RE: the disappearing will
If she wants to change it, she can just create a new one which will supercede the old one simply by it’s date.
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In my state…anyone can file this kind of complaint.
But getting back to the thread topic…I think it’s hard in these situations deciding who should get what when one dies.
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Not legal advice but yes agree with mominva that the solution could be more low key and easy than initially it seems (e.g., no need to find an old will - just got to attorney and create a new one; no need to tell abusive son any of it).
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The thing about filing a complaint is it can make the situation WORSE, especially if there is a co-dependency and the person being abused refuses to cooperate with the complaint and the abuser holds it against her. I’ve seen it play out when there is a domestic abuse situation—she calls the cops but then refuses to testify in court about how she got her injuries (but is upset she and abuser aren’t getting help and she’s not getting protection). Truly, it’s complicated.
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Have not told the kids to expect anything and probably won’t tell them that at any time. I do expect we will have money and assets when we go, but also not committed to it. If we need it or want it first, that’s the priority.
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Ours kids know we felt like our financial responsibility to them was done after paying for their undergrad degrees and starter cars.
They also know our goal is to not be a burden to them.
One of my sons knows where my money is, and he knows how it would be divided if something were to happen to me, but he doesn’t know how much I have, and he doesn’t expect anything.
I hope that I can enjoy time with them as much as I hope to leave them money, but both would be nice. Assuming there’s no extensive need for LT care, there will likely be enough for both.
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We met with a financial advisor yesterday who put all our figures through a retirement calculator. She kept saying that she was being very conservative (assuming significantly low market projections, significantly higher expenses etc) - and yet at the end, she had a very hefty amount left for the kids. I expected that we’d be leaving the kids some money, didn’t expect the amount she was getting.
We do want to give them money now, rather than later - this session made it clear that we definitely are going to do that.
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Sounds like an opportunity to update your vacation game – more often, longer or nicer accommodations, etc.
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Do you have long term care insurance?
To me, that’s a significant factor that many of the calculators don’t address.
It’s not a complete solution if god forbid- you end up needing it. I had many hoops to jump through with a completely incapacitated parent to get even modest services covered. But once I figured out the “magic” needed to get everything coded and billed correctly, it was the difference between “OMG, we’re going to run out of money in 18 months” and “we’ve got this covered even if the doctor’s estimates are wrong”.
We had estimates of 10-12K per month of assisted living expenses (high cost metropolitan area). Which were accurate-- all in- with only modest personal care needs. But after every hospitalization the facility required one-to-one care (i.e. private duty nursing) and that is just a runaway train. I have friends who had to scramble- big time- during Covid. Parent needed an LPN for a few hours a day, but the agencies wouldn’t staff someone for a few hours. So they were stuck with 8 hours a day (again, runaway train) and frequently it was an RN (the only one available) and not a CNA or LPN at lower cost.
Not to scare you… but make sure the calculators take into account either long term care insurance or the absence thereof! And that the costs reflect where you live, not some mythic place where LPN’s make $8/hour and you can get a wheelchair ramp and grab bars installed in your house for $600.
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Great point. I did bring this up yesterday and will take a look at the numbers and the what-if scenarios she ran in detail again. She did run one scenario where both H and I would be in assisted living for the last few years (I think she did 6 years) and the numbers were still ok. She did mention a long term care specialist and I will schedule a call with them in the upcoming months.
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We are all going to have different life expectancies. God willing we will live a long life and by that time most of our children will have a long working history. My in-laws are in their 90’s so their children will likely not inherit until they are all in their 60’s. There is no risk at this point that the prospect of an inheritance will cause any of them to not make their own living.
My parents died young in their mid 70’s and all of us were self sufficient long before that time. Not that any of them had anything to
Leave us.
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If you want to be really conservative, run the model with the two of you needing to be in a skilled nursing care facility for a few years. My mom had to move to one from assisted living when her needs became greater. Where I am (rural but 100 miles from nyc) that is $31,000/month for 2 people. The other places I looked at would have been $36,000/month and $46,000/month for two.
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I’m sure I’ve posted this before, but fear of how much late in life care might cost is what keeps me from giving the kids more money before we die.
Husband and I both have pensions, and neither of us needs the other’s pension to survive, so if one of us needs care at least the pension amount could be used to offset the cost. But we also have another bucket of money kind of reserved for care.
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Understandable. Now in the worst case, run-out-of-money situation….there is the safety net of Medicaid (which assume will not go away in our lifetime, but who know). Something to keep in mind though is the 5 year look back period on gifts.
In other words, you could make an argument to gift funds sooner rather than later. Not that we’ve done that yet ourselves, other than minor payment on vacation things etc.
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There is SO much that Medicaid will not cover.
Not a good backup plan.
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As someone said above, we hope to leave something decent to our kids, and it should work out unless something really bad happens that eats through our money.
My bigger question is how much to gift them while we are still using our money. I am risk aversive, growing up very working class. We don’t have long-term care insurance but that has been figured into our retirement finances. However, it is impossible to figure how much we might need 25 or 30 years from now.
As for the even split, to me the only instance in which a different split may be appropriate is if one sibling, through physical or mental health issues, is simply less able to support his/her self and the others don’t really “need” the money. Not talking about a situation in which an adult choses work that is less lucrative than the other kids did.
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I’ve given this some thought. We will have two pensions and two SS that should more than cover our expenses. I was thinking maybe gifting the equivalent of our RMDs if we don’t need them rather than rolling them over into the Roth, which we hope to gift them when we die.
We gift our kids things when we want to. We gave our son and daughter housewarming gift money and some things too when they moved into their current homes. We plan to give DD and her husband the gift of a pice of furniture they have been saving for. They want it and will enjoy having it sooner than later.
We don’t really have a limit.
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We plan to leave something for the kid, but everything’s still in flux.
As for college, I (over my spouse) have been especially bullish about finding merit scholarships for attendance. We have paid out of pocket for our kid’s activities, needs, and some wants. It’s been a lot. The kid is now looking to make a final college choice, the front-runners all having merit tuition discounts and in good locations vis-a-vis travel to-and-from home.
Because no one has funded the kid over the years but us, I stressed how finding merit scholarships (in a list of college choices they like) is a way to support the family, much like a job would be. Also mentioned that even though applying is time-consuming and sometimes overwhelming, the ROI is huge, and the only time in life they can earn back in such an immediate way. (IE. some full tuition scholarships - yes, you have to keep the GPA up for them - are for tuitions so high that the hours spent on the application versus the awarded amount can be an incredible value.)
Whatever my kid can bring to the table in scholarships then helps with us supporting any future vehicle, out-of-town internships, potentially a Masters, etc.
I have made it clear to my kid that our family is a team and they are old enough now to contribute. The upshot is that the savings in college expenses allows our family to support the launch into adulthood.
So, still in flux.
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My Medicaid experiences is limited, 30 years old. But when my grandfather ran out of money, he continued his stay at same nursing home on Medicaid. (I wish he had gifted money to my mother years earlier. She spent her first 8 years of retirement caring for them, many years in her apartment.).
Most couples don’t have enough savings to ensure a robust retirement and many years for 2 people in nursing home. Luckily low odds of that happening, but I’m glad the Medicaid safety net exists.
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