We’re spending the kids inheritance

[Tuppenceabaggy]

Does anyone find it weird when parents/older people say this and so proudly?

Ive heard a few times people saying they sacrificed everything for their kids, now it’s their time…is this a bit selfish/odd? Children don’t ask to be born, do they.

Now i’m a parent, I just find my parents and some others way of doing things quite odd.

My dad worked in a good job and Dm was a sahm. I had a part time job since I was 14, if I wanted something, I had to pay for it (except clothes treats out of Christmas and birthday money) I paid for all my own driving lessons (I had a lot and it cost a fortune) I bought my own car and paid insurance etc, Dh and I got our mortgage ourselves with no help.

Now I have Dd, there’s not a lot of spare cash to go around, but I will have a savings account in the event of going to uni (if she chooses to) helping with driving lessons and first car and hopefully a little help with a first home (provided we can try our best to save for this)

I don’t want my parents money, i’m
happy to see them spend it on themselves and enjoy it a bit, but it’s just not how I see my life, everything I think about is for Dd first.

Is this just a generational thing?

Well - in the OP she starts off by saying that these particular boomers say they did sacrifice everything, so perhaps it’s not a modern thing?

And while I agree with some of what you say, it’s not a given that the younger generation are better off, and things like housing and job security and pensions are much worse. Do final salary pensions even exist anymore?

Well my parents were "boomers" and I don't recognise them from this description at all.

They are the least selfish people ever, have helped us a lot, emotionally as well as practically, and are very happy to be involved in our lives.

A massive part of raising kids is for them to become capable, independent adults. Funding them for life is not a way to do this.

I would hate to see my parents miss out on the things they want and deserve to do because they felt they had to support me when I’m living with the impact of my own life choices.

I do think it’s a shame that some older generations don’t realise how much harder things are for the younger ones.

I don't understand this attitude. The young adult generation in my family are, across the board, better off than we were at their age. My children have bought houses in their twenties, have cars and can spend without worrying too much.They are sensible with money though.
When my contemporaries were young, there was the mass unemployment of Thatcher's Britain.
Each generation has different challenges and broad generalisation about how easy it was for "Boomers" just doesn't add up for many people.

Well y'know, then I'm a dickhead, according to other posters.

I've worked 2-3 jobs my whole life (I'm now 54) and earned good money, collectively. When they were young and until early 20's, I paid for the kids treats, holidays, courses, etc. They didn't really go without, though you wouldn't think so to listen to them moan. Any spare money now goes on me, not them - get on with it. Once I cark it they'll get the life assurance/pension money/house etc but until then, I worked hard, they're adults - get on with it. I had to. I worked these jobs and saved like a demon. Buy a shit house, do it up, wait for a boom. I did it like that. Or take more than 1 job. I'm aghast at this thread.

It was only really the very rich who had this generational wealth you all think was ubiquitous. My parents didn't have it. My grandparents didn't.

And generational wealth going to the eldest son!

Ok so I’m 62 which makes me a boomer apparently.I grew up in a family that had sod all! Me and my husband have worked really hard to buy our own home and brought up our two children. we now have grandchildren. I find it really insulting that I am labelled as a selfish person.we do our best and my children are happy and well adjusted and not well off. If they need help and we can give it then we do. But they don’t begrudge us spending our own money on ourselves. Are we supposed to grow up with nothing then anything we make hand it over to our kids, go without for the whole of our lives then? That’s just ridiculous!

That’s not the attitude, depends what kind of parent you are and the responsibility of having kids and all it entails

I’m with you!

My grandma often delights in telling me she won’t be leaving me anything. Ive never asked, never brought it up, don’t expect any money, but say she books a holiday and is telling me where she’s going, she has no qualms in looking at me and saying “this holiday is your inheritance, I hope you won’t be disappointed there’s nothing left for you when I die!” She says it in a lighthearted way and always smiles or laughs in a jovial way but I also know she means it. And that’s fine but…she doesn’t need to keep telling me! Every time she says it I feel like she thinks I’m some sort of money grabber. But as I say; I’ve literally never, ever mentioned her money or wanting her money, it’s only ever her that brings it up. When she says it I just smile and say “absolutely grandma, you enjoy your money, it’s yours!” But she still manages to make me feel weird each time she does it.

Inheritance is weird.
If you want to help your kids (or whoever) then surely it's better to help while you're alive and can see the impact it makes.
Plus, after they die then the money feels sad. My friend built a fancy garden room with her inheritance. It's lovely but she cant use it because it just makes her think of the times when her mum was really ill and how much she would have loved it. It's always the building that was paid for when her mum died. Instead of the building her mum paid for and they spent time together in.

My parents are spending "my inheritance" like it's going out of fashion. Good on them. They've done their time so I hope they have lots of fun! Admittedly, if any was to flutter my way it would make a HUGE difference but I'm not going to tell them that because they'll feel guilty.

Another older person knocking thread whoop whoop.

I’m a boomer and just about all the other boomers I know, friends or family, are certainly not spending it all. What’s more, most of us have passed much or all of any inheritances from our own parents to our own adult children.

“You can’t take it with you” exclaims my MIL who never worked, inherited young from her husband’s family, twice, and has wasted in the region of £100k on ridiculous extravagance. Cars. Extensions. Second homes. Second cars.

Meanwhile, her daughter works damned hard in a professional role and juggles 3 children with barely any assistance from them.

Most of their money is tied up in material objects (property, cars, antiques). They’ve materialised money, and haven’t invested it to protect what they’ve been given. It’s been hard to watch as we’ve bloody struggled at times.

Thankfully when we inherit from my side, it’ll be managed properly and paid forward early to maximise impact and minimise tax.

I hate to way it but yes...boomer attitude.

you had better duck! 😆

This is ridiculous and ageist

Every person born in the baby boom is not living a millionaire lifestyle or taken the money out of the hands of younger generations

@candycane457 do you think she is managing your expectations so that you aren't disappointed when you don't inherit?

Im not assuming that they’re saying they resent it, just that it was what it was - parents do make sacrifices, it goes with the territory. Obviously if they’re saying it to make their children feel bad that’s not good - but perhaps they’re saying it because their adult children still have their hands out?

I would LOVE to be able to help my kids out financially, through uni, with house deposits etc. But - aren't we all way more skint these days than our parents were. and aren't our kids skinter still?

We didn't need it as much when we were younger.

University had no fees and a small grant when I went, now costs are astronomical. I bought a house on one salary in my twenties that I couldn't afford to move back to in my fifties and would be an impossible dream for all but astronomically wealthy 20 something singletons now.

I don't think blaming each other, or different generations, is helpful. Blame stupid tory governments who built bugger all housing and trashed the economy.

I’d say you are doing a lot! I don’t think that what you’re doing is what OP is talking about at all.

As an example, my dad had paid off his mortgage, but is now doing that equity release thing where they take the house when they pass away?? Not because he needs the money, it’s just for holidays, shits and giggles. Not even saving it for his own care needs?!

He said “sorry you’ll have no inheritance”. That attitude is a little bit different. I don’t really care, my mum lives in a council flat because he ripped her off when they split up, so I won’t get an inheritance at all. But I did find it a little hurtful that he wasn’t thinking of me at all. I can’t imagine doing it to my kids.

It's personal, not generational.

could equally be a response to the attitude from many that their parents' money is actually theirs and must be saved for them and those who talk about Their Inheritance when their parents are far from dead.

Because I see that LOADS! Resentment oozing out of them that their parents aren't handing over the cash and talking like they are entitled to everything their parents own.

My inheritance this, my inheritance that. Fucking hell, love, your dad is in the next bloody room watching telly! You HAVE no inheritance.

My mother used to wander round my grandad's house, picking shit up and totting up. When he died, you know what she said? If he'd died a few years earlier, his house would have sold for £X more.

my parents "joked" regularly about this. Joked as in: said literally what they were doing, as if it were somehow funny.
They inherited several hundreds of thousands from my grandparents and uncle, as well as tens of thousands of unearned windfalls from e.g. the demutualisations that occurred in the 80's
They concealed the amount they had inherited and I had to get it and the will through public records. An account with several thousand in it that my grandmother told me was earmarked for my sibling and me mysteriously disappeared without trace.
My parents have led a fairly extravagant lifestyle with regular new cars, cruises etc and a portfolio of properties, some of which were buy to let. They shared none of their good fortune. DP and I were poor as church mice throughout our 20's and rented into our 30's. We finally got onto the housing ladder with no help from them.
Now that the grim reaper is drawing near, they are obsessed with avoiding inheritance tax and are putting money in trusts for the grandchildren. So having ensured that none of the generational wealth trickled down to my generation, they're now ensuring that it leapfrogs over us.
It is difficult to feel anything but contempt for them.

I don’t know what you mean by this

Quite possibly, but she’s been managing my expectations for 20 years now and I feel a bit like… okay grandma I get it!!!!