How much should you give your parents every month?

Supporting your parents is one of the most common things Nigerians do with their income. The general way to keep family support sustainable is on how to support your family without running out of money. This page is about the monthly support you give your parents: how much, how often, and what to do about everything else.

Why the amount keeps changing

In BusinessDay's 2026 reader poll of Gen Z workers, 67.4% named their parents as the people they feel most obligated to support. Nearly half called sending money home a duty they accept without complaint, and 30.4% said they do it but it stretches their finances.^[1]

The stretch rarely comes from the monthly amount itself. It comes from everything around it: a hospital bill, a roof repair, a ceremony in the village, a call at the end of the month. When there's no agreed amount, each of these becomes a new decision, made from whatever is in your account that day. Your parents can't plan around it either, because support arrives in different amounts at different times.

How to decide the amount

1. Start from your fixed costs: rent, transport to work, food, bills and any repayments. These have to be paid whatever happens.
2. Add a realistic everyday amount for yourself.
3. Share what's left between three purposes: your parents' monthly support, a smaller amount for their emergencies, and your own savings.
4. Count your own savings as part of looking after them. If you're their safety net, your cushion is what stops their next emergency becoming your loan.
5. Choose regular over large. A smaller amount on the same date every month is easier for parents to plan around than a larger amount at random times.
6. Review it when things change: a pay rise, a new cost for them, a sibling starting work.

An example month

An illustration, using a ₦350,000 salary. Use your own figures.

Budget	Category	Amount
Fixed costs: ₦220,000	Rent	₦75,000
	Transport to work	₦40,000
	Main food shopping	₦55,000
	Bills	₦25,000
	Repayments	₦25,000
Everyday: ₦60,000	Eating out	₦15,000
	Data and airtime	₦10,000
	Extra rides	₦12,000
	Toiletries	₦8,000
	Gifts and birthdays	₦15,000
Family: ₦50,000	Parents monthly	₦40,000
	Parents' emergencies	₦10,000
Savings: ₦20,000	Your own savings	₦20,000
Total		₦350,000

Each line is a budget of its own, so when one runs short you can see which one, instead of watching a single total go down.

When your parents keep asking

A request between payments usually means something real came up that the monthly amount doesn't cover: medicine, a light bill, a contribution at church or in the village. It helps to find out which costs repeat, and put those into the plan instead of handling them one call at a time.

Some costs can be paid directly. Instead of sending money for electricity, TV or data, you can pay the meter, decoder or phone yourself, on a schedule. The need is met, and the money can't be pulled towards something else.

Keeping emergency money under its own name helps too. In a study in Kenya, labelling savings for a purpose helped most for people who were often asked for money by friends and relatives.^[2] A budget called "Parents' emergencies" is easier to protect, and easier to explain, than money in your general balance.

Set it up in Delight

1. Create a Parents budget with your monthly amount. If you want the split, make Family a group with two sub-budgets: "Parents monthly" and "Parents' emergencies".
2. Let payday fund it. Check that Auto-fund is enabled on each budget, then set the order under Funding priority, after rent and bills and before everyday spending.
3. Automate the monthly support. Open the Automate tab and choose Bank transfer. Add Mum and Dad as recipients, with the same or different amounts, and choose a schedule such as monthly on the day after payday. You can ask Delight to check with you before each payment, or let it run on schedule.
4. Pay their bills directly. Create a second automation, choosing Airtime & bills, for their electricity meter, TV subscription or phone. Bill payments on Delight have no charge.
5. Build up the emergency amount with a Stack. A budget can't hold more than its amount, so unspent money that rolls into the next month counts towards that month's amount instead of adding to it. To build up a cushion for your parents' emergencies, add a Stack to that budget in the Grow tab, with a target such as one hospital visit's worth, and choose Yes, but a limited amount, so you can take out a set sum when they need it. Stacks don't pay interest.
6. If a parent has a Delight account, you can share a budget with them, such as "Mum's upkeep". They spend only what's in that budget, never your wallet or your other budgets, and every payment shows under Spent by. Many parents simply prefer a transfer; choose what suits your family.
7. Look back each month. The Monthly Recap shows where the previous month's money went, so you can see what supporting your parents really costs and adjust the amount.