Are you expecting to inherit a lot of money?

In My Humble Opinion (IMHO)
#1

Inspired by the various threads about Leona Helmsley’s will. Do you expect to cash in big when a family member kicks the bucket?

When I was a child, I’d seen enough cartoons or shows or read enough children’s books and magazine stories to believe that I was going to inherit millions of dollars from an unknown relative, probably an uncle, sometime in the future. Presumably while I was young enough to enjoy it and live a jet-set lifestyle of leisure.

I was still in elementary school when I learned to my surprise that I actually had a millionaire uncle! He was married to my aunt. So it was practically a done deal that I was going to be wearing ermine and silk and eating breakfast off silver plates in my Olympic-sized swimming pool.

Mom cottoned onto my delusions of grandeur at some point and dashed my hopes by explaining that my rich uncle had a wife and three kids of his own to leave his money to, that if anything he would leave any extra money to his own side of the family, and if he should want to leave money to our side of the family, I had thirty cousins that were just as likely to get something as I was, diffusing the treasury a great deal.

Being an optimist and a dreamer, I still secretly believed that, as in the stories I’d read or the cartoons I’d seen, he would somehow single me out as being the one virtuous niece-in-law who he really respected.

At some point, and without my ever having met him, he died and I got nothing. Luckily, by then I was becoming a somewhat more realistic person, on my way to appreciating hard work, and I stopped expecting something for nothing.

Since then I’ve had a lot of difficult jobs, working for minimum wage for several years, having jobs that included tasks such as cleaning up vomit and human excrement, carrying heavy loads, and handling the remains of dead animals. I joined the Army and literally crawled through mud to earn a paycheck.

I absolutely will not leave money to any family members unless they actually need for it medical reasons. I think it’s a bad thing to let impressionable young people think that at one fell swoop all their financial needs will be met for life, and they’ll never have to work hard or learn to get along with people or learn to go without things they want or to save money.

I’ve digressed. Anyway, my theory is that it’s very common for people to think that they have a big windfall coming, whether from a rich relative they know, a rich relative they don’t know, or a stranger who takes a liking to them in an elevator.

How about you? Are you expecting to inherit a lot of money? If not, did you ever think you were going to? How did you realize you weren’t?

#2

Yes.

#3

I don’t know if a million dollars is considered “a lot” of money, but that’s about what I will inherit.

#4

I hope not. I hope Mom lives long enough to healthily spend every dollar she has, which is a buttload.

#5

A lot? Guess that depends on how you define a lot. Not millions by any stretch, but maybe $100K or so, and that’s assuming nothing awful requires my mom to sell her house to survive.

Not that I’m in any hurry. Mom’s just 73 - I figure she’s got a bunch more years ahead of her.

#6

How is a million dollars not a lot of money? I don’t think i’ll be inheriting anything besides a lot of debt from my parents.

#7

If my parents had never divorced I probably would have had a nice inheritance, but after the divorce a lot of bad financial things happened. A have a number of friends on the other hand that stand to inherit a lot of money when their parents kick it and some of them will likely need it since I don’t see a lot of them ever having much earning potential.

#8

Yes. My wife’s parents are multimillionaires and I recently found out I have a trust fund from my father’s side of the family. My mother is an international speaker and successful author as well but terrible with money so I choose not to think about that side of things at all.

I ignore the entire thing because I don’t like depending on anyone else’s money but my own. It isn’t just from a moral sense although that is a big part of it. My wife and I could be divorced before her father lives to say, 110 for all I know and we will be into retirement ourselves anyway. I also can’t stand families bickering about money and my wife has two evil and truly stupid half-siblings that have ruined their lives, brains, and bodies through drug abuse. I don’t think they are people you can deal rationally with.

My own will be coming from my paternal grandmother I found out. I have always been close to her and she told me stories about how her father was almost like a junior Warren Buffet and just invested in everything he could in the 1920’s - 1940’s. He bought mineral rights to tens of thousands of acres worth of land which cost almost nothing during the Great Depression. Here we are 70 years later and now people want to drill for oil, natural gas, and coal among those lands and it paid off.

I don’t know how much money she has and I don’t care. My brothers say it is more than $10 million. Both my father and his only sibling, my aunt aren’t people you want to deal with on that stuff either so grandma had the good sense to give all 5 grandkids our own trust fund. It supposedly pays out in 7 years and I don’t want to know anymore about it.

#9

No, but the OP reminded me of an uncle in my first husband’s family. Farmer and mink rancher (when fur wasn’t evil), never married, frugal, lived a long time. His only relatives were my husband and his siblings.

When he died, he left all them each $1,000, and the rest (a couple million, from the sale of his land) went to a foundation to benefit the town. I think there’s a street named after him. The relatives were upset, especially the one who spent a lot of time with him when he got sick. Crafty old coot. Didn’t even have to pay for a housekeeper or a cook in his last months. :stuck_out_tongue:

#10

You can’t inherit debt.

#11

I have a wealthy grandfather, but all of his descendants move onto and off of the will based on whether or not they toe the line. Basically, he’d be happiest running everyone’s lives. Who knows if he’s actually going down and making all these changes or not. Last I heard, I was on, but that was awhile ago.

It wouldn’t be a lot of money though. We’d be looking at about six figures each, but that would depend on how many people he was angry with when the end came.

#12

Assuming nothing untoward happens I expect an inheritance in the low six figures. A chunk of that will come from the sale of a house, so it’ll be volatile.

#13

Nope. I come from working folks, none of whom had any money to leave. My parents are both gone, and I didn’t inherit anything. But it’s all right, I never expected to anyway.

#14

Omega Glory, we’re not related, are we? My grandfather uses trusts to get his way, though, so probably not. My family has some bizarre expectation that they’re going to inherit everything (we’re talking millions), but I’ve read the trusts, which are freely available for them to read. They’re not. They’ll get what the trust entitles them to (not anywhere near the value of the estate) and the rest goes to charity. What do I care? It’s not my money. My aunts and uncle are still, in their 50s, getting an “allowance” from Mommy and Daddy, even though that money has more strings attached than a spiderweb, but if that’s what they want…Me, I prefer to be independent. Oddly enough, or maybe not, I’m the only member of the family that my grandfather treats as an adult. Anything I inherit, either from him or my mother, is a bonus, in my view, and I’m certainly not expecting or planning on anything. If I did inherit, it would be anywhere between low 6 to low 7 figures.

#15

Not a penny. My parents are far from wealthy, though they’re not poor either. But they’re intent on spending all their cash before they die, and I heartily support them in it. I want them to be happy.

As far as Mr. Athena, we’re already supporting his mother. So nothing from that side either.

#16

I expect it’ll be six figures…I couldn’t place a guess where it’ll fall in that range, though.

#17

You can’t? That’s good news for me, then.

Obviously, I’m not expecting to get rich through these means. That’s why I’m investing in lucky nickels for slot machines.

#18

Definately not. My family’s only been in the country for a couple of generations, and came here destitute, so no land or anything like that. My father knew he had a nice government pension to last him to death, so he didn’t bother saving much.

#19

My grandfather on my mothers side died a little while ago his. I think the trust is worth somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 million. He was kinda a dick in the way he set up the trust. He married my grandmother who already had 3 children and was widowed while they where young. He had 3 children with her. One of which was my mother. He divorced my grandmother and remarried to another woman who was already independently wealthy I never heard her exact amount. My understanding is hundreds of millions. Most there finances where kept separate. There was some overlap such as furniture in the primary residence. Her estates all went to her daughter from a previous marriage. She died shortly after his death.

The trust is set up as follows.

Nothing is to go to the 3 non-biological children he raised.

My mothers sister is to receive basic housing expenses. The terms cover it will pay for an apartment or even a mortgage. The checks are not allowed to be written to her. She is not allowed to profit in anyway. She can not sublet an apartment and so on. If a house is purchased with the trust when she dies it belongs to the trust. Her illegitimate children have no right to the trust and can not live in a house or apartment paid for by the trust.

My mother and uncle are to receive equal amounts. There are specific amounts the trust is allowed to pay out each year. Initially there was allot of legal fighting over the terms of the trust and from the non-biological children. The cost of defending itself was counted against money my mother and uncle where allowed to receive.

Now that things have been mostly settled my mother and uncle receive monthly checks.(I don’t know the amount). If either die their share of the trust(payments) goes to the other. When both are have died the trust will pay out to his legitimate grandchildren my four siblings and I. My uncle’s children are to receive nothing. They were born before he married their mother so my grandfather considered them illegitimate.

Thats my basic understanding of things. My mother explaining the goings on gives me a head ache. I’m personally hoping my mother and uncle live long enough to exhaust the trust spending all the money along the way. While my siblings and I get along and are mostly rational money makes people stupid so we are better off not seeing the trust come our way.

#20

This is true, but for those that are glad to here this, anything of value that you would have gotten (house, vehicles, etc…) will go to pay off their debt from their estate before anybody gets anything.