Nope. My last grandparent just died, and I should get a nice sum according to his will. My greedy relatives will fight it out for a couple of years, and when the lawyers are done and the dust settles I expect exactly nothing. I’m more likely to get something from my parents (only child), but only if they die in an accident—they’re planning on spending their money as long as they can, and I assume the US healthcare system will take the rest.
Pray for Obamacare 
I am not counting on anything. A friend brought the subject up not to long ago and I was shocked. I was recently told my niece will get the house. I wasn’t interested in knowiing those things.
I haven’t gotten through the whole thread, so someone may have addressed this. In Texas, which is a community property state (is yours?), if a parent dies without a will, the surviving spouse inherits HALF, not all of the estate. The children inherit the other half.
A friend of mine ran into this. She was a second wife, and her H had grown kids from his first marriage. After he died without a will, she tried to get a home equity loan to save their business, but because no will had been probated, she did not have clear title to the house (which was paid off). She had to get a lawyer and get the kids, who live 1,000+ miles away, to sign off on the house as they had automatically inherited title to half of it. (It all worked out but was a huge hassle.)
It would change my life, but knowing my dad, he’d die in heavy debt or try to retire overseas to escape creditors or whomever he’s cheated recently. He’s not the honest sort.
You used to hear about the huge windfall of inheritance that baby boomers could expect to receive, but I think the stock market sucked that all away for many,and the housing bubble raised too many expectations for a huge inheritance IMO.
But no, not counting on nothing trickling down to me.
I’m not really banking on it, but I’m an only child and my parents have done well. They have a large house and two 3 br apartments, one of which is rented out. Dealing with all of their furniture is going to be a pain since I live very far away. My parents are in good health and people on both sides tend to be long lived.
A few years ago, my dad told me where the jewelry is hidden.
Grandparents are already dead, didn’t receive any money, nor did I expect to. I was very pleased to inherit a few personal items, especially from my maternal grandmother, who I was quite close to.
My parents have told us that we can each pick a certain number of things we want to inherit. The rest will be sold off (we can “buy” additional things from the siblings if we want), and the money split equally between us. Their idea was that if we chose the things ahead of time, there would be less fighting; unfortunately it doesn’t seem to be working out that way 
I don’t think there will be much money in any case, particularly if one or both need nursing home care. And due to circumstances (I live on a different continent), I can’t swear the things I wanted will even be there after my parents die, or if they will “disappear” before I can come to pick them up
I think my husband will inherit something from his parents, if only because they have twice given their grown children gifts that are legally considered advances on their inheritance. (There are certain tax advantages to doing things this way, sometimes.) However, I have the whole thing filed in the big mental box labeled None Of My Business.
I never counted on any inheritance from any of them, although I was very happy to be able to get that candy box from Abuelita. Abuelito died when I was 3 and I didn’t get anything (nor did his children, everything stayed with Abuelita); I didn’t get nor want anything from the Gramps from Hell.
I don’t even have any legal rights to my grandmother’s stuff: if either of her two daughters die before Grandma does, and if she doesn’t leave a will stating otherwise, the children of the deceased daughter get zip, everything goes to the surviving one. Assuming she dies before either of her daughters, my cousin who’s been grandma’s primary caretaker for years has dibs on the flat, so I expect that a price will be arranged between all three of them, but legally it will count as inheritance to Mom and Aunt and then purchase by Cousin.
My mother can spend any money she gets her hands on. None of us are interested in her flat, so assuming she hasn’t moved into an old folks’ home and the flat been sold already (at which point she’ll manage to spend the money even if it’s from an iron lung of the old big cylinder variety), it will be sold and the money from the sale split three ways, but there’s that assumption.
Left out Dad: like his parents, mine had the kind of will where they are each other’s universal heirs, so nothing but the legítima for us. In Navarre the legítima, the part of the inheritance owed to the children, happens to be “3€* and the right to bid for the use of town-owned land”. I don’t think either of us three bothered ask Mom for our 3€.
- previously 500 pta, previously 3 reales de vellón, which indicates that the Euro is actually a resurrected real de vellón.
No, because my parents aren’t going to die. Lucky me.
My sisters and I inherited a small amount from our father several years ago, and a somewhat larger amount from our mother more recently. Everything was split fairly equally, except for my pushy oldest sister (not the sister who posts here, BTW) getting more objects, and more higher value objects. For example, she claimed that a bracelet our mom had given me about 5 years ago had always been promised to her, so I handed it over. I regret it a little now, but at the time, I felt so guilty about being the favorite child that I didn’t say a word about that or anything else.
A weirder situation is life insurance. I still haven’t spent much of the life insurance I got when my husband died. I just handed it over to my financial planners.
“Counting on” as in part of my plan to survive my later years without living in a cardboard box… no.
“Counting on” as in it will probably happen at some time… yes.
My wife’s Mom probably has a few years at most left and we’ll probably get a reasonable chunk from her. Probably help with the kid’s college but won’t change our lives.
My family… it would be a huge addition to our funds. But… my Mom is a strong Swede who will likely live well past 100 (her Dad made it to 104). I’ll probably be well into my 80’s (if I even make it that long) before I would expect to see anything so I’m more “counting on” it for my kids.
Ha, for a long time my mom lived on a 5 acre property outside San Antonio, TX. She had 2 donkeys and 3 goats. She called me and said she had set up her will to leave everything to me and my brother. I had to call my brother immediately and say “that means a donkey for each of us!” Luckily, she has moved into a smaller place and no longer has any livestock. She does have a paid for house, which I assume we’ll split. Hope that day never comes.
From MY parents and grandparents, no I’m not expecting anything. My parents in particular are very poor, and I hope to one day be able to help them.
My husband’s side of the family on his father’s side is extremely wealthy. We don’t expect or plan on receiving anything, but the simple fact of the matter is that we’re probably going to die multimillionaires. This is way off in the future, though, possibly not until we ourselves are around retirement age. Until then we’re just going to continue trying to grow our own wealth and make the best decisions we can.
Well let’s see – my dad left anything he owned of value (not much) to his uncle, not his daughter, because he was a dick like that. He never took care of his only child while living, I guess he saw no reason to do so when he kicked off. Oh and his girlfriend was the beneficiary of his (very small) life insurance policy. To her credit she signed it right over to the funeral home to pay for the funeral. I was at a time in my life where I DESPERATELY needed 10k – I’d have taken the money and ran like hell, so it was probably smart he left it to her. He was still an asshole, though.
I got everything of my mom’s when she died but nothing of any financial value.
I stand to inherit my grandmother’s house someday, AFAIK. I’m not “counting” on it, though – there’s a relative that I think might try to screw me out of it, and I don’t have the money to fight it in court if that happens.
It’s a moot point since I have already inherited from both of my parents (they were divorced.) I never “counted on” inheriting as in made it a part of my financial planning for the future, but I did assume that if either of my parents died with any money to their names, I would get a share (split 4 ways for my dad, and 3 ways for my mom). This was based on knowing both of them; and that is pretty much the way it worked out. I was also fully prepared for my mom to exhaust her resources and need financial support from my sisters and me. You never know how it will go.
When it came to the personal items and heirlooms, **Brynda ** is right, our other sister had put more thought into what she wanted and got it. My mind just doesn’t work that way.
I’m not “counting on” anything. But Mom will be 88 next month and isn’t in good health. So it looks like my two brothers and I will split something like $4-500 thousand when the time comes.
Many years ago when my parents started talking about how they’d like to be able to leave us some money when they were gone I told them they should just spend the money they worked so hard for on themselves. But now that I’m 65 I understand the appeal of being able to leave the Little Hook (age 43) some money.
I’m dreading the possibility of coming into an inheritance from my FIL. His house is paid for, but it’s thousands of miles away, in state and city where neither of us wants to live, in a depressed region where property sales are slow, and it’s full of “stuff” that neither of us wants to own or try to sell. I’m secretly hoping he leaves it all to his sister- and brother-in-law. They’ve never approved of the way he handles things, and the amusement value of watching them try to deal with FIL’s estate would be entirely worth it to me.
My Dad was an only child and inherited a nice chunk from his parents (Mother and step dad. Step dad had been in his life since he was 13 and had no children of his own.) He was a terrific son and reallly took care of my Grandmother and earned every cent of it.
My mother is one of many (double digit) children and it is a disfunctional family with all kinds of vices addictions and other problems. Many of my aunts and uncles have been stealing from my grandmother. The estate is to be divided equally between the number of children. Some of my aunts who are single don’t think my mother should inherit. My mother perpetually takes my grandmother to the hospital when she overdoses (every few months) or goes through the DTs after a binge. One was staying with my grandmother during my grandmother’s last admission to hospital and never bothered to visit. My mother doesn’t want a dime. Divided between the number of children it will probably amount to less than 8000 a piece. Hardly worth fighting with her siblings. The whole thing with my grandmother is making my mother ill.
My brother and I will probably inherit 50 50 from my parents, unless they somehow factor my son in separately. (He is the only grandchild.) I hope there is just enough left for a bottle of wine to toast their memory, but knowing them, there will be a sizable amount. Although they are enjoying it, travelling and so forth. Good for them, my dad had been retired 9 years before they took anything longer than a 1 week vacation, because Dad didn’t want to leave his mother alone longer than that. (Even when she was in a nursing home.)
So do I expect to inherit? Yes. Do I want to/need to. No.