Lucky for me my parents were both “I didn’t save anything for retirement, my kids will take care of me when I’m older”, so I don’t have to suffer through this.
I never really considered an inheritance an option. Seems so off-worldly to me, even though I am by no means from a poor family, just lower middle class.
I think the entire concept of inheritance is something more prominent in developing countries like US or India, where there isn’t a well-established safety nets already in place by the government itself.
Of course we have inheritances too, I know a few who got something, but most of it gets taxed away upon receiving or vanishes covering the deceased’s debts, so I’ve never heard anyone I know get anything other than maybe a weekend vacation in the city next over or maybe a small chunk of student debt away.
Then again I’m not very well-off, and I do know there are the upper class families that have a long standing generational wealth passing over to the new generations. I guess it really depends on the circles one’s in.
But I still think it’s not as common here, at least I’ve never considered it to be normal, and I’ve known well people from upper middle class too.
I’m relying on my inheritance from my mum to get a house, but that’s mostly from selling her house, I’m sure her actual savings will be quite low by the time that comes around.
When my grandparents passed away they left my boomer mother a fully paid off duplex…
Which she immediately reverse mortgaged to fund her retirement because she has nothing.
A house my grandmother designed, and great grandmother financed and built, where 4 generations of my family lived and literally died, will be pissed into the wind when my mother dies.
Damn, I wish my parents had an inheritance to waste.
My dad - who was an amazingly racist conspiracy theorist - gave all his money to 2 redhead women he started fucking after divorcing the woman he married after my mom died.
He chose not to leave me anything because I called him out for using the “n” word any time he talked about African Americans.
I’m out $150k
He is out having a legacy. My kids will never know his name, story, or hate.
Well, at least he fathered a decent kid, it seems. I don’t think it was his intention for you to turn out so decent, so I wouldn’t give him credit for that, but I guess he did something right despite all his efforts.
No, some people just raise up to the task.
I hate this idea that parents “did something good” if they are pieces of shit but their kids turn out good. Especially if there is no evidence of it. Why people feel the need to do that is a mystery for me, like protecting the bad guy at any cost.
*without
What’s infuriating about this? Why the heck should I inherit something I haven’t worked for? I’ve always told my parents and grandparents that dying with an empty bank balance is the ideal way to go. Hell, preferably be in debt.
Inheritance is a stepping stone to get out of poverty over generations. If the next generation can build upon it.
It comes from a time where your whole family lived in the same house and the kids eventually take care of their parents. In todays system where people usually dont live with their parents for very long, it doesnt really make sense anymore. People need money long before they get to the age where their parents die. Getting a bunch of money at 30, to establish a life/family, is much more useful and long term impactful than getting it at 50-60. So inheritance is a flawed idea from the start.
Exactly my thoughts too. Life’s meant to be lived. Hoarding assets to save for an uncertain future is counterproductive even in terms of economy at large, if one’s inclined to think that way.
It creates expectations that don’t seem natural, and then leads to disappointments and bitterness when life does not go as planned, as it never will.
But then again, I get wanting to make things better for your children. But at least for me, it seems less prone to pure chance and circumstance if the efforts went into building a more sustainable, inclusive and supportive country to live in. And enjoy the ride while it lasts, since your pain and suffering will reflect on your children, want it or not. If things are tight and you get stressed from that, it’s always going to affect everyone around you, often negatively. If, instead, you could relieve that stress by not saving more than you need as a buffer here and now, or for something like a house (I.e not for some abstract future that might never come, for your children who might not live that far, but are here now, with you), that’s probably going to be much better for everyone. Smiles generate smiles and it’s not a zero-sum game. Life well lived is one with smiles, not one with fragile, ephemeral value of some sort stored away with sweat and blood.
But of course if there’s already too much to use realistically, why not do that then. But that’s an entirely different discussion altogether, if we ever should have something like that.
Edit: there’s a distinction I failed to emphasis enough, between a realistic and very worthwhile buffer of saved value for unexpected situations, which everyone should of course have, and saving for no reason at all, other than just having excess that isn’t needed for anything, to maybe if one’s very lucky pass on down the line.
Saving assets and value isn’t bad. But saving it for no practical reason other than inheritance, takes that value out of circulation and makes everyone in your economy worse off. If that’s important to you. But more importantly, it often means a life less well lived, and often one full of stress, tiredness and one with less time actually spend with your family and close ones in general. Which is enormously more negative in impact than any amount of money in excess, or lack thereof, could ever have when you finally die.
This apparently is a hard pill to swallow for some. They can’t wrap there head around having to work hard to eventually relax and enjoy life.
I don’t think what’s talked about enough is kids having the talk with their parents about not being able to take care of them when they get old because you can’t afford to take of yourself and didn’t save anything for retirement. So you hope SSN will be enough for them. I know my mother always asked me if I would take care of her when she got old.
She would say that’s why she had kids. But I had to sit her down and run the math and I said it’s not about if I have the will or not it’s is it possible and the math just doesn’t workout and I have an okay job. I can only imagine what people lower down on the ladder are going through.
There are a lot of boomers that about to get a horrible wake up call and a lot of heartbreak watching our parents suffer at hands of their own making.
They will be drowning and some kids are going to jump in and get pulled under when trying to rescue them and the ones who know they don’t have to proper equipment. Stay out of the water and mourn the loss.
I want my parents to enjoy the money they worked their entire life for. I believe work is meant to live, and not the contrary where you live to work. I would 10000x rather my parents enjoy the effort they put for their money instead of dying of exhaustion without being able to use their money
Posting this as infuriating seems grossly entitled. Many of us in these younger generations won’t have excess to give to the next generation, why should we feel that is owed to us?
You may be right, but at the same time, you getting an inheritance makes it a lot easier for your kids to get one too some day.
So much this. In my country my parents generation could afford buying a house on two middle class incomes when they were end of 20s early 30s. In my generation that is only possible with generational wealth.
I will never be able to own a home because the cost of a down payment goes up with the market, while my saved money’s value stays constant (goes down with inflation). It is literally impossible for me to save it fast enough, even if I saved $1000, which is half of what I pay in rent, per month.
My grandpa wants to go to space in his lifetime, but doesn’t want to spend everything he’s been saving for my us. I’m like…dude. You worked your ass off all this time. Go to fucking space. I think it’d be badass.
The big caveat to this is if it is a lot of money. If it more than a few million it should be passed down and someone can live off of interest and some good investments.
I know a guy who technically doesn’t have to work at all because his family has been passing down a huge amount of money though the generations. I guess his great great grandfather struck it rich and now everyone is set. How the fortune is maintained is though legal stuff tied to the money in the form of wills. Basically it prohibits crazy spending and sets rules.
Sure and that’s fine, but then we need to stop as a society assuming that generational wealth is a thing, and that parents will help their children. Parents do not help with down payments like they used to, or with other major life events, and so we need to assume everyone is starting from zero
Well, that really depends on the society. I don’t live in one that makes such assumptions. It feels a little bit entitled to assume something like that, but that could also just be cultural differences between developed and non-developed countries. The former have social security and safety nets, rendering an inheritance less important and much less prominent. Feels like the only inheritance worth even thinking about is if you have millions in excess of what you need for living, and in developed countries that is very much less prominent than in developing countries
What on earth are you talking about? Generational wealth is not a binary thing. There are people rich enough to pass their fortune to their kids and then there are ones who can’t. That’s how it has always been and that’s how it’s always going to be.
My boomer dad: you probably won’t get anything because I’m paying [i.e. using my retirement] to take care of my [100 year old] mother
Me: that’s understandable
Let me tell you, as someone with potentially a bit of wealth to give out when I kick the bucket, every week with my kids I get this idea at least once. In some ways, it’s the last bit of power we have until becoming of unsound mind. I’m hoping they’ll grow out of making me feel that.
My thought is that if you’re going to give money, don’t wait until you die. The earlier you help someone, the more of their life it can improve. Help your kid buy their first house or something. Then spend everything before you die.
Watched my mom work her ass off to raise me and save everything she could for retirement. She got to do some fun things, but not enough. I’m glad she had good insurance and a little money saved for when she got sick. I inherited a house with a mortgage, taxes, insurance, and repairs that are bleeding me dry and I’m pulling money out of my retirement to cover it. I’m thankful that it’s given my son a decent place to live for the last year and i hope to break even when we sell it. I’m fine with that. I didn’t earn it. I didn’t take care of her for money. If you’re only helping your family because you want money, you suck and they’re probably better off without you.
First of all, my parents have never had much if ever at all in the way of savings. Tbh not sure what’s going to happen when they aren’t going to be able to work anymore.
But I’m with you. I absolutely never understood why people ever feel like they are entitled to their parents money. Your parents earned that, not you. If my parents were never able to leave me a dime, I wouldn’t give a shit. Even if they had a million dollars. I didn’t earn that. I have no right to someone else’s money.
I would feel different in scenarios where we are talking about a minor. If a 12 year old becomes orphaned, then yes, they should 100% be entitled to their parents’ funds.
But why in the everliving fuck do people as adults feel entitled to money that is not theirs and they didn’t earn? Incredibly bizarre concept to me.
But I’m with you. I absolutely never understood why people ever feel like they are entitled to their parents money. Your parents earned that, not you.
I think the biggest implication here is that they didn’t earn it entirely. That they at least inherited something from their parents. Which would have given them a leg up and they refuse to pay it forward.
Obviously that’s not the case for everyone. For instance, my entire family was poor as far back as I am aware of. None of them had shit or got shit or were able to have a good retirement. So obviously I don’t expect anything from them.
This is a bad faith take that only reflect the experiencs of the wealthiest boomers. There are elderly people struggling with Medicare and social security being cut. Remember, there’s not an age war, there is a class war.
It’s a class war, but many boomers are scabs.
Remember when there was a worker shortage and retired boomers went and volunteered at chain restaurants so they wouldn’t have to raise wages to attract workers? Remember all the “millennials are so entitled, they want to be PAID FOR WORK” style posts by boomers, back when some non-boomers still used Facebook so we had access to their posts?
It’s not their fault they’ve been brainwashed by right-wing propaganda, but they for sure are fighting against anything resembling economic justice.
And obviously much like any generation, you can’t make sweeping statements about them. There are right-wing nutters in their 20s and even their teens out there right now and there are obviously boomers who aren’t selfish assholes.
It is a class war but boomers provide political cover the the ruling class to destroy the country
Don’t forget that if we can’t paint everyone in a group they were born into with a broad brush, we’ll never be able to beat prejudices like racism, sexism, and ableism.
I know poor and wealthy people in every generation. Why aren’t we blaming the banks for the 08 crash, the politicians for taking away almost every social service and trying to take away more, and the psychopath CEOs who care about their dick measuring contests every quarter? This generational divide obscures the real issues.
“we set our money on fire and voted for trump. good luck” - boomers
“we love voting for trump despite being poor as fuck because we are complete morons that have been brainwashed by andrew tate and joe rogan clips on tiktok” -gen z men
class issue, not age issue. though i do understand getting frustrated at people who fall for the grift
