How Much of an Inheritance is Too Much for Kids

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am figuring out some aspects of my estate and retirement planning, and I'm curious how much people think is appropriate to leave as an inheritance for your kids. Is there an amount of inheritance that would level that would be too much for each kid? I plan to max out Roth IRA contributions until retirement and not touch this money to leave it as an inheritance for my kids. This means our Roth IRAs will likely have a total inflation-adjusted value of around 3-6 million when I turn 80.

Here's a summary of my projected retirement situation for context.
4,000 monthly pretax pension
2,000 monthly social security (assuming SSI benefits are cut substantially due to current funding issues. The actual amount will likely be around 4k between me and my spouse assuming a 20% cut in benefits)
$5,000 monthly pretax from 401ks (assuming a 4% withdrawal rate and worst historical returns from Cfiresims calculator)
Brokerage account
$2500 a month from our brokerage account (minimum estimate, will likely be more but inflation-adjusted value of brokerage account will certainly exceed 1M in retirement)
A few rental properties (combined value of around 1.4M. I am unsure about the amount of after-tax income so I'm ignoring them for retirement purposes)


Primary residence is worth around 850k, and the mortgage will be paid off before retirement.

In conclusion, if things go very badly, my kids will split an inheritance of at least 8M. However, if market returns are closer to historical norms (25th-50th percentile returns), they will inherit 15M+. I am only going to have 2 or 3 kids, so I am somewhat hesitant about whether this is an appropriate amount to leave my kids or if it is too much.

Then why are you even asking the question, OP?

If you're young enough that you don't have kids, you have no idea what lies in store for your life. Maybe you won't have that money to leave to your kids. Maybe you won't have kids.

You're ridiculous.

I really have to disagree! Good for him/her for planning and having goals

But this is so hypothetical it's not in the realm of worrying about. Is OP even married? What if OP only has one child? What if OP has two children and they have developmental delays and OP or OP's spouse quit their job to take for the child(ben). What if OP or OP's spouse is fired. What if global warming makes all of OP's concerns irrelevant. Also, $8M or $15 million in 50 years will not be that much money.

I have three kids and I think about this often OP. I'm all for planning but you have skipped about 15 steps and are wasting your time worrying about the wrong thing. Fully fund your 401K, fund a Roth IRA if you can, invest in a brokerage account, pay your mortgage, make sensible financial decisions and that will put you on the best path you can be on as a single (married?) person currently without kids.

[Anonymous]

We will likely leave about $10 million total. In our very personal opinion, leaving 3 million to each kid and 4 million to charity is what we're comfortable with. My husband and I started life with no money but only grad school debt. I really hope the $3 million is just a nice boost not a huge lifestyle change for them.

[Anonymous]

My elderly mother is updating her will now. She is in her mid 80s. Her numbers are not as high as the OP but here is her current plan:
Her 2 children will each end up with 1- 1.5 million each. We are both in our 50s so this is enough to buy a retirement home without first selling our current home but not enough to not be saving for our own retirement.
Each of her grandchildren (late teens/early 20s) will receive $10k at the time of her death and another $40-50k when they turn 40, or earlier for the down payment of a primary residence.
Each of her living siblings- $10k
Her best friend that has an adult special needs child- $10k
Her church- $20k
Her pastor- $10k so he can travel to the Holy Land like he has been wanting to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We set up irrevocable generation skipping trusts that will benefit our adult children and our grandchildren. We are hoping to use our full lifetime exemptions before it possibly gets reduced after 2025. So it’s a sizable amount! Our kids are very successful on their own and financially savvy and conservative so they will make good use of their inheritance for their kids and their grandkids….I hope. We are generous with them each year with annual gifting as well. What’s left we will either spend or it will go to charity as I have no desire to pay any estate taxes.

We’ve done much of the same and I’m so thankful that we raised kids who are now adults with children who can handle down the road inheritance. When we spoke with them about it a few years ago one daughter said she didn’t want any inheritance because it meant we were dead and no money was worth losing us.

[Anonymous]

Another pointless thread with made-up facts. This is getting tiresome.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My elderly mother is updating her will now. She is in her mid 80s. Her numbers are not as high as the OP but here is her current plan:
Her 2 children will each end up with 1- 1.5 million each. We are both in our 50s so this is enough to buy a retirement home without first selling our current home but not enough to not be saving for our own retirement.
Each of her grandchildren (late teens/early 20s) will receive $10k at the time of her death and another $40-50k when they turn 40, or earlier for the down payment of a primary residence.
Each of her living siblings- $10k
Her best friend that has an adult special needs child- $10k
Her church- $20k
Her pastor- $10k so he can travel to the Holy Land like he has been wanting to do.

Why the 40K when they turn 40? Why not earlier so they can use for first home downpayment?