Dear Ms Wise, we have three children aged 24, 30 and 35. Eight years ago we gave our eldest $80,000 to help buy her first property. We’d like to give the same amount to our middle child this year, and will probably do the same for our youngest in about five years. I’d like to give them the same dollar amount to keep things fair but my wife is concerned about whether this really is equitable in terms of inflation.

The wisdom: Your wife is right, says Shane Oliver, chief economist and head of investment strategy at AMP. He says the fairest approach is to increase the $80,000 in line with the consumer price index (the official measure of average prices in Australia) over the past eight years.