Hey. Come and give this a go. money is bad and we are away from home for months at a time, on the other hand we have a great crew and get to see a part of the world that normally only a very few would get to see, Antarctica. We work on a fishing vessel, OK extra money would be great that is after all the first reason we work but here we have no place to spend and all food is supplied. Leave your millions behind and see a bit of this planet, at the end of days, what will you be able to say that you have seen and done? I know my reply already and Im not done yet. you only get the one life, Dont waste it.
Of course not. 
That would be crass.
How do you keep your daughters from believing that your work is more important that they are? What important events have you had to miss because of work, and how do you justify it to yourself at the end of the day? How do you strive to have your daughters not live in an insulated, wealthy bubble? What plans do you have, either now or for the future, to expose them to how the rest of the world lives?
Do you get palimony from your wife?
How often do you think about the way you grew up compared to the way your kids live now? What does it mean to you?
-lindsaybluth, whose parents went hungry as children and have been very well off since her birth, who worked 70+ hours/week while she grew up.
I don’t plan to waste anything. Titanic has some really good scenes based on that through Leonardo DiCaprio’s character but he dies at the end. There has to be a happy medium. I have traveled more than average through different circumstances and I live in a place different enough that I still consider myself a foreigner and never will be fully assimilated to the Northeast. I would love to go to Antarctica but I hear fishing vessels are hard work and dangerous. I would love to take a cruise there someday but it Alaska first.
You do realize that you don’t get to choose which family you’re born into, right?
Anyway, my question is how has having this inheritance affected your life? I know personally growing up I was worried about whether or not I would do anything worthwhile in the world. Did you have this same worry, despite being in good hands financially?
Also, what do you mean you got notice of another cool million? Obviously I have no personal experience with this but isn’t the amount of the inheritance usually known up front, rather than being revealed bits at a time?
If I understand correctly, he’s getting dividends from the production from natural gas wells that people in his family speculated on ages ago, which are now paying out.
The Haynesville oil shale wells are being drilled now and the deals are being worked out. It transformed one of the poorest parts of the country into a land of millionaires overnight and you can probably visualize the results based on what you know about human nature. The wells are super-deep at about 12,000 feet or more underground and they spider off and they calculate the rights based on formulas about who owns the rights above ground. Many of them have already paid but there are more to come. It could last for decades or the market could collapse and they could cancel a project right away. Some of our wells are still being planned and drilled so you don’t know what will come of it. It could be anywhere from a whole lot to to tremendous amount. The only thing you know for sure is the deals that have been signed and some really good ones already have been.
It hasn’t affected my life that much except to take some life some anxiety off. My 1999 Isuzu Rodeo completely died in February and I fully planned on buying a new one with the money I make on my own. My father just told me to pick out any vehicle that I wanted and make a phone call and have it paid for. I wanted a BMW X5 but I didn’t want to make a bad impression on people given other circumstances so I got a Toyota Rav4 Sport. I love that thing though.
I can do the same thing with houses but I don’t want a house right now. I had my dream house on my own and my ex-wife and daughters live in it. I just need a place to sleep in a nice neighborhood with some ttype of flat surface to sleep on, a decent computer, and hot and cold running water. It doesn’t take much.
Aviation is my passion though and I always complained that I couldn’t save up enough money to get my pilots license because I don’t take lessons frequently enough. Now I can just by writing a check and doing it but I don’t know if I want to wake up early enough on weekend mornings to finish. Everybody gets the same 24 hours in a day no matter what.
I do have to find a some goof financial planners. I was interested in that type of thing before I had a penny to my name but I found out some things aren’t being handled correctly by any estimation. That is going to take some effort. The one thing I do have is that my father is even more skeptical about money than I am and forced a split so it is just me, him, and my two brothers as opposed to anyone else in the family. That is workable.
I do want to hike the Appalachian trail from Maine to Georgia some day hopefully sooner rather than later. That takes about 6 months. It would be great if I found a female with good stamina and a perpetually good mood to go with me but I don’t think such person exists.
Did you not see my questions or are you choosing not to answer them?
I think it’s kind of cute that you keep trying to convince people (and yourself?) that this is true, what with your folks living in a home worth a whole $600,000. 
My daughters were always raised in a wealthy lifestyle because they are the only grandchildren of people with means but also the only granddaughters. They didn’t just get a pony when they ask for one, they got a ponies with a caretaker, riding arena, and lessons to live on their grandparents farm. They also still have four houses with their own rooms. I didn’t really like the idea but I can’t stop it either. It does spoil them in a way but they are good kids. I try to be fairly strict but they have never wanted for anything material. I don’t really like that overall because I was raised fairly poor but with nice resources like lots of land to play in. I don’t want them to think entertainment comes from a store.
They won’t know about anything they have for a very long time and it will be under my control and my father’s control. I am going to add to their college funds but other people need to do that as well. No matter what you have, it isn’t unlimited and you have to use it wisely and not foot the bill for everything. I did not get palimony and didn’t want it. The permanent waiver of those rights was filed in the courts at the time of divorce before I knew much of anything about my side but that is a good thing timing wise now.
I don’t want to work as much as I do now but I need to based on the career plans I have. My job is good but we make body parts and they need to get where they need to go when people need them. They tend to get pissy otherwise. I am on call 24/7 during the week and can’t be away from a computer for long at all. That has to go at some point because I can’t do anything with my daughters during the week without someone else ready to take over and it isn’t worth it long-term. The work balance isn’t right at the moment but I need a challenging problem-solving type job overall.
Why hello threadshitter! I haven’t missed you or your wildly inaccurate drivel.
Shagnasty, your response was very interesting. My youngest brother is 15 and lives a very different life than I did - my parents are both semiretired and I think he benefits from them being around so often. He shares much more personal information with them than I did at his age (like the fact that he got his cold from making out with a girl while on a cruise with his friend and his friend’s family). If your children’s grandparents are so accommodating financially, perhaps you’ll be able to semiretire early as well, or have the opportunity to take a job where you’re less on-call.
I don’t really have any questions, more of a few comments. You’re one of those names that is familiar, but I don’t really know anything about you, and I’m not going to dope-stalk your post posts to find out so forgive if I’m a little off. It sounds like you’re involved in the IT industry somehow. If so, you might give some thought to getting involved with something like TechCrunch which give emerging technologies the opportunity to highlight their products to potential angel investors. Jason Calacanis does a lot of work on that, as well as hosts a podcast about angel investing at his’this week in’page. You might think about getting involved in something like that so that it sates your IT interests, but doesn’t require the amount of effort as actually starting your own business.
Also, consider endowing a scholarship. The family chipped in when my niece passed away to create a small scholarship for nursing students. It doesn’t take much (around $50K) I think to create a scholarship that has the potential to help out generations to come.
Good luck, and enjoy!
Adopt a planet. This one. Quit your job and start working full-time for a non-profit that works in the developing world. I promise you plenty of problems to solve, and a good outlet for your energy. Why do you need a career path which leads to increasing earning power? You have all the earning power you’ll ever need, what you need is job satisfaction and flexibility. Why not do things like help bring technology and infrastructure to the poorest people on the planet? Developing technologically appropriate and sustainable programs is not only a good idea, it’s rapidly becoming clear it will be a necessity. We can’t survive if every country goes through the industrial revolution the way the US did. Here’s a directory of over 65,000 organizations who do international development. It’s a great place to start. Your daughters are set monetarily, you’re set monetarily, so why go up the corporate ladder? You’ve seen what life is like for the workaholics who make it to the top. Is that what you want?
I had to make a choice on how we would handle charitable giving in our family, both for financial reasons and to model behavior for the children. I chose to give money to organizations which operate far away, but give volunteer time to nearby ones. I can help my community with my hands and my sweat. I can’t help people in sub-saharan Africa with my sweat, so I send them money. Kind of like Tokyo Player took up the Hero Rats cause because he was inspired by the work they do, you could find an NGO which speaks to your interests and become a powerful advocate/resource to move their mission forward.
Enjoy,
Steven
Oh, that is so cool! You should check out the Pacific Crest Trail as well; 2650 miles from Mexico to Oregon through absolutely gorgeous and varied ecosystems from scraggly desert to alpine meadows. And then you should shoot for the 3100 mile Continental Divide Trail and complete the Triple Crown of hiking. There are totally women out there that would do that with you, provided you’re not creepy or a serial killer. I would, but I’m quite certain my husband would want to come, too. 
Get involved in a local hiking club and you’ll meet people from all walks of life, including women, who do have the stamina and possibly desire to do something like that.
I wish I could afford to do that. To a certain extent I envy you, but on another level I’m happy that you have the opportunity to do that. Don’t let it slip away!
My sister married into a family like that. Grandparents bought huge tracts of land which turned out to be profitable later on. Her husband has never had a job in his life (unlike you,Shag, I know), and he’s not a bad guy, just… different… than most people.
He lives in a nice, but not audacious, house, has no money problems but … and I hope this doesn’t get me in to trouble… he can be a bit of a man-child.
I don’t know what his stream of income is, but whatever it is is determined by his mother. His house was paid for by his mother, in cash. His daughter’s needs are looked after by his mother. My sister works to provide for her daughter (of a previous marriage). If he, say, needs a new couch for the living room, he must make a written request to his mother, who will evaluate the request and then, if granted, decide on the appropriate amount to disburse for said couch.
It’s a toss up whether I’d ever consider changing places with him if such a chance ever arose. Sure, one day he’ll own it all himself outright, but he’s had to live like that for his whole life so far (he’s in his mid 40s).
I’ll say again, he’s not a bad guy, but being in that position has made him a bit … different. How so is difficult to put a finger on, but if you’d met him you’d definitely earmark him as an odd duck. In a few words I’ll say he seems to lack any kind of joie de vivre, he is forthright to the point of embarrassment, unapologetic, he doesn’t have many close friends.
So, Shag does anything from the above seem similar to your life? Are you concerned that your daughters might be in some way adversely affected by their wealth and the constraints (if any) put upon them?
Gawd, I would give anything to have your “problems”!
Anyone who says money doesn’t buy happiness, just doesn’t know where to shop. Money buys “Freedom”, and freedom usually makes people happy. You are not tied down like us wage slaves, and can do great things for your family and community, if you so choose.
What you have today may be gone tomorrow. So the first thing you need to do is to establish a quality of life for yourself.
Then you figure out how much it’d take to live that quality to say age 90. Then you figure out how to put your money into investments to provide for that.
Then you invest the rest in ways that interest you.
A heart attack, stroke or accident can put you out of action quicker than you think so make sure, what you have to today, if it’s gone tomorrow, some of it’s left over
And you could hire me, I’m an organization machine
I assumed that this was a joke thread before reading it, so a belated congratulations to you.
Conga-rats, Shag.
You want to invest in a Taekwondo school? :D:D:D
I do exist - but the catch is … I’m a blue eyed backchatter too.
Ok, jokes apart.
I like Mtgman s suggestions - I’d definitely be chucking money into alternative energy development, it’s cutting edge and a solar pump here and there makes a huge difference.