My eldest child has reached one of the most important milestones in the life of someone growing up away from functional public transport – he’s learning to drive. This is, of course, terrifying. From his tendency to run before he can walk, to his complete inability to avoid denting everything he has ever owned, there’s so much that can go wrong. Even before he has passed his test, I’ve faced perhaps the most horrifying part of the whole process – the cost. It has reinforced how impossible life’s milestones will be for the next generation to afford alone. Either I’ll have to step in, or my kids will end up with far more limited options than I had at the same age.

You start with the provisional licence at £34, plus the theory test at £23. Then there’s the horrendous cost of lessons. The price will depend on your area, but costs an average of £25 to £45. The RAC says it takes around 45 hours of practice before you can sit your test – which at £45 an hour, comes to an eye-watering £2,025. Then there’s the £62 for the practical test, plus £30 to borrow the instructor’s car. At that point there’s the price of second hand cars to contend with. An enormous amount depends on what you want, but if you need something that’s going to pass its MOT for a good couple of years, don’t expect much change from £5,000.

Then finally, is the insurance. Premiums have risen for us all, but for young drivers they’re particularly horrible. According to Confused.com, the average 17-year-old will be charged £2,877 a year – after prices doubled in a year. It means just getting on the road costs £10,000 – even before car tax and petrol.

And this is just one small milestone. If he wanted to go to university, we’d be looking at a mountain of costs. The price of tuition and accommodation alone will set you back £49,887 in England. Tuition and maintenance loans would cover the basics, but both he and I would be expected to top this up. Thanks to a change in the rules, most students will end up repaying the loans in full – with interest, so the more he ended up borrowing, the more of his income he would lose to repayments over the following 40 years. It’s no wonder he has branded higher education ‘a scam’.

Over the next few years, he’ll want to move out and rent a place. He’s going to have to lower his expectations about what he can live with, but there’s only so far you can stretch your tolerance. I got chatting with a man last week whose son and wife were still living with him as they neared their 30th birthdays. They moved out once, but had to compromise on a studio flat an hour away from work, and had lasted six months before moving home. He said he couldn’t imagine a time when his son would ever be able to leave.

For this generation, rental is enough of a dream. They hardly dare consider whether they’ll ever be able to afford a place of their own. The average rental property in Yorkshire and the Humber costs £1,010 a month, which is a huge chunk of your monthly income disappearing each month - even before you start to cover the rest of the bills. It would take a massive commitment to home ownership to somehow put money aside for a property of your own on top of this.

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It means we’re bringing up a generation who can hardly afford to study, will struggle ever to afford the cost of moving out – let alone buy a place of their own – and can’t even travel beyond walking distance in an area with little or no public transport without having to find £10,000.

It means parents and grandparents have a choice. We can take the view that we had to make our own way in life, so kids need to find a way to do so themselves. This, of course, comes with the risk that they can’t, and we’re resigning them to a lower quality of life than we had at the same age.

We can provide them with a roof over their head for far longer than earlier generations – taking rental costs off the table until their income and savings puts them closer to their dreams. This comes at a cost. It means the nest won’t empty for anything up to ten years longer than you may have expected. As a result, your costs won’t fall, so you won’t have those years of freedom and cash which have traditionally allowed people to top up their pensions before retirement.

Or we can step in, and cover the costs of driving, a rental deposit, or even a property. This is far easier if we’ve planned ahead. It’s why anyone with young children should be leaning on friends and relatives to pay into their child’s Junior ISA as early as possible, to help build a lump sum. For those with teenagers, it’s not too late to speak to wider family. Grandparents can appreciate how life has changed, and how much support younger people need. If they were planning to leave money to their grandchildren, they might be prepared to do it during their lifetime, so they can see their family make the most of it.

If you’re covering the costs as you go along, you’ll have to make compromises or you’ll risk needing to cut back on saving for later life or borrowing to make ends meet. Because while we want the best for our children, it’ll be no use to anyone if we sacrifice our own financial resilience to help them, and end up needing to ask for support ourselves.

FCA has a major job on its hands

FCA figures show only 52% of people have switched savings accounts – or plan to. Two thirds (68%) said they’d consider it. It’s launching a campaign to try to persuade people to switch.

However, our research shows they have a mountain to climb. Over a third (37%) of people haven’t switched for the past five years – and more than a quarter (27%) have never switched their savings. Half of people (49%) had no plans ever to switch.

When we asked why, only around a quarter (28%) said they were already getting the best rate – another quarter (27%) stayed put because they trusted their bank, one in six said they didn’t want the hassle of switching (17%), and another one in six (16%) didn’t think it was worth it.

For a wholehearted shift in attitudes, people need to realise they can trust newer online banks. They need to know it doesn’t have to be a hassle to move – and they have to appreciate that it’s well worth the effort. This campaign will help. But with people spending longer on average with their bank account than with their spouse, it may take more than a this to move the dial.

Why it’s a rocky road ahead for children and finance: Sarah Coles