Anonymous wrote:I do not recommend leaving money to anyone but your children as part of the will. I think it confused the estate and opens up the door to resentment. Also, as a practical matter, you never really know how much your child may need (think long-term illness or unemployment.)

It is incredibly generous of you to want to help out the rest of your family. My suggestion would be that you do it now. If you have the money to spare and your BIL is feeling squeezed, offer to pay for the new water heater, or whatever. Or just send an anonymous check.
You may have 6mil or whatever now, and the 10% you may leave to your parents isn't a big deal, but if your circumstances change dramatically and you do not end up changing your will, you could end up giving your children $600 instead of $6,000,000.

Well the issue is that everyone is doing fine now, but we kind of considered ourselves a safety net, esp. for one set of parents (for example, we encouraged them to get a LTCI policy, and offered to pay premiums on it in the future).

Anyway, thanks for the opinions (and hopefully no one will pass before their time and the whole discussion will be academic).

Anonymous wrote:I do not recommend leaving money to anyone but your children as part of the will. I think it confused the estate and opens up the door to resentment. Also, as a practical matter, you never really know how much your child may need (think long-term illness or unemployment.)

It is incredibly generous of you to want to help out the rest of your family. My suggestion would be that you do it now. If you have the money to spare and your BIL is feeling squeezed, offer to pay for the new water heater, or whatever. Or just send an anonymous check.
You may have 6mil or whatever now, and the 10% you may leave to your parents isn't a big deal, but if your circumstances change dramatically and you do not end up changing your will, you could end up giving your children $600 instead of $6,000,000.

I agree. Do you really know the financial situation of everyone in your families. You may think you do... but I can guarantee you don't. And randomly divying it up based on what you think you know sounds like a disaster.

But I think the biggest issue is with the guardians of your children. They will be assuming a MAJOR financial responsibility and risk by taking your children on. Why wouldn't you leave them everything? Any number of unforseen health/job/financial situations could arise and you dont want to end up screwing these people over along with your children.

What about the cat, folks? What about the cat?

Half to kids, half to charities & whacko causes.

All to our child. He is a minor and they can take care of themselves as they are adults.

I do not recommend leaving money to anyone but your children as part of the will. I think it confused the estate and opens up the door to resentment. Also, as a practical matter, you never really know how much your child may need (think long-term illness or unemployment.)

It is incredibly generous of you to want to help out the rest of your family. My suggestion would be that you do it now. If you have the money to spare and your BIL is feeling squeezed, offer to pay for the new water heater, or whatever. Or just send an anonymous check.
You may have 6mil or whatever now, and the 10% you may leave to your parents isn't a big deal, but if your circumstances change dramatically and you do not end up changing your will, you could end up giving your children $600 instead of $6,000,000.

None to parents (they are fine) or siblings (one more than fine, one getting by, but through their own poor choices). Considering leaving enough for college and grad school costs to our nieces and nephews (offspring of the ones who blew a bunch of money). I happen to think graduating from school without debt is a wonderful head start in life, and let's one pick a career based on passion rather than paying off loans.

If we were both to die in a car accident tomorrow, our DD would still receive several million from us, and would eventually inherit money from my parents as well, so we wouldn't be short-changing her in a noticeable way.

You should give all the money to your kids especially if they are minors. I wouldn't even consider leaving the money to anyone else unless my kids were fully grown anD were financially secure. Even then I would want the money to go to my grand children.

No. All to the kids, unless we die when the kids are still minors...Our siblings are listed as the people who are children would go to, if we die before they are adults...in which case some of our insurance money would go to the sibling who has the kids...I'll be honest though, I'm not exactly sure how that all works out...

I would be inclined to leave the money to my children and the people who will be raising them. Do not nickel and dime that. Really. Be realistic about the finances they would need, particularly if they would need to but a bigger house in a high cost area like this, enough money for your children's college, etc.

Your siblings have their whole lives to move up financially. Not so sure about the parents but i would be disinclined to do that also. I suppose some of this is dependent on whether you are extremely wealthy or not. But I would not feel comfortable unless I was leaving at least a few million for my children.

All to kids. Not even a discussion.

No. Everything will go to our children.

Same. All to kids.

Nope. I am giving it all to my kids.

Among us, DH and I have a couple of sibs who don't having to worry about $, and a couple who are self-sufficient but not exactly financially settled. Likewise, one set of parents is fine, but another set we were planning to support in their retirement as necessary. Originally we were planning on leaving everything to our kids without leaving anything to parents or siblings, but the more we thought about it the more it seemed as though it might make sense to leave some money to the parents we were planning to support, in the event we die first, and then that led to whether we should leave anything to the sibs (at least the ones that we conceivably might need some support as well). I think there is enough life insurance money that we could do this and still leave enough to our kids, but I guess we should think about how much the kids really need.

Anyway, I was curious how others had thought about this.