Anonymous
Post 06/04/2026 16:15     Subject: Inheritance
OP here - we have never really had a financial planner. I am always skeptical especially since they probably want to manage your assets.

My wife doesn't really want to "budget" either. I have asked several times in the past but it's gone nowhere (like other than a very basic budget with a few line items). It's not going to happen so i don't ask really anymore.

But she's not a huge spender. that's kind of her version of a budget.

Anonymous
Post 06/04/2026 16:11     Subject: Inheritance
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:OP Here - thanks for the responses. I will respond to individual posts but in generally I believe it's smart to think about these things. It's not grubby or anything like that.

but some background. my wife and I save. I like to save more than she does.

We are 50 years old and have $9-10MM in investable assets and $2MM in Real estate equity. Our HHI income is on the order of $500-700K depending on the year.

She wants to completely spend our HHI each year now. Does not want to save anymore.

Is she being reasonable? Normally I say no but not so sure anymore.

Two sets of parents. 1 of them aren't in the greatest shape and i could see a decade of memory care for both of them. My haircut assumption is $2MM in that case. The other set is healthier and really need to be planning on another 15-20 years. So who knows on that one but i haircut that to be $2MM as well.

In retirement we want to be able to spend exactly (if not more) than we spend today.

Normal retirement planning says withdraw 4% a year. so, in our case that would be 400k. we are about 100-200k short. Hence save is my view.

Wife view - expenses go down so today's life style costs alot less without expenses for kids. And 4% of some value for the inheritance gets us to the 100-200k number anyway.

is she correct?

p.s. we are very lucky. historically we have lived below our means.



I mean that's a very very high amount of spending. While you have high assets, that's not going to support spending 700k/year for long. So what is the plan when you retire?

There has to be a happy medium here. Sure, you have a lot saved but not enough to have extremely high expenses.


OP here - agree and lots of moving parts have to mentally/financially figure out. some items we have discussed
1) Spending on kids will dramatically decline post college.
2) the early years of retirement spending is probably high (travel is expensive) then tails down till very old and need medical care
3) Life is short, enjoy the money today.
4) outsource all not enjoyable items - laundry, cleaning are two easy examples.


If you have 9 million dollars, you can afford a financial planner to lay out a sustainable amount of spending. At the amount of money you have, your money should be making its own money.


a financial planner can help with the math. i think it's more philosophy and spending habits/style that are the questions.
Anonymous
Post 06/04/2026 16:10     Subject: Re:Inheritance
I know how much my dad has and how it will be split. I try not to think about it. I wish I didn't know. I don't want to be excited about money that I'll only get when my last remaining parent dies. Saving is done aggressively regardless of what may be coming.
Anonymous
Post 06/04/2026 16:10     Subject: Inheritance
Anonymous wrote:I don’t think your wife is reasonable to spend the entire $500-$700k. You should at the very least max out 401ks. Are you kids in private school? We make more but HHI but probably spend about that much. We don’t really try to cut back on much, it our kids are in public. We have expensive cars but we don’t spend a lot of clothes. We spend maybe $40l on travel a year. I would feel weird not saving at all in this economy with 17 years until Medicare kicks in.


Sorry, to be clear the spend it all excludes the 401k (because of company match policy). that's just silly not to do it.

the kids are in private now. which makes savings really difficult. before it was essentially $100k getting put into savings each year.
Anonymous
Post 06/04/2026 16:10     Subject: Inheritance
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:OP Here - thanks for the responses. I will respond to individual posts but in generally I believe it's smart to think about these things. It's not grubby or anything like that.

but some background. my wife and I save. I like to save more than she does.

We are 50 years old and have $9-10MM in investable assets and $2MM in Real estate equity. Our HHI income is on the order of $500-700K depending on the year.

She wants to completely spend our HHI each year now. Does not want to save anymore.

Is she being reasonable? Normally I say no but not so sure anymore.

Two sets of parents. 1 of them aren't in the greatest shape and i could see a decade of memory care for both of them. My haircut assumption is $2MM in that case. The other set is healthier and really need to be planning on another 15-20 years. So who knows on that one but i haircut that to be $2MM as well.

In retirement we want to be able to spend exactly (if not more) than we spend today.

Normal retirement planning says withdraw 4% a year. so, in our case that would be 400k. we are about 100-200k short. Hence save is my view.

Wife view - expenses go down so today's life style costs alot less without expenses for kids. And 4% of some value for the inheritance gets us to the 100-200k number anyway.

is she correct?

p.s. we are very lucky. historically we have lived below our means.



I mean that's a very very high amount of spending. While you have high assets, that's not going to support spending 700k/year for long. So what is the plan when you retire?

There has to be a happy medium here. Sure, you have a lot saved but not enough to have extremely high expenses.


OP here - agree and lots of moving parts have to mentally/financially figure out. some items we have discussed
1) Spending on kids will dramatically decline post college.
2) the early years of retirement spending is probably high (travel is expensive) then tails down till very old and need medical care
3) Life is short, enjoy the money today.
4) outsource all not enjoyable items - laundry, cleaning are two easy examples.


If you have 9 million dollars, you can afford a financial planner to lay out a sustainable amount of spending. At the amount of money you have, your money should be making its own money.
Anonymous
Post 06/04/2026 16:08     Subject: Inheritance
My spouse and I consider my inheritance. We are pretty frugal and we’re both high paid federal employees that retired last year with doge. Our pensions and geese supplement exceed $200K- we have approximately 4M in tsp and I will inherit about 2 to 3 million. Kids are done with school and out home is almost paid off.
Anonymous
Post 06/04/2026 16:07     Subject: Inheritance
Anonymous wrote:Wait - the $9-10MM is yours now, today? If so then I agree with wife. Save a minimal amount, maybe, but spend your HHI to maximize the time while kids are at home. Pay for private school, take vacations, pay off your mortgage, etc.


The one thing we have agreed on is to go on nice family vacations for now. So last few years we travelled we get 2 suites, stay at nice places and do high end trips (Safari) that hopefully our kids will remember fondly.

The other idea is to have each set of grandparents pay for private school for the kids.

The last thing might be the very happy meet in the middle strategy.
Anonymous
Post 06/04/2026 16:06     Subject: Inheritance
We think about it as one of our possible scenarios. We have a financial planner who models our retirement needs. We are planning to need the same in retirement as we do now (one kid in college) and we aim to have enough saved to be confident we won’t run out of money before we die.

We are in our fifties and spend about $100,000/yr, and our current $1.5 million will grow a bit before we retire, and then we should have enough to make that work.

On both sides our living parents are old and frail, one of them in hospice (though he could live another year or more). We’ll probably inherit in the next few years. That is soon and probable enough that we feel comfortable doing things like not saving more now because of a job loss, and taking a vacation. Basically it gives us confidence to do the things our financial advisor tells us we could do anyway and still be safe, but we would hesitate to do without the probability of more money coming in.
Anonymous
Post 06/04/2026 16:04     Subject: Inheritance
I don’t think your wife is reasonable to spend the entire $500-$700k. You should at the very least max out 401ks. Are you kids in private school? We make more but HHI but probably spend about that much. We don’t really try to cut back on much, it our kids are in public. We have expensive cars but we don’t spend a lot of clothes. We spend maybe $40l on travel a year. I would feel weird not saving at all in this economy with 17 years until Medicare kicks in.
Anonymous
Post 06/04/2026 16:03     Subject: Inheritance
Anonymous wrote:Wait - the $9-10MM is yours now, today? If so then I agree with wife. Save a minimal amount, maybe, but spend your HHI to maximize the time while kids are at home. Pay for private school, take vacations, pay off your mortgage, etc.


sorry, yes the 9-10mm is ours now. we are savers and invest well.
Anonymous
Post 06/04/2026 16:01     Subject: Inheritance
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:OP Here - thanks for the responses. I will respond to individual posts but in generally I believe it's smart to think about these things. It's not grubby or anything like that.

but some background. my wife and I save. I like to save more than she does.

We are 50 years old and have $9-10MM in investable assets and $2MM in Real estate equity. Our HHI income is on the order of $500-700K depending on the year.

She wants to completely spend our HHI each year now. Does not want to save anymore.

Is she being reasonable? Normally I say no but not so sure anymore.

Two sets of parents. 1 of them aren't in the greatest shape and i could see a decade of memory care for both of them. My haircut assumption is $2MM in that case. The other set is healthier and really need to be planning on another 15-20 years. So who knows on that one but i haircut that to be $2MM as well.

In retirement we want to be able to spend exactly (if not more) than we spend today.

Normal retirement planning says withdraw 4% a year. so, in our case that would be 400k. we are about 100-200k short. Hence save is my view.

Wife view - expenses go down so today's life style costs alot less without expenses for kids. And 4% of some value for the inheritance gets us to the 100-200k number anyway.

is she correct?

p.s. we are very lucky. historically we have lived below our means.



I mean that's a very very high amount of spending. While you have high assets, that's not going to support spending 700k/year for long. So what is the plan when you retire?

There has to be a happy medium here. Sure, you have a lot saved but not enough to have extremely high expenses.


OP here - agree and lots of moving parts have to mentally/financially figure out. some items we have discussed
1) Spending on kids will dramatically decline post college.
2) the early years of retirement spending is probably high (travel is expensive) then tails down till very old and need medical care
3) Life is short, enjoy the money today.
4) outsource all not enjoyable items - laundry, cleaning are two easy examples.
Anonymous
Post 06/04/2026 15:54     Subject: Inheritance
Anonymous wrote:For folks with aging parent(s) - over 80 years old. how do you think about inheritance?

Does anyone consider it as part of their retirement planning? Do you have a conversation with your parents about it?

I know the conventional wisdom is to not consider it - you never know, etc.

Let's say each parent set would be expected to give you $2.5MM.
Does anyone say, I am going to stop saving now that I am 50 years old and use
the (hypothetical) extra $50k that I would have saved to have a better time now with my kids (vacations)
or consider private school versus public school.

I am assuming in my example you have saved regularly and at 50 are well on the way to being able to retire at 65.
this is all about not putting the 50k you have been saving. not spending what you have in IRAs/brokerage accounts.

thoughts?


Well neither of our parents have money so we'll get next to nothing. We have a wealthy Aunt but who knows what will happen? We don't count on it. We'll keep saving until we have to start taking disbursements from our retirement accounts. If we get something, that will be useful but that is all Tbd until death.

I don't think it's a good idea to bank on an inheritance, imo.

But i also don't think hoping for "someone else's money" is a bad thing. Generational wealth is one of the only pathways out of the working class at this point. So that is a natural hope. Unless you've been poor or working class, you won't get it. Nothing was given to me in life and if someone gives me something-or there is a possibility of it- I'll take it and do so happily.
Anonymous
Post 06/04/2026 15:53     Subject: Inheritance
Anonymous wrote:OP Here - thanks for the responses. I will respond to individual posts but in generally I believe it's smart to think about these things. It's not grubby or anything like that.

but some background. my wife and I save. I like to save more than she does.

We are 50 years old and have $9-10MM in investable assets and $2MM in Real estate equity. Our HHI income is on the order of $500-700K depending on the year.

She wants to completely spend our HHI each year now. Does not want to save anymore.

Is she being reasonable? Normally I say no but not so sure anymore.

Two sets of parents. 1 of them aren't in the greatest shape and i could see a decade of memory care for both of them. My haircut assumption is $2MM in that case. The other set is healthier and really need to be planning on another 15-20 years. So who knows on that one but i haircut that to be $2MM as well.

In retirement we want to be able to spend exactly (if not more) than we spend today.

Normal retirement planning says withdraw 4% a year. so, in our case that would be 400k. we are about 100-200k short. Hence save is my view.

Wife view - expenses go down so today's life style costs alot less without expenses for kids. And 4% of some value for the inheritance gets us to the 100-200k number anyway.

is she correct?

p.s. we are very lucky. historically we have lived below our means.



I mean that's a very very high amount of spending. While you have high assets, that's not going to support spending 700k/year for long. So what is the plan when you retire?

There has to be a happy medium here. Sure, you have a lot saved but not enough to have extremely high expenses.
Anonymous
Post 06/04/2026 15:53     Subject: Inheritance
Anonymous wrote:I think about it. I’ll be honest. Taking care of one parent right now and the other side parent (1 of each side are dead) also has dementia. They have about $7m and $2m but with that also comes a lot of responsibility. It’s awful. They refuse any outside help and I’m starting to wonder if the money is worth my sanity. I don’t think it is. We have plenty. About the same as both of them combined so it’s never affected retirement planning for us. We still save a lot, but as kids near college age I’m sure we will spend about $1m of it on that.


starting to deal with the same - memory and dementia are just really tough on so many levels.
Anonymous
Post 06/04/2026 15:51     Subject: Inheritance
Anonymous wrote:OP Here - thanks for the responses. I will respond to individual posts but in generally I believe it's smart to think about these things. It's not grubby or anything like that.

but some background. my wife and I save. I like to save more than she does.

We are 50 years old and have $9-10MM in investable assets and $2MM in Real estate equity. Our HHI income is on the order of $500-700K depending on the year.

She wants to completely spend our HHI each year now. Does not want to save anymore.

Is she being reasonable? Normally I say no but not so sure anymore.

Two sets of parents. 1 of them aren't in the greatest shape and i could see a decade of memory care for both of them. My haircut assumption is $2MM in that case. The other set is healthier and really need to be planning on another 15-20 years. So who knows on that one but i haircut that to be $2MM as well.

In retirement we want to be able to spend exactly (if not more) than we spend today.

Normal retirement planning says withdraw 4% a year. so, in our case that would be 400k. we are about 100-200k short. Hence save is my view.

Wife view - expenses go down so today's life style costs alot less without expenses for kids. And 4% of some value for the inheritance gets us to the 100-200k number anyway.

is she correct?

p.s. we are very lucky. historically we have lived below our means.



Your wife is correct. You are very very likely to die with millions in the bank, and you may wish that you had spent more when you were more able to enjoy it.