If you know you’ll be inheriting a significant amount

[Anonymous]

How are you factoring that in your planning?

Assume that even if your parents spent a ton of money for end of life care, you’d still be getting at least $1mil (but more likely closer to 2 or 3). Both parents currently mid-70s, one who is currently in poor health and the other who has been a smoker for 50+ years. You are currently around 40. You currently max retirement. Your parents have already fully funded a 529 for your one kid.

How would that affect how you are personally saving currently?

[Anonymous]

Not a single bit. And you should not either.

[Anonymous]

Sadly, OP, I’m not sure that counts as a significant amount of money. It’s better than nothing, of course! Just live as if you expected nothing, because 1M does not go a long way, unless you invest it for your kids.

[Anonymous]

15:57 again. Also, what is a “fully funded” 529? In-state flagship is 30K a year. SLACs are 77K a year. Some unis are 85-90K a year. For 2023. Who knows what it will be when your kids go to college!

[Anonymous]

I would not count on it a bit. I also don’t count social security. My plan is created not to need social security or an inheritance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:15:57 again. Also, what is a “fully funded” 529? In-state flagship is 30K a year. SLACs are 77K a year. Some unis are 85-90K a year. For 2023. Who knows what it will be when your kids go to college!

$250K in the account with about 10 more years of growth to go. It’s definitely fully funded.

[Anonymous]

You never know if or when you will get it. My parents are stingy so we don’t plan or care. We save for everything.

[Anonymous]

OP here. It surprises me that folks aren’t considering it. One of the things we’re trying to think through is that a lot of the funds are in IRAs. With the recent SECURE 2.0 act, that will mean we have to withdraw those funds within 10 years which will almost certainly increase our tax rate. So one of the things my spouse and I have discussed is whether we should do backdoor Roth’s now knowing we’re going to be hit with those taxes later on. As I said we save for our own retirement, but it feels stupid to not consider the impact of a known inheritance down the line….

[Anonymous]

I would not take it into account. I know people that counted on a similar inheritance that ended up with nothing. In one case because the parent lived to 103 and all the money was spent on her care. In another case the father remarried a much younger woman who basically took him for every penny he had. It is also a slightly pathetic way to live your life, waiting for a relative to die so you can inherit.

Much better to treat anything you do get as a bonus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. It surprises me that folks aren’t considering it. One of the things we’re trying to think through is that a lot of the funds are in IRAs. With the recent SECURE 2.0 act, that will mean we have to withdraw those funds within 10 years which will almost certainly increase our tax rate. So one of the things my spouse and I have discussed is whether we should do backdoor Roth’s now knowing we’re going to be hit with those taxes later on. As I said we save for our own retirement, but it feels stupid to not consider the impact of a known inheritance down the line….

We already have Roths, so…
We’re wealthier than our parents anyway, so any inheritance will just be a nice surprise.

[Anonymous]

If you’re just talking about your parents’ personal wealth, like in brokerage accounts and such, you can’t count on or adjust for it at all. For one thing, your parents will hopefully live a very long time. For another you can’t account for long term care, new spouses, scams etc. A lot can happen.

If you’re talking about like >$15m with intergenerational trust accounts and such I think you can take more risks than you might otherwise. It’s a safety net.

[Anonymous]

I know I will get detractors for this but… you’re really trying to die with no inheritance for your kid after you burn through a 7 figure inheritance for you? Shameful. Absolutely shameful.

I will try my best to leave inheritance TF alone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you’re just talking about your parents’ personal wealth, like in brokerage accounts and such, you can’t count on or adjust for it at all. For one thing, your parents will hopefully live a very long time. For another you can’t account for long term care, new spouses, scams etc. A lot can happen.

If you’re talking about like >$15m with intergenerational trust accounts and such I think you can take more risks than you might otherwise. It’s a safety net.

I live in a house that was inherited by a random friend from church rather than the kids. Truly anything can happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you’re just talking about your parents’ personal wealth, like in brokerage accounts and such, you can’t count on or adjust for it at all. For one thing, your parents will hopefully live a very long time. For another you can’t account for long term care, new spouses, scams etc. A lot can happen.

If you’re talking about like >$15m with intergenerational trust accounts and such I think you can take more risks than you might otherwise. It’s a safety net.

I’ll give you an example: as we are thinking about having more kids, I know that if we had a child with significant special needs OR one of us had a major health problem that impacted our employment we could a) tap a trust of which we are beneficiaries while our parents are still living/controlling it and b) be pretty confident they would adjust their estate plans to establish, for example, a special needs care trust. So that’s not really “inheritance” but it definitely impacts our planning in terms of just worrying less about having a lot of conservatively invested or cash cushion in case of major needs.

[Anonymous]

If your parents really had all that much, they would have taken advantage of this era of trumps estate tax exemption to gift to you. Since they havent, to me that means they have something in the five to ten million range. Hate to break it to you, but they could go through most or all of that. My parents' elder care costs 300k per year. Your parents could live another ten to twnety years.

Dont count on it until it is in your bank account.