My wife got some money from a grandmother and some from her ex stepfather. Both were used to pay off debt, so they were a God send.

I'll probably get some from my mom when she goes, but that doesn't seem like it'll happen any time soon thank goodness.

This is hard to believe. No one here has inherited more than a four figure sum or a car now worth in the five figures? I know plenty of trust fund folks, but then I went to a prep school where they tend to be in larger numbers.

My dad and his brother split their grandmother's estate about 15 yrs. ago and that came out to about $120k between the two of them. Strangely, my uncle, the kind of guy who pawned one of his dad's captured WWII Lugers to pay traffic tickets in college, really wanted this old sword their grandmother had. My dad let him have it and thought nothing of it. Anyway, it turns out the sword belonged to one of our relatives, Garrett Snedeker, who was one of George Washington's bodyguards and it's worth some bucks now. He was even on a tv show to talk about it recently.

But I figure my folks will inherit around $100k from my mom's mother, who is 84 and still drives. She may outlive us all. If my folks die together, my sister and I will never have to work again, assuming they've got it all set up so the death tax doesn't take too much of it. It could be a while though.

No inheritance here either. My dad immigrated here after WWII and worked as a laborer for his entire career. Mom was a homemaker. They put me through school and have always stepped up with whatever they had. I've been self sufficient since college. Mom's gone and dad's living frugally and never needs a cent from me. I might get a few bucks when he passes and we sell his little house, but I'm not counting on much. No other relatives that I expect to give me anything.

I hope to be able to leave a little something to my kid.

Forgot to mention that I have no plans to leave a penny to anyone. Now I don't plan to live out my last years on a reverse mortgage, so someone may get my house. But why do people want to leave money to their heirs?

If I have kids, I expect them to be successful, working adults by the time I die. I want some family heirlooms from my folks (like my dad's orginial 1866 Winchester .44 carbine), but I'd rather they spend their money and enjoy their retirement than spend a minute thinking about leaving me money I don't really need.

My thoughts exactly.

Nothing here either. My grandparents on my moms side are both dead but all of their estate was used to pay medical debt.

My grandfather on my dads side is still alive and I have no idea if he has any estate or insurance nor do I care. He has spent his life sitting in bars so I would imagine he doesn't have anything.

My parents are pretty young, Dad is 60 and mom is 58. While dad has done good for himself over the last 10 years he is not worth a mint. Plus I would imagine my personal success pretty much excludes me from any inheritance. Good decisions do not get rewarded poor ones do.

I really do not want anything anyway, if I did inherit anything I would probably give it to my kids. I cannot imagine how my older son will be able to afford a home in 7-10 years from now.

I have set up some decent life insurance policies for my wife and kids. So if anything happens to me my wife can live comfortably with the pool boy.

No trusts or inheritance for me or my wife. I worked for everything since I was 15. My wife's parents put her through college, but she worked her way through grad school. GI Bill and a full-time job helped me get through college and I worked full-time throughout grad school. We'll leave our son anything that we have left. :)

The wife had two trust funds. One from her Grandfather and one from her Grandmother. Her Grandfather passed away just after we were married. That money went towards a downpayment on our first house. Grandmother is in good health and about to celebrate her 92nd Birthday.

I know my Grandfather on my Mom's side has some money in the bank. It doesn't matter a bit to me. He's already given me his gun collection and in that is the only thing I ever really wanted, a late 1800's Springfield "Trapdoor" in 45-70, with a bayonet.

Just to clarify. I wasn't really asking about what things may come, but I understand the obvious transition to that discussion as well.

I was interested in the experiences of folks that got a "jump start" to their adult lives. A circumstance that helped them stay from behind the 8-ball of student loans and huge mortgages. In essence you started with a positive net worth via windfall (via inheritance, trust fund, or perhaps a legal settlement, etc..).

Interesting to note that those who post and "seem" to have all kinds of money (the idle rich) have not posted.

No names. We know who they are.

Those that start with nothing or nearly so and build themselves up I have all the respect in the world for. Those that either get handed it or get a ridiculous advantage because of the all-too-prevalent "you-have-to-have-money-to-make-money" phenomenon in our society I don't really have all that much respect for. Generally speaking.

A person that makes themselves a millionaire having started with nothing or nearly so is 10x the person that makes themselves $10M starting with $1M. It's much harder to do the former. Our system is set up to coddle the rich and prevent everyone else from getting there. That's where the real challenge lies - simply to get there.

It was huge I tell you, huge.

But, I had to work first, before I received it. For years and years.

My wifes uncle is worth half a billion dollars. Most of the family never really accomplished much in life, mostly waited for the magnificent shower of wealth than uncle Bills death would surely bring. My wife and I were the exception. We made our own life and never asked (or recieved) a penny.

About 10 years ago, uncle Bill and I were sharing a bottle of wine and he told me what his estate plans were; The relatives get nothing. All of his money goes into an endowment. It will fund college scholarships, help build libraries, childrens hospitals, etc. I just rolled my head back and had a great belly laugh. He smiled and said; "I thought you'ld get a kick out of that." My wife and I have never told the rest of the family. They wouldn't believe it, anyway.

Surely a seven figure selection would be appropriate for a few here.

I inherited a good moral upbringing, anything I have thats materialistic I earned. That's not to say I wouldn't take it if it were ever offered. It just hasn't and won't.

net worth is 7 figures although that is basically meaningless at this point in my life, it is almost all tied into home equity or budgetted for retirement.
Some day I will live good, as long as I live long enough but not too long ;)

Great story!

Sadly, I'll bet there are going to be some ugly, ugly lawsuits filed on the part of some of those individuals though. . .

If I were him, I'd give it all away BEFORE I died because no matter how good your lawyers are, there are no guarantees as to what happens to your estate once you're gone. . .



When my wife's grandfather passed away a few years ago we flew back east to attend the funeral and were hanging around with the rest of the family at their home with her grandmother (deceased's wife). It took literally less than an hour for the conversation to go from civlized condolences and friendly conversation to almost bloodthirsty competition over "who gets what". I mean - the guy hadn't even been in the ground two hours!

I was so disgusted/appalled by this I resolved to never let it happen to me (not to mention I lost a lot of respect for most of my wife's extended family). If my parents both died tomorrow (here's hoping they don't) and they wanted to give everything to my brother or to charity or to whomever other than me, I'd sit down shut up and be happy I'd had them in my lives for all the other, non-financial things they brought me over the years. I might not be happy about it, but I just think it's callously disrespectful to the deceased to second-guess their wishes especially when ultimately rooted in selfishness and jealousy. One possible exception might be if the deceased honestly went nuts prior to their death, but this wasn't the case.

Such stuff brings out the worst in people I guess. . .

My father always told me he would spend every dime before I got any money from him. I've been on my own since 15 yrs old. Family has plenty of money, I just never see any of it, although I worked for my father half my life for minimum wage, helping him build a fortune. Dad died a few months ago. Mom seems to want to give my brother,whom I haven't talked to 12-14 years, everything. $300,000 a few months ago to get him out of trouble with the bank. I don't believe she even knows what I do for a living. once we owned 148 houses, boats, barges, different businesses. . I have no idea what the family owns now. don't really care. came into this world with nothing, gonna leave the same way I'm sure

Are U Talking About Me?
 

NOT ENOUGH ZEROS....

I don't discuss money with the peons...

Since nobody here seems to be admitting to getting money, I guess I'll be the exception.

My story starts with my grandfather playing golf with a buddy about 10 years ago. His buddy asked what he was going to do about giving his money to his children and grandchildren. My grandfather owned a decent amount of oil and gas properties. He said he hadn't thought about it but he would get with his accountant. The account set him up with a lawyer who set up trusts for his children and grandchildren. He put $10,000 worth of property in each trust for the two or three years before he died. The property would have been worth more except that he didn't give us rights to make decisions on the property. That right stayed with the executor so the value was discounted. When he died his estate still had enough value that we had to pay inheritance tax, but not nearly as much as if he hadn't played golf that day.

To make a short story long, the trust fund I got didn't have any money in it when I got it, but it had property. The trust receives the royalty payments from the property. In the few years since he died I've gotten decent money but it's not consistent. I'm not complaining though, it really is like winning the lottery. My problem is I don't enjoy dealing with money. I set some aside, but I also enjoy it like a rock star. In ten years I'm sure I'll kick myself in the a$$ for not doing more, but I must say I'm happy. I don't think some of my cousins are quite as happy. I think some of them are relying on the money to live and I think it's prevented them from really doing something with their lives.

Inheritence BS can really tear families apart and cash windfalls can screw up people's lives. My mom's sister is a weirdo and hasn't been smart with her money or happy with her life. When she decided to restore an old house that should have been razed, she came to my grandmother for an "advance" (in the six figure range) on her inheritence. Since I used to be a loan officer, they came to me for some advice and I said it was basically a taxable gift unless it were set up as a loan and payments were made. Of course, this made the deal less attractive to my aunt and I think she blames me for making this point. I also said, assuming my grandmother's estate would be split evenly between my mom and aunt, and chances are my grandmother would die long before my aunt had even made a dent in the principal balance, that the money would likely never be fully repaid which means it would come out of my mom's half. Well, that got them all talking to a lawyer and accountant and really became a mess. It's very structured now, but I know my aunt harbors some resentment toward my mom and me for it.

Some good family friends from down the street lost their husband/father in the World Trade Center. One of their kids was already screwed up and the money he received from the life insur. and gov't. settlement really made things a lot worse. He got into heroin, arrested, etc. and now all that money is paying for an insanely expensive rehab. at some farm in TN. Crazy.

I know three people who get an annual allotment from their trust funds (grandpa or great grandpa). I think all three get around $100-$150 large at the beginning of every year. All three are absolutely worthless and are doing some menial job by August of every year to make ends meet until next January. A moderately high-end version of welfare, where there is just enough money to live (all 3 are in SoCal), and take away their motivation to actually do something with their lives. I'll be all three grandpas would do differently if they know what the results have been.