If you set it up correctly it doesn't.

I think of my family as having generational wealth, but it's not like there's some huge trust fund that sustains everyone in million dollar houses.

But my grandmother who lived a frugal life left me an investment account that had $35k in it. I never even thought about it until I wanted to buy a house. And wow, was that awesome. My other grandmother had left my mom money, and my mom was financially comfortable enough to pass that along at the same time. So I essentially had $75k from my grandparents, who were NOT rich, to help buy a home. My father was also able to pay for college without loans, another huge financial gift.

That is still generational wealth, even though the numbers are not eye popping to many on this board. It padded my financial life immensely.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Grandfather patented two very profitable things that are still in use today. We should all be filthy rich but he divorced my grandma and remarried. She outlived him and I assume her kids/his stepkids are doing very well.

So it goes.

Np, remarriage w/deep pockets is such a bad idea. My dad remarried at 76 after my mom passed.

This is why I plead with my mother not to die before my father. I know he will marry a gold digger in the name of "propriety." If my father dies before my mom, I know she will never remarry.

Same. My mom would have remained single had she outlived my dad.

My MIL has a longtime companion of her age after FIL passed away but she will not remarry. The difference with widowed men is that they usually prefer younger women who want their own families to ensure a share of the pie.

Pie shouldn't be shared with people who didn't help bake it.

Anonymous wrote:Grandfather patented two very profitable things that are still in use today. We should all be filthy rich but he divorced my grandma and remarried. She outlived him and I assume her kids/his stepkids are doing very well.

So it goes.

Exactly the same situation with husband's family. The last ex-wife conspired with an attorney to change the grandfather's will during his dementia. My husband's dad and his brother and sister were pretty much cut out. The only funds they saw were from their mother, who invested wisely, but it wasn't much. C'est la vie.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Grandfather patented two very profitable things that are still in use today. We should all be filthy rich but he divorced my grandma and remarried. She outlived him and I assume her kids/his stepkids are doing very well.

So it goes.

Np, remarriage w/deep pockets is such a bad idea. My dad remarried at 76 after my mom passed.

This is why I plead with my mother not to die before my father. I know he will marry a gold digger in the name of "propriety." If my father dies before my mom, I know she will never remarry.

Same. My mom would have remained single had she outlived my dad.

My MIL has a longtime companion of her age after FIL passed away but she will not remarry. The difference with widowed men is that they usually prefer younger women who want their own families to ensure a share of the pie.

I think many women feel this way. I know I do. Companionship after widowhood does not require marriage. My children will inherit all of our estate.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do you define generational wealth?

+1

A general definition of generational wealth is your parents having enough money to help support you through college, or to help with a down payment on a first home, or something fairly modest like that. I don't imagine millions in inheritance being necessary. I don't think the definition I use comes with a 3 generation expiration date. Though, for that matter, I don't think most families squander millions in 3 generations either.

This is not a rational definition of generational wealth. It includes most UMC and many MC families.

+1. It absolutely requires millions in inheritance in order for successive generations to be wealthy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Grandfather patented two very profitable things that are still in use today. We should all be filthy rich but he divorced my grandma and remarried. She outlived him and I assume her kids/his stepkids are doing very well.

So it goes.

Np, remarriage w/deep pockets is such a bad idea. My dad remarried at 76 after my mom passed.

This is why I plead with my mother not to die before my father. I know he will marry a gold digger in the name of "propriety." If my father dies before my mom, I know she will never remarry.

Same. My mom would have remained single had she outlived my dad.

My MIL has a longtime companion of her age after FIL passed away but she will not remarry. The difference with widowed men is that they usually prefer younger women who want their own families to ensure a share of the pie.

My family has owned various ranches for more than a century and under that land is lots of oil. The extraction of that oil has not stopped since the 1920s and shows no signs of stopping. Has provided a couple of hundred of us with millions for decades and now there is income from investments of much of that money.

My great, great grandparents were significantly wealthy and had generational wealth from before them. They had several properties all over the east coast and a vacation home in Cuba. My grandmother had fancy everything (house, nanny, cars, vacations, schools, clothes, etc.) and then came the Great Depression. My great grandfather agreed not to remove his money from the banks to show support and lost all that money. His property in Cuba was seized. They still owned their US properties but their values went down. They also had 10 kids, so that wealth was divided by 10.

My grandmother inherited a few properties (country homes, a farm, etc), but had a drinking problem so she wasn't the best money manager. There wasn't much left money wise for my mother to inherit but my mother did inherit some real estate.

My mother is an even worse money manager than my grandmother, so she's actually in debt and I often have to give her money. I do not expect to inherit anything when she passes. I am not sure how far back the money generation wise went (because that side of the family has been in the US for a very long time) but it essentially took 3 generations to squander it.

I started from scratch and them the breaks.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Grandfather patented two very profitable things that are still in use today. We should all be filthy rich but he divorced my grandma and remarried. She outlived him and I assume her kids/his stepkids are doing very well.

So it goes.

Np, remarriage w/deep pockets is such a bad idea. My dad remarried at 76 after my mom passed.

This is why I plead with my mother not to die before my father. I know he will marry a gold digger in the name of "propriety." If my father dies before my mom, I know she will never remarry.

Same. My mom would have remained single had she outlived my dad.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do you define generational wealth?

+1

A general definition of generational wealth is your parents having enough money to help support you through college, or to help with a down payment on a first home, or something fairly modest like that. I don't imagine millions in inheritance being necessary. I don't think the definition I use comes with a 3 generation expiration date. Though, for that matter, I don't think most families squander millions in 3 generations either.

This is not a rational definition of generational wealth. It includes most UMC and many MC families.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Grandfather patented two very profitable things that are still in use today. We should all be filthy rich but he divorced my grandma and remarried. She outlived him and I assume her kids/his stepkids are doing very well.

So it goes.

Np, remarriage w/deep pockets is such a bad idea. My dad remarried at 76 after my mom passed.

This is why I plead with my mother not to die before my father. I know he will marry a gold digger in the name of "propriety." If my father dies before my mom, I know she will never remarry.

Gen 1 lost everything in war, started to rebuild

Gen 2 got farther - DCUM level

Gen 3 trying their best to waste it all, but Gen 2 hanging on to some and passing money to Gen 4.

In OP's context, generational wealth that gets lost is wealth so great that the heir lives in luxury without needing a job.

I think the old adage applies to an older century where it was harder to park wealth in a perpetual trust feeding off the stock market.

"Down payment on a house" is easily lost as part of general living expenses.

Also, with 12 grandkids, how many if them have to lose their share for it to count as lost?

I think the three generations thing is wrong. It might be true in one branch. But by the third generation, you’re looking at a bunch of family units. Even if no one blows it all in Vegas, the wealth gets diluted by people having children even if they don’t spend any of it and invest it well. So it’s not “gone” but people may not be living like the original rich person.

When you have a really big fortune, like “family office” level, I don’t think it’s unusual at all for the benefits to continue for many, many generations. In America because of Wyoming and Delaware you can have huge trusts that basically pass from generation to generation without ever incurring estate taxes. The terms are like, 1000 years or something. Which is pretty messed up but that’s the world we live in.