What age should people have financial independence?

At what age should your children be financially independent?

More than 40 percent of parents believe the answer is 20 to 25 years old, according to a YouGov survey commissioned by Revolut.

A total of 33 percent went even younger, saying offspring should be financially independent between the ages of 16 and 19 years old.

At the same time, almost 30 percent of the 600 parents surveyed thought kids should live at home until they are 21.

Ruth Henderson runs the Happy Saver, a personal-finance blog and podcast.

Henderson told Checkpoint that financial independence should not only be measured by age, but also capability and circumstance.

"I think early 20s, but it depends on what they're doing."

"If they have come straight out of school into work, then I would think that they would be becoming reliant on themselves much faster. But if they are studying at a tertiary level and all the costs that come with that, then let's let them get out the other side of that study before we make them call themselves financially independent."

For Henderson, financial independence means standing on your own two feet money wise.

But she stressed it often had absolutely nothing to do with age.

"I think it's pretty hard for 16-year-olds becoming financially independent. I meet plenty of 30-, 40-, 50-, and 60-year-olds who are not financially independent. So asking that of a 16-year-old would be a bit of a stretch in my world.

"But you can get yourself on track at any age. It just means you just need to sort of come across the right information and the right knowledge and support to help you get started."

In order for young people to succeed in becoming financially independent, Henderson said it was important to begin having conversations around money with kids from a very young age.

"If you start the korero while they are very, very little you absolutely normalise that talking about money at home is normal."

Whether it is talking through the price of groceries in the supermarket or comparing the cost of the weekly food shop to the total weekly income, any conversation around money is sure to give children perspective.

"Any conversation in our house has always been up for debate, what we earn, what we spend, what the power bill was, what we spend on groceries, schooling ... talking about what we see other people do with their money and relating that back to us."

"It just normalises it for kids, gives them context, and then when they start to earn their own money, they have a bit more data to go on."

While less and less physical cash being used can make it difficult to illustrate the idea of money to children, Henderson said parents just have to be even more open on the topic.

"I just started switching [using physical money] over to showing her my bank account. So, it's like I'm paying you your pocket money today and it's $5. Here I am in my banking app, moving $5 into your account.

"You then in turn have those conversations out loud over the dinner table. So, it's saying to your kids, I went out for lunch today, it was $30."

Henderson said when it comes to grown-up kids that keep coming back home, it is about support, but that should be tailored based off circumstance.

"Help your kids out, I'll always help my daughter out if she needs me, but it should be to build independence.

"If you're boomeranging back home, there's rules attached to living at home. Like what's the purpose of you being here? Is it to save for something? Okay, I need to see evidence that you're saving. And if they've got a job and the likes of that, of course they're going to be chipping into the power bill, the food bill and the likes of that."

"It's you, your house, you set the rules and talk to your kids about your expectations before they move back in."