Wealthy MIL hoarding money

[hoardingwealth]

MIL is worth a few Million. Lives in a 6 bed, 6 bath mansion. Has multiple cars. Takes several long haul holidays every year, always business class. Lots of investments. Lots and lots of properties that she rents out. She's in very good health and in her mid 70's. Most women in the family live until 95. I'd say she's on track to do the same.

Now here's the rub. She was given a property and a business by her wealthy parents. She also inherited substantially. But she has effectively pulled up the ladder behind her, and has not given any such help to DH or his brother. We are ok for money, however BIL is on the breadline. He has young kids too. They are crammed into a tiny ex-council house and live pay cheque to pay cheque. They have no treats or niceties, no meals out, no holidays etc, as the money just won't stretch.

Obviously when MIL passes, unless she needs care, DH and BIL will receive a very nice inheritance, but if she does indeed live until 95, DH and BIL will be in their early 70's by then.

How would you feel about this? I'm struggling to wrap my head around it, tbh. DH and I have adult children, and we have helped them financially to get on the housing ladder, to get married etc, even though we don't have anything near this kind of wealth.

AIBU to think that MIL should have done the same as her parents did for her, and given DH and BIL a leg up, just like she had?

Has anyone else experienced this?

Exactly!

I can’t imagine letting your children and grandchildren live on the poverty line while you are loaded, and doing nothing about it.

If someone is going to judge a family member and ‘adjust’ their relationship with them because they don’t give them handouts then that person would be an entitled CF and doesn’t deserve anything!

This 100pc
However, it's near impossible to get people to change their mindset re money.

Where am I making things up? No the OP ‘s post was what makes them grabby,

Think what you like about me, hun 🤣

ODFOD. It’s not your money and if I had an inkling a partner of my child had such views I would be making provision for my money to go straight to grandkids and pass you by.

And before you say I don’t understand the dynamic you find yourself in my parents have an estate worth many millions along with as much in cash so I understand completely. So if I heard my DH say one word like that he would be ripped a new one by me even before my parents knew.

Charles Dickens wrote a famous novel based on that exact principle.

Of course scrooge like behaviour will influence the relationships people have with each other, it is human nature. Generous people receive generosity back in other forms.

I'm sure her son working pay check to pay check scrapping a living on a minimum wage job, and juggling childcare on statutory annual leave will struggle to find much time to support his mother when she becomes elderly and infirm, and that won't be a negative reflection on him, just his priorities.

Exactly this, my friend was appalled once when my DH made a dark humoured joke about going somewhere tropical when his Dad died (I know, not funny - but really was a joke) we’ve never received a penny from any of our parents, but the “appalled” friend had: all driving lessons, a car, university (plus living expenses) a wedding & a house deposit paid for by her father, it’s easy to make comments about being “grabby” when you’ve been handed everything on a plate.

Oh please.

I would expect to be judged and given a wide bearth by family members for having a great deal of wealth whilst my parents (who I had a good relationship with) used food banks and couldn’t afford to heat their home in the winter.

What planet are you living on where people are immune from this kind of cause and effect?

Hi, OP -

I have mixed feelings about your post.

To be clear, your MIL does not sound like a very nice woman. I think she could be gifting her DC money now. This will not address DBIL’s housing needs but his family could have a much needed holiday as well as other help year on year.

I am between you and your MIL in age, my parents are in an expensive self funded retirement home - probably escalating to the even more expensive residential care wing - and what you have described seems to me to leave your MIL on only middling ground if she is planning for the possibility of long term care. Costs are rising fast, and anything nice will cost her over £100,000 pa. It is prudent for her to budget a minimum of £1.5-2M for that. Probably more. No, council funded care is absolutely not the same. At least not here, and we are a ‘good’ area.

You haven’t made it clear what MIL owns outright, how profitable her business is, what her annual income is, etc. It could be quite a complex situation. She sounds rather disengaged; does she understand the full picture? The fear of running out of money can run deep and often stems from ignorance.

Do you know for a fact that MIL has other significant cash holdings or realisable investments? Do you have any idea what she will realise when she sells her house, business and, as necessary, investments?

I can imagine that MIL could be in a situation where she doesn’t see a good way to help with BIL’s housing costs. Buying him a family home outright from the £500K would severely cut into the income it generates. A down payment on a nice home is of little use if DBIL and his wife cannot qualify for a mortgage. Helping him rent someplace nicer might be a generous move but would he see it that way? How much would he and his wife be able to contribute?

MIL might need to be a guarantor. Is DBIL’s family a good bet for that?

No one in my generation received significant help from my parents (although we were all gifted cars and uni fees). There were times I would have appreciated feeling I could turn to them, but doing so was out of the question. And we never struggled like your BIL. So I do sympathise with him. But I am extremely glad that my parents are finishing out their lives in congenial surroundings, spending down my inheritance with every whopping monthly bill.

I don’t think your MIL should compromise her future for her DC’s present, unless there are special circs you haven’t mentioned. Whether this is a true representation of the situation cannot be determined from the information you have posted.

YANBU - My view is if someone earned/ made the money it would be nice if they shared with their descendants but they have no obligation to do so (beyond giving their children a decent childhood) and they are morally free to spend it all on fast living, the cats’ home or anything else they wish. However if someone inherited the money it’s generational wealth and they’re just looking after it for the next generation so they need to spend responsibly and pass on what they can to any children/ grandchildren. In this case it sounds like the latter so I feel morally OP’s mother-in-law should share with her sons even though practically/ legally she’s not obliged to.

Sorry to hear this OP, my in laws are like this; pretty much everything they have is inherited wealth from late FIL’s family but MIL has told DH she’s leaving it only to her favourite children, so nothing for my DH or their grandchildren (or another of DH’s siblings). She now uses the dangling carrot of the future inheritance to control her favourite children so they don’t get disinherited too (DH chose not to play her silly games which is one of the reasons he’s not a favourite). Obviously we’ve always expected to provide for ourselves and our children so it doesn’t affect us but I can’t help thinking that it’s a shame and that FIL’s relatives (who were the ones who actually worked hard for the money) wouldn’t have wanted this to be the outcome of their legacies.

The OP isn't being 'grabby' by wanting to look out for her brother-in-law.

Maybe it feels a bit close to the bone?

I suspect your MIL's parents, out of love, told her that they were giving her all that money because she deserved it, is so hard-working, so smart, etc etc. (And, to be fair, if she was given a small business and ran it successfully, that does take hard work and business smarts, albeit you don't know if she would have been able to do it if she had NOT been given the established business or the capital.) But what I am saying is that they may not ever have given her the mental tools to be psychologically aware or humble about how she became so wealthy. Maybe they "bigged" her up so much that she just really does think she's better than her children, and that she did it all herself. Maybe she minimizes how helpful it was to be given a great financial starter fund.

I think that part of being raised to be very self-interested, is that some people are literally unable to see beyond their own interests. They just don't have the mental tools to see themselves as being similar in category to other people. Their entire moral framework is built on the idea that they should be the recipients of the good things of the world. They don't ever really make the connection: "as my parents gave to me, I should give to my own children." To draw a parallel between "me" and "my children" she would have to see herself as something other than the entirely special and unique being that she is. Do you see what I mean?

Obviously this is all speculation but it's the kindest mental framework I can come up with. The other alternative is that she's possibly a narcissist or something similar?

Something similar, my abusive mother in another country, obviously not THIS wealthy.
I don't need her money anyway, but FGS, how do these people manage to live for so long?
(She's 83, living in a massive family apartment, given to her for nothing by former Communist Government).
Just yuck.

Heaven forbid a parent helps a child buy a car! What next, an MOT, or a repair? The horror.

But seriously, many posters seem hot on this idea of blaming “the wives” (why is that?) but perhaps OP can weigh in on what her husband’s childhood was like, since we already know about the local comp and paying for their own driving lessons (and we have to assume, their own cars and insurance afterwards).

Were there holidays, extra curricular activities, buying the boys things for their hobbies, paying for tutors? Did she take them to football every Saturday and bake for the school sale?

So she spent nothing till her husband died and now this new partner has her treating them both and spending a lot. You have a much bigger issue, she may remarry and then you can possibly say goodbye to everything.

There's something very wrong with a grandparent who would see their grandchildren having no holidays, second hand clothes, while being a millionaire and spending inheritance from your PIL on your boyfriend. As said, money will go on inheritance tax, while she could house them at and peppercorn rent and Birthdays/Christmas could be clothing vouchers to see them over the year. A £50 a week shop of extras would make such a difference. If she is judging minimum wage jobs, then she needs to boycott any hospital, care home and hospitality venue that pays minimum wage.

You cannot take it with you when you die. You can use it to bring some ease and happiness to relatives whilst alive. Helping your family, building (hopefully if reciprocated) stronger family bonds. Getting the satisfaction of seeing them benefit whilst you can.

I know people like this though. Some from my own family. They are all of a certain generation, bar one (who is morally defunct on another level, you could be ragged and barefoot in the snow and he shoo you along and wouldn't let you in to dry inside his mansion) I think it's impossible for most of us to understand it because we weren't raised in the same era.

It's a sort of empathy deficit in my opinion by a sort of there is no society, shut up and don't complain or explain and expecting help is shameful generation.

The state would have stepped in….

Many older people hang on to their own money because they don’t want the state stepping in. They know they will need money in later life and they think that they should pay for it themselves.

The speculation by op on how long her MIL is likely to live (and thus how long they’ll have to wait to inherit) is awful, and I suspect the main reason other posters are calling her grabby.

I agree with you OP. I’d find it hard to see my children and grand children go without.

So in other words buy their love? Nice.

But the mil benefitted from generational wealth and now isn't passing on like her own parents did to her before they died. The mil is effectively spending and hoarding the money earned by her parents / grandparents and by not passing on now will lose a massive chunk of the money generated by others on inheritance tax. I agree this is unbelievably selfish and short-sighted (unless some massive backstory where both brothers financially irresponsible)

She doesn’t have to. It sounds like her sons and their families are just waiting for her to die.

Agree! According to the grabby posters on MN they should live frugally and give all their money to their kids while looking after their grandkids full time!!😂 And if they don't do BOTH these things they will never get visits!

If you were unfortunate enough to have a family that was waiting for you to die so they could have your money, do you really mean you would happily give it to them?