Husband doesn't want to leave our kids much in inheritence

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like your wills should be different. Is he planning on leaving you money if he dies or are you also expected to be scrappy and take care of yourself.

Lol

[Anonymous]

Ultimately, you get some % of the money, your husband some %. It sounds like you will do 50/50. If you're at an impasse, you can each decide what you want to do with your 50%.

That said, $2M per child seems completely sufficient. And it is only going to grow and compound - so by the time the kids tap into it, it might be far more. I dont think you said you how old these children are, but I assume you are leaving them this AFTER you have already paid for their education, wedding, down payment on home, etc. You could also wait and see what the grandkid situation is like... though I'm of the mindset it should be equal not dependent on how many grandkids there are. I am a bit team husband on this, but ultimately you are free to do what you want with your half.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are in the process of updating our estate documents and it has become very tense. Current investments are around $14M and our only debt is $400K mortgage and we will owe income taxes when we exercise our stock options (probably around $1.2M or so in taxes). Bottom line, we aren't going to run out of money based on our current spending so there will be a substantial amount left when we die.

My husband only wants to leave each of our 2 kids $2M each and the rest to charity. My concern is $2M seems like a lot of money, but when you consider inflation, who knows what it will be in 20 or 30 years. He keeps telling me he doesn't want his legacy to be making his kids wealthy. I am struggling with leaving them such a small percentage of our estate. Both my husband and I came from very humble background, and he basically wants our kids to have our same or similar struggles in life. I am at a loss at how to counter this.

Anyone else grapple with this?

Be careful of giving your kids too much. They need to have a purpose in life and being a trust fund baby can make for a lot of unhappy people. 2 million is plenty. Look at Bono and Gordon Ramsey giving nothing. Think of how privleged you are thinking 2 million isnt goingvto be enough.

So cute that you actually believe the likes of Bono and Ramsey are leaving their kids with nothing.

[Anonymous]

A lot of charities don’t really do anything.

[Anonymous]

I totally understand where you are coming from, but I agree with your DH. I would change it from a flat dollar amount to a percentage though to deal with inflation not could also be the greater of $2M or x% of the estate.

In all fairness I’m having the same struggle as your DH. I don’t want to leave my children much. I will educate them through whatever they want and they will graduate debt free. I’m just not sure beyond that how much of any they should get. We have 3 kids and about $40M net worth. Plus another $10M in life insurance. I expect it to grow but it works out to $17M in todays dollar a piece. No one needs that. DH disagrees on the amount. He wants to leave them comfortable. But he concurs that there is a limit. He would like to leave half to them and the balance to charity.

[Anonymous]

You can’t let your husband decide for you. This sounds like a toxic marriage. Your best option is to ask for a divorce now, take 50% of the money. You would be free to give whatever you want to your kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A lot of charities don’t really do anything.

As opposed to people with inherited wealth, the heroes of America's story.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I totally understand where you are coming from, but I agree with your DH. I would change it from a flat dollar amount to a percentage though to deal with inflation not could also be the greater of $2M or x% of the estate.

In all fairness I’m having the same struggle as your DH. I don’t want to leave my children much. I will educate them through whatever they want and they will graduate debt free. I’m just not sure beyond that how much of any they should get. We have 3 kids and about $40M net worth. Plus another $10M in life insurance. I expect it to grow but it works out to $17M in todays dollar a piece. No one needs that. DH disagrees on the amount. He wants to leave them comfortable. But he concurs that there is a limit. He would like to leave half to them and the balance to charity.

why did you go through all the sacrifices necessary to earn that much, but not leave it to your kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of charities don’t really do anything.

As opposed to people with inherited wealth, the heroes of America's story.

I mean, I would rather see it go to charity then passed on as inherited wealth. But I seriously cannon wrap my head around why someone would spend their prime years doing the kind of work necessary to amass this kind of money, then NOT want to leave it to your kids? I know four people with wealth on this scale (estates between 10mil-40 mil) and they basically ruined their homelives to get it. Three (the men) worked 24/7 while their SAHW coped with everything, even after serious health issues. One (the woman) basically abandoned her kids to their dad and moved to another city.

I get wanting to make sure your own kids work hard and have motivated. But why TFFFFF did they spend decades frankly neglecting their families to accumulate all of that?

[Anonymous]

If you want your money to be squandered and spent of superfluous things, you should definitely leave it to a non profit

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can’t let your husband decide for you. This sounds like a toxic marriage. Your best option is to ask for a divorce now, take 50% of the money. You would be free to give whatever you want to your kids.

OP here. Way to jump to conclusions. You sound toxic honestly.

[Anonymous]

Can we add this to the thread for us regular folks being annoyed at the rich people problem posts?

Really do think we need a separate money forum for the average joe's with real problems.

[Anonymous]

We plan on doing essentially the same, with different numbers of course. One potential difference: we plan to help our child with funds while we are living. College, grad school, mortgage, gifts. Then a small inheritance.

She can get our stuff after we die, sell that (fully paid off homes, luxury vehicles etc) and pocket that money, but any left over goes to our nieces and nephews and charities.

[Anonymous]

Hi OP,

Your are fortunate to have the high net worth. One day the monies may go to pay caregivers for your or your husband.

We've had in house caregivers for probably 15 years.

The past couple of years we've run about $300,000 a year on caregivers. The money goes fast.

You can do the math: $30 per hour, 24 hours a day, 354 days a year

[Anonymous]

Are you currently gifting $18,000 per year, per kid, tax free that the IRS allows?