Earlier this year, the Federal Reserve released its “Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households”. Among other things, they said, “44 percent of all respondents could not cover an unexpected $400 emergency expense or would rely on borrowing or selling something to do so. The survey also shows that many adults have no savings for retirement.”
I absolutely believe that, my own brother’s an example of it - and his inheritances have been more than mine (he has the only grandchild is how it’s been justified to me). And if I’d gotten the money in my 20s rather than my mid-30s and older I would have blown through it. But I’d made expensive credit choices and then worked my ass off to pay for them twice over the course of nearly a decade so I learned my lesson.
I know the feeling. Early in my career I bought a fixed payout term life policy that runs to my expected retirement date and paid the then-NPV of my then-expected future earnings and pension.
As I approach the twilight of my career that insurance is still a hefty number and my remaining W-2 potential gets ever smaller. Which means not only am I guaranteed worth a lot more dead than alive now, but that guarantee has a drop dead date that’s getting rapidly closer. Unfortunate choice of words that.
When my dear wife says things like “Don’t worry honey, we all have to sleep some time.” while violently chopping vegetables it doesn’t concern me a bit. Not a bit. [sub]Whistling like mad past that graveyard I am.[/sub] 
In the spirit that the best defense is a good offense we also got a similar policy on her and her career. You might consider something similar. 
If we are fortunate, both policies will expire worthless. If instead *we *expire, some extended family members are gonna do real well by us.
As to the rest of your post, yes, thoughtful people sleep much better with a well-diversified portfolio of the right size than with too little too late or none at all. Congrats to you for having the foresight to know that and the maturity to act on it. Ref Dewey Finn just above: Would that all our fellow citizens were so equipped.
I thought the old joke was that they spent most of it on hookers and drugs, but squandered the rest.
As someone who has conscientiously saved for my retirement (I’m 56 now and am thinking somewhere between 58 and 60), it worries me that I’m going to have to support all those loser friends of yours who didn’t save.
By the way, I’ve just received in the last couple of weeks, money from my mom’s estate. My three sisters and I each got about $100k in cash and $70k in an IRA (she had about $650k total). I put the cash away with the rest of my savings, but after reading this thread I’m thinking I should spend some on myself, and I’m sure my mom would have approved.
I have another question about how people normally handle this: all four of us kids put the IRA money into an “inherited IRA” account. But in doing so, I get the impression that this is not the usual thing that everyone does, just because the default choice seemed to be for the institutions to send us checks, followed by 1099 forms for the tax year.
Have you folks here done that with IRA money that you’ve inherited?
When I read about how many people are retiring with nothing, I think perhaps we should bring back butlers and maids. They might not move very fast, but we who have retired with some cash can throw them a crumb or two.
Investors know how to economize while still eating well. Of course eating well usually involves coupons.
I wonder if investor versus spender is dependent on one’s parents. My father’s mother lost all her money in the Depression and went from well-to-do to horribly poor. Thanks to his influence I still get every last bit of mayo from the jar, though I can afford not to. It is just the way I’m built.
The “smart” thing to do depends on how much money is involved and how old the beneficiary is. Just taking the check & 1099 is always an option, but it may not be the smart one.
For small amounts inherited by somebody with a bunch of tax deferred money already, the hassle of having yet another account that can’t be combined with the others may not be worth the small tax benefit of keeping it separately as a beneficiary IRA.