Are you planning to support your children through the AI disruptions?
And, in The Times: "Please stop fiddling with our pensions"
What’s in the newsletter?
From Bec’s Desk: Our new UK-specific social accounts are live - pop me a follow
Feature: Are you planning to support your children through the AI disruptions?
Read my article in The Times: What I’ve heard should alarm every politician in the country - Please stop fiddling with our pensions
Today we’re doing something a little different.
In this week’s feature article I want to introduce you to Charlotte Gibson, the UK Lead of The Epic Retirement Institute. Charlotte has written a thoughtful piece about a question many parents of grown kids are asking themselves but not always saying out loud.
Should we be planning our retirement a little differently in case our children face a tougher job market as AI reshapes work and careers?
It’s an uncomfortable topic, but probably an important one to start thinking about openly.
Many of us will help our kids at different points in their lives. That’s normal. But if you assume you may need to provide some support, you can build a bit of flexibility into your plans. If you don’t think about it at all and it happens anyway, it can put real pressure on both generations.
Charlotte explores this question beautifully in today’s article (read it below).
Meanwhile… markets have been bouncing around again this week, which inevitably makes people approaching retirement a little twitchy when they look at their pension balances.
When volatility hits, the temptation is to panic. I prefer to use moments like this as a teaching opportunity. Rather than fueling fear, I’ve been explaining what’s actually going on and how to think about sequencing risk and bucket strategies in a series of short lessons on Facebook.
If you’re a Facebook or Instagram user and want to see the content I create specifically for the UK, I’ve just set up both a dedicated Facebook Page and Instagram Wall for the UK so I can share UK-specific content and lessons here. Please pop both a follow at Facebook.com/epicretirementuk and Instagram.com/epicretirementuk
See you in there.
Until next week - make it epic!
Cheers
Bec xx
Author, podcast host, columnist, retirement educator, and guest speaker
Are you planning to help and support your children through the AI disruptions?
by Charlotte Gibson
A new question is shaping how parents think about retirement. I am hearing this more and more from parents of teenagers who are looking to the future and asking:
Should I change my future life plans to make sure I can support my children financially if AI makes it much harder for them to get a job?
We already know that it is difficult for young people to find work. The Times reported recently that parents are now an “invisible welfare state” for young adults who cannot find jobs. In the three months from October to December 2025, the number of 16 to 24 year olds not in education or work was 957,000, or around 12.8% of that age group.
We can guess, but we have very little idea how things will develop with AI and what impact it will have on the job market.
But as parents of bright young people working hard at school and beyond, there is a nagging thought that the life waiting for them after education could look very different from ours. It feels uncertain. And when things feel uncertain, our brains look for something we can control.
The reactions I hear tend to fall into a few different camps.
Some say they imagined themselves slowing down in their late 50s but now want to keep working or at least keep their options open.
Others talk about spending less on themselves or saving more, just in case.
And some admit they have no idea what they could actually do about it, but that does not stop the worry sitting in the background.
One thing that has helped in these conversations is to step back and widen the frame slightly. Every generation of parents has worried that the world their children enter will be harder than the one they knew. Sometimes those worries are justified. The financial crisis, housing affordability, climate change and now AI have all made people question whether the old path of education to career stability still holds.
The uncomfortable truth is that we cannot plan our children’s careers any more than our parents could plan ours.
When I sit with this question myself, I notice that there are really two different instincts competing.
The first is protective. If the world becomes harder for our children then perhaps we should build a bigger safety net. Work longer. Save more. Keep our own plans flexible so we can step in if needed.
The second instinct is trust. Trust that our children will find their way in a world that will inevitably be different from the one we entered.
So what is the right balance for us as parents? It probably sits somewhere in the middle.
One practical way some parents think about this is keeping flexibility in their own financial plans. Instead of locking in a rigid retirement date, they are aiming for having the choice but maybe not committing yet. That might mean maintaining part-time work skills, building a slightly larger financial buffer, or simply recognising that the transition into retirement may happen in stages.
Keeping some flexibility in our plans is sensible. Many of us already know that life rarely unfolds exactly as we expected in our twenties. Leaving a little room for change in our fifties is not necessarily a bad idea.
But reshaping our entire lives around a future that none of us can predict may not be helpful either. There is a difference between prudent planning and living in permanent anticipation of a problem that may never arrive.
Perhaps the more useful question in supporting our children is how we raise them to handle an uncertain world.
And if we are honest, the answer to that question has probably not changed very much: give them the foundations that help people navigate uncertainty - confidence, curiosity and the ability to keep learning. Nurture emotional resilience when things do not go to plan. And perhaps most importantly, the knowledge that they have people who believe in them.
And perhaps there is also a question for us:
How can we live more comfortably with uncertainty while our children find their own path?
What I’ve heard should alarm every politician in the country
In an open letter to the government, Times Money’s retirement columnist sets out why people aren’t saving like they should
I spend a lot of time listening to people who are approaching retirement. And I don’t mean through polished focus group responses. I read the unfiltered commentary in places such as the Times comments section on Money articles and my Epic Retirement Club group on Facebook. Both are where financially savvy and less-savvy pre-retirees are discussing everything they’ve read about what’s coming for their money and their life ahead of them.
What I’m hearing should alarm every politician and regulator in this country. And it’s time we talked about it.
The more savvy people are not confused. Most understand tax relief, compounding and why keeping money inside a pension wrapper should be one of the smartest long-term moves they can make. And yet, they’re convinced it’s important to take their money out at 55 anyway. And it’s not because they need it. It’s because they don’t trust the government to deliver long-term, secure outcomes for their savings.
Read the rest of this article here in The Times. It was published on Tuesday 3rd March (and in Print on Saturday 7th March 2026). I write fortnightly for The Times - keep an eye out as my next article will drop any day!
Get your copy of the new UK Bestselling pre-retirement guidebook, How to Have an Epic Retirement: Your ultimate guide to living well, loving life and retiring with financial confidence.
It does concern me, but it seems impossible to predict. Also, I figure it's better for kids to figure things out for themselves rather than plan their future. I don't mind giving my son a bit of a hand, but like Bill Gates don't want to give too much.