Reply to Parents being flippant about inheritance

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[quote=Anonymous]I expect to get flamed for this so let me say up front that I 100% understand that people have the right to do what they want with their money and that no one is obligated to leave an inheritance.

Even so, I am a little taken aback at my parents attitude, stated on several occasions, to spend it all and not leave anything behind. They are in a good financial position. That's fine, but the truth is that my parents can afford to think like this is because my paternal grandparents left several hundred thousand dollars to my father. It would have been more if my grandfather had ever been able to bring himself to gift money during his lifetime or set up a pass through trust. Half his estate went to the IRS. My grandfather talked about both of those options extensively with me (b/c I was a practicing lawyer at the time) but could never quite bring himself to do it because, according to my mother, he couldn't get over the thought that the grandkids would do something impulsive like buy a sports car. This was over 20 years ago when the estate tax limit was $1million. I think he couldn't really get over the fact that he had amassed that wealth and thus just pushed off the decision.

Is there something that happens in age that causes you to have weird attitudes about money and inheritance? My mother told some story about her friends who are also quite well off making some jab about their kids frittering away the money so they plan to spend it all. But they raised us, and none of us are profligate spenders or anything.

I don't feel like I'm owed anything and this question really isn't about money, but more about the attitude about it as people age.[/quote]

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