Anonymous
10/02/2025 13:18
Subject: Do you know your parents net worth?
Anonymous wrote:Yes, I recently learned all the details and wasn't totally thrilled. My parents are in their late 70s and my father's health is declining, which is how I became involved with their finances after a lifetime of them being extremely private about it. Background is my father is a retired professor from a well known university and my mother a retired teacher.
Their net worth is a house (solid but estate sale condition) worth 800kish and another 800k in investments. On top of this they have annual pension incomes of about 150k plus social security, which together means they have an annual HHI over 200k. And for life. Which is excellent for pensions, but I couldn't understand why their investments was onlh 800k and sat down to figure out the details.
I quickly found out while my parents did the right thing with pension contributions, my father was so conservative with his other investments that he was averaging 5% returns, which is below the usual 6-7% benchmark used by most people, and half the S&P annualized returns. If he'd been confident enough to just put everything in the S&P funds starting in the 1990s, they'd have so much more money.
They're still in a good place, they spend far less than their income, but I can't help but be slightly annoyed by my father's indifference and rectitude around money and investments. To make it even more annoying, his good friends are all investment savvy men. My mother admitted he routinely ignored their advice because he was afraid of losing money! Well, he sure lost money by being so conservative!
I get it. That's rough but par for the course from some elder academic professors family members we know. Don't trust anything and then with a DB plan professionally managed - but not inheritable - they really checked out on the capital market trends.
Anonymous
10/02/2025 13:10
Subject: Do you know your parents net worth?
Anonymous wrote:My parents never considered a trust for their low six figure estate. It was NBD.
Is there a dollar level where people tend to spend the money to set up a trust?
no, it costs $2-4k to plop things in a joint revocable trust and then a day/emails filling out forms to transfer assets (home, bank accounts, trading accounts, biz interests, retirement accounts) into them.
if you do an online one its even less costly set up.
Anonymous
10/02/2025 12:08
Subject: Do you know your parents net worth?
Yes, I recently learned all the details and wasn't totally thrilled. My parents are in their late 70s and my father's health is declining, which is how I became involved with their finances after a lifetime of them being extremely private about it. Background is my father is a retired professor from a well known university and my mother a retired teacher.
Their net worth is a house (solid but estate sale condition) worth 800kish and another 800k in investments. On top of this they have annual pension incomes of about 150k plus social security, which together means they have an annual HHI over 200k. And for life. Which is excellent for pensions, but I couldn't understand why their investments was onlh 800k and sat down to figure out the details.
I quickly found out while my parents did the right thing with pension contributions, my father was so conservative with his other investments that he was averaging 5% returns, which is below the usual 6-7% benchmark used by most people, and half the S&P annualized returns. If he'd been confident enough to just put everything in the S&P funds starting in the 1990s, they'd have so much more money.
They're still in a good place, they spend far less than their income, but I can't help but be slightly annoyed by my father's indifference and rectitude around money and investments. To make it even more annoying, his good friends are all investment savvy men. My mother admitted he routinely ignored their advice because he was afraid of losing money! Well, he sure lost money by being so conservative!
Their net worth is a house (solid but estate sale condition) worth 800kish and another 800k in investments. On top of this they have annual pension incomes of about 150k plus social security, which together means they have an annual HHI over 200k. And for life. Which is excellent for pensions, but I couldn't understand why their investments was onlh 800k and sat down to figure out the details.
I quickly found out while my parents did the right thing with pension contributions, my father was so conservative with his other investments that he was averaging 5% returns, which is below the usual 6-7% benchmark used by most people, and half the S&P annualized returns. If he'd been confident enough to just put everything in the S&P funds starting in the 1990s, they'd have so much more money.
They're still in a good place, they spend far less than their income, but I can't help but be slightly annoyed by my father's indifference and rectitude around money and investments. To make it even more annoying, his good friends are all investment savvy men. My mother admitted he routinely ignored their advice because he was afraid of losing money! Well, he sure lost money by being so conservative!
Anonymous
10/02/2025 11:45
Subject: Do you know your parents net worth?
My mom has $80k in the bank and gets $5600 per month which is a combo of a pension, SS, and work injury settlement. Her and her boyfriend split rent on a $1700 unit and she lives well within her means.
My dad has $180k in the bank and gets $7000 per month pension and SS. He has about $120k equity in his house as well.
So, not much but both are doing fine.
My dad has $180k in the bank and gets $7000 per month pension and SS. He has about $120k equity in his house as well.
So, not much but both are doing fine.
Anonymous
10/02/2025 11:12
Subject: Do you know your parents net worth?
My Mom died a few months ago and my Dad about a decade ago. They were old school so they both worked their whole lives and did what they could. We are thankful that they shared all their finances with us soon after they retired. After my Dad died and my Mom had a stroke we took over her finances at age 72.
My Mom sold the house because she could not manage it anymore. They had Social Security and modest pensions and not much in assets/savings. She had steady ($4500/month) income for the remainder of her life but her net worth was never more than $200k (mostly from selling the house). Memory care during her later years ran that down to close to zero and with her death, the checks stopped coming.
No windfall for us but it was enough for them. Like I said, we benefited so much from them being open with their finances years before they died.
My Mom sold the house because she could not manage it anymore. They had Social Security and modest pensions and not much in assets/savings. She had steady ($4500/month) income for the remainder of her life but her net worth was never more than $200k (mostly from selling the house). Memory care during her later years ran that down to close to zero and with her death, the checks stopped coming.
No windfall for us but it was enough for them. Like I said, we benefited so much from them being open with their finances years before they died.
Anonymous
10/01/2025 19:00
Subject: Do you know your parents net worth?
Anonymous wrote:Sure I do. It's the house minus whatever if costs to haul away a broken down boat.
Relatable
Anonymous
10/01/2025 18:47
Subject: Do you know your parents net worth?
Anonymous wrote:I'm trying to get them to consolidate accounts. but rough estimate is 15M in tradable equities, 2M in property, and some low 8 digit figure in an owned business.
Same. In my situation the biz interest is in an irrevocable trust (in case it became a windfall) and rest a joint revocable trust of trading accounts, IRAs, 401Ks and the house.
Anonymous
07/03/2025 16:46
Subject: Re:Do you know your parents net worth?
Anonymous wrote:I manage my mom's finances (dementia) so yes, I know exactly....but she has always been very open so I knew a lot before. I am responsible for her care now, and its good that she can afford a very high level of care.
My dad is fairly secretive, but what I do know is that when he remarried he jointly bought several expensive properties with his wife and doesn't have much separate anymore; she is independently quite wealthy and has a family large trust that does not go to him even if she dies first (unlikely because she is much younger and healthier). Their joint properties go, I assume, to the surviving spouse but he's never said anything one way or another. He did disclose that he plans to leave each grandkid 20k which is nice, if not life changing (maybe help with buying a car or something).
I am very fortunate that neither of my parents need (financial) support in their old age.
DH and I plan to ensure that we do not burden our kids with care needs, we also pay for college and if any left over, help them get a good start in life. I don't know if we will be able to leave them much, after that, but we will see. More to the point of this conversation, we plan to be open with them about everything, we have already started telling them the broad strokes (not amounts) and will get more granular as they get older.
How much does a very high level of care for dementia cost?