement, are working into their late sixties because their adult kids still need help.

That is the sandwich and it is getting thicker. Now, let me touch on the other side of the sandwich briefly, because I know some of you are dealing with this too. Ageing parents. If you have a parent who is moving forward. Toward needing care. Here are the Canadian numbers. As of 2026, Alberta long-term residential care subsidised rates run roughly 17 to 2 2200 a month.

Private facilities anywhere from 4,200 to up to 14,000 a month depending on the level of care. British Columbia is in the same ballpark with the Health Authority covering some costs and residents paying based on income, but the gaps are real and they are growing severe. Looking at supporting adult kids in one side and possibly contributing to care costs for a parent on the other side while still trying to fund your own retirement.

You are not imagining the pressure. The math is real. I want to walk you through what I call the three individual withdrawals. They are the three ways the SAM generation quietly bleeds their own financial future without realising it because nobody is putting a number on it as it happens. Withdrawal. One, direct financial support, cell phone bills, car insurance, groceries, when they come over the occasional emergency loan that never quite gets repaid.

None of it feels like a big deal in the moment. A hundred bucks here, two 50 there, but added up over a year. And many parents are spending five to $10,000 annually supporting adult kids. Multiply that by 10 years and you’re looking at 50 to a hundred thousand dollars. That did not go into your TFSA, your RRSV or any other vehicle that compounds for your retirement withdrawal to opportunity costs.

This one is more invisible than the first. When parents redirect money towards kids, they often skip their own contribution. Year or years. They tell themselves they will catch up later, but there’s no catching up when it comes to compounding. A dollar you do not invest in your forties is not a dollar you lose.

It is closer to four or $5 you lose, but the time you would’ve retired. The compounding you forfeit when you pause your own savings to fund somebody else’s life is the most expensive money you’ll ever not spend on yourself. Will draw three. Delayed retirement. This is the one that breaks my heart daily when I am dealing with my clients’ challenges.

Parents in their early sixties tell me they will just work a few more years. That is fine plan until your body decides otherwise or your employer decides otherwise or until your spouse’s health decides otherwise. The reality is that most Canadians do not retire on their chosen date. They retire on a date that gets chosen for them, and if you have leaned on the assumption of working until 68 or 70 and you get pushed out at 62, the gap between what you have and what you need can be devastating.

These three withdrawals do not show up on a statement. There is no lie line item that says you are sacrifice $60,000 of compounded retirement growth to subsidise your son or daughter’s apartment, but the dollars are gone. All the same mindset and intentionality. Now, here’s where give a heck has always been different from traditional financial businesses because if you give your numbers and stop, I’ve only done half the job, the other half is asking the harder question, why are you doing this?

And what do you actually want your life to look like? On the other side of it, most clients they sit down with have never asked themselves that question out loud. They’re running on autopilot. Adult kids need help. Send the e-transfer. Write the check, hand over the cash. Parent needs something, figure it out.

Spouse mentions retirement. Change the subject that is living by accident. Living on purpose means stopping long enough to ask three questions. What kind of a parent do I want to be to my adult children? Not what they want me to be, not what guilt tells me I should be what I actually want to be, because there’s a version of helping that grows them up, and there’s a version that keeps them small.

And I would argue gently that handing over money without conversation tends to keep them small. Second question, what kind of son or daughter do I want to be to my ageing parents? If that becomes part of my picture, have I had the hard conversations? Do I know if they have a will? Do I know if they have power of attorney in place?

Do I know what their wishes are if their health changes? Because the time to ask is not the day after the stroke. Third question, what do I want my own retirement to look like? And am I willing to actually protect that vision instead of giving it away one transfer at a time? Living on purpose means having the courage to say to your adult child, I love you.

And the answer is no. Their answer is yes, but with conditions, their answer is yes for three months, and then we sit down again. That is not unkind. That is parenting an adult practical financial. Alright, let’s get practical. I have been in this industry since September of 2001. So we are talking about more than just 24 years of sitting across the table from Canadian families.

And in all those years, one of the most damaging myths I have,

I keep running into is the idea there is one right tool for everything. There is not. There is a toolkit, and the smart play is matching the right tool to the right job. Let me walk you through the ones I work with most often. Before I do, I want you to hold one idea in your mind through this whole segment.

Everyone’s financial picture is like their fingerprint, very different, very unique. What works beautifully for your neighbour may be the wrong move for you, and the opposite is also true. So as I describe each of these tools, do not hear me saying you need all of them or any specific one. Hear me saying these are the pieces and the art is figuring out which pieces fit your life.

RSP, the Registered Retirement Savings Plan, the RSP is often described as a default retirement vehicle in Canada. And for some people, that is true contributions reduce your taxable income. Today the money grows tax sheltered and you pay tax when you draw it down in retirement. When you are in a higher tax bracket today than you expect to be in retirement, maxing out your RSP can absolutely make sense.

The tax deduction now is worth more than the tax you will eventually pay on the way out and most cases. But here’s the part, most people are not told for others. The RSP may be not be the centrepiece of their plan at all. It may not even be part of their plan in their early years. Some clients are better served by maxing out their TFSA first, building up non-registered investments and only turning to the RSV after these vehicles are maxed out, if at all.

Because if you’re going to land in roughly the same tax bracket in retirement. As you are in now or higher, the RSP loses much of its leverage. It becomes at a tax deferral with no tax arbitrage, which is a very different proposition. TFSA, the tax-free savings account, the TFSA flips the mechanics. You contribute after tax dollars.

The money grows tax free forever and the withdrawals come out tax free. No tax in the way in was as it was already paid. No tax on growth, no tax on the way out. For many Canadians, particularly those who expect to draw a comfortable retirement income or who have flexibility along the way, the TFSA is one of the most powerful tools we have.

If life turns sideways, you can access the funds without triggering tax, without affecting government benefits and retirement and without disturbing any other part of your plan. Non-registered investments. Non-registered accounts have no contribution limits, no withdrawal rules, and unlimited room to invest.

The trade off is that you pay tax on the gains as they happen, but here is what most people miss. For some clients, that is actually the point. Paying taxes as it grows off the net, favourable capital gains and dividend rates means there is no tax bond waiting for you on distribution. You have already settled up along the way for a high income earner who has maxed the TFSA or for someone whose RSV could create more problems than it solves at retirement.

Non-registered investments become a strategic cornerstone, not an afterthought. Spousal RSPs. If one spouse earns significantly more than the other, the higher earner contributes to a spousal RS P, and the lower earning spouse’s name and retirement withdrawals are taxed in the lower earning spouse’s hands.

This is income splitting done right. It is one of the most under used strategies. I see permanent life insurance with cash value. When this makes sense and when a person can fund it correctly, it is a great way to shelter money and create the potential for tax free income to live on in retirement while also leaving money to the next generation tax free.

That is powerful combination when it fits. I want to be honest though, it is not for everyone. For many families, it is simply another financial cost on a budget that is already strained and forcing it into a plan where it does not belong does more harm than good when it fits. It is exceptional. When it does not, it is the wrong tool.

Knowing the difference is the work. So when you put R-S-P-T-F-S-A and non-registered together. What you often end up with is not one of them winning. It is a combination calibrated to your fingerprint for one family. The right answer is RSP heavy. For another, it is TFSA, first and non-registered Second with RSP, barely used or not used at all for a third.

Is it a blended approach? Using all three in measured proportions, which each account doing the job it does best. There’s no universal right answer here. Only the right answer for you. Segregated funds. There are many types of investment vehicles that can hold your passengers, which can be stocks, bonds, GICs, ETFs, mutual funds and portfolios, port brokerage accounts, mutual fund accounts, roboadvisors group plans through work.

The list goes on and each has its own place depending on what you are trying to accomplish after more than 24 years of sitting across the table from Canadian families, the one that I’ve found the most effective for many of my clients is a segregated fund, and here’s why. Segregated funds are an insurance-based investment product, which means they come with feature Traditional mutual funds and brokerage accounts simply cannot offer.

You can get maturity and death benefit. Guarantees that protect a portion of your principle. Regardless of what the markets do, you can get potential credit or protection, which matters enormously. If you are a business owner, a professional, or anyone exposed to liability risk, you can name a beneficiary directly on the account, which means that death, the money bypasses, probate entirely, transferring privately quickly, and often with significant cost savings to your state.

They typically cost a bit more than a comparable mutual fund because you’re paying for those insurance features and benefits. But for the right client, these features earn their keep many times over. It is not the right tool for every situation, but when it fits it, it’s beautifully. Before I wrap, I want to give you something to do this week.

Not a worksheet, not a download, a conversation. If you have adult kids you are supporting, sit them down. Not in anger, not in frustration with love, and say something like this, I love you. I want to keep helping you, and I need to be honest with you about what that help is costing me. I’m not retiring on schedule.

If this continues, I need us to look at this together, set a timeline and build a plan that gets you to independence and protects my future at the same time. That conversation. Done well will change your family. I have seen it happen in my client work. The adult child does not feel attacked. They feel respected and often they did not realise the weight they were placing on you because you never put it into words.

And if you have ageing, parents have a different conversation. Ask about the will, ask about the powers of attorney. Ask what they would want up their health change. Not because you are morbid, because you love them and because the cost of waiting until a crisis to ask these questions is measured in dollars and in heartbreak.

I want to leave you with this. When I look back at my own financial journey, the years where I was a single full-time dad living paycheck to paycheck, the years where I figured out how money actually works and the years now, or I’m supporting some of my adult kids while also trying to build something I am proud to leave behind.

I keep coming back to one truth. Living on purpose is not a one-time decision. It is a daily choice. It is a choice to know your numbers. It is a choice to have the conversation you have been avoiding. It is a choice to say yes when yes is right and no when no is right. And to do both with love. The salmon generation pressure is real.

The financial weight is real. The emotional weight is real, but you do not have to carry it by a accident. You can carry it on purpose. And those are two completely different lives. If anything I have shared today landed for you, I want you to know something. I do this work for a living, not as a hobby, not as content.

I sit down with families every week and help them build the kind of coordinated strategy I talked about earlier. Now I want to be straight with you about how I can help. I am licenced to actually help clients in Alberta and British Columbia in Canada with the products and services I’ve been describing in this episode.

See, if you’re in those two provinces, we can go the full distance together. But here’s the thing I want you to hear clearly. Even if you’re listening from somewhere else in Canada, somewhere else in the world, I can still help you figure out the money monsters you are wrestling with right now. Because the truth is we all need to understand a few things no matter where we live.

Where are we right now? Honestly? Where do we want to be in the near future? Where do we want to be heading into retirement and during retirement? And what about estate planning? How do you wanna help the next generations where possible once we have passed? Those questions do not stop at a provincial border.

They follow you everywhere, and I can sit down with anyone who wants to think those questions through with someone who has been doing this for over 24 years. You can find me@giveaheck.com and the contact information is right there. I would rather have the conversation with you now than meet you in five years wishing we had talked sooner to everyone listening and watching, thank you for investing your time with me today.

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Until next time, live a life on purpose, not by accident. And remember, it is never too late to give a heck.

Thank you for taking time outta your day and listening to Give a Heck if you find value. I’d appreciate you sharing with your friends and family so they too can learn how to live life on purpose, not by accident. So you do not miss the next episode. Please subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and please also post a review.

I look forward to reading your comments. This has been Dwight Heck. If you want to check out other podcast episodes or today’s show notes, please check out my website. Give a heck.com, and until next time together, let us all strive to give a heck.