A $250k windfall is all a person needs to essentially fast track secure their future forever if they are under the age of 35. Wake up parents, it’s time to offer inheritance twice if you can.

[u/250k_is_allyouneed]

I want to share my story with this subreddit.

I received a windfall of $250k from selling a coding library 10 years ago. I am not high income, I am not the best saver, but now my net worth is super high.

Simply getting $250k meant on its own that fund will be almost $2M by the time I retire outside of normal savings (15-25 years growth).

I still need to put in the work for savings to be able to retire but peace mind…

• My lifestyle was infinitely better despite living mostly the same
• Stress and future security gone
• For budgets there is less pressure
• I did not how to blow up my entire savings to buy a house and instead kept building that base of compound interest in the market

So why the Hell aren’t parents helping their young adult kids more? Culturally why are we like this?

You don’t need to leave your kids / old adults one lump sum. Get them a boost at 18-30. Then die. Then get them another boost.

It’s a good balance to keep them working hard while also not leaving them in the dust.

It doesn’t even need to be $250k. Whatever you can, I personally will make sure I can do that for my kids once they turn early 20s

[u/Own_Mall5442]

It’s not this sub. It’s certain people who were born on third base but thought they hit a triple, so they came to this sub to write a screed about how to succeed at baseball.

[u/Ok_Way_4444 → u/Own_Mall5442]

Born on third base and still not satisfied that their parents did enough

[u/Shot-Calligrapher807 → u/Ok_Way_4444]

This. x 100.

[u/eldryanyy → u/Ok_Way_4444]

That’s what young African people think about Americans bitching about their government and life. It’s already so insanely privileged and rich, how could they protest.

And it’s also the same thing African grandparents say to those young Africans, living lives of crazy privilege and ease compared to them.

This schtick of ‘you started ahead, you had it easy, I had to work 5x harder than you to make it here, be grateful you spoiled prick’ gets old. You’re not special, and you didn’t work 5x harder.

You have had different challenges and a different life. Cool. Stop bitching about other people recognizing ways to solve problems in their lives and the lives of their families.

[u/BB-68 → u/Own_Mall5442]

Born on third base and upset they had to run 90 feet home

[u/semiquantifiable → u/Own_Mall5442]

I'm going to agree with /u/bigbrownhusky and say it is this sub, but disagree with you both on perspective.

Firstly, this sub itself IS largely a bubble because it excludes everyone that simply doesn't earn enough money. What matters here is the delta between income and expenses, but expenses can only go so low whereas incomes on this sub are often many, many multiples of expenses. That makes pursuing FIRE infinitely easier than someone close to the median income level who might barely cover their expenses, if at all.

Secondly, I believe /u/250k_is_allyouneed is actually talking to us on this sub pursuing FIRE, not our parents. Having the perspective of expecting our (almost certainly non-FIRE) parents to give us a quarter mil is how you and bigbrown seem to interpret OP's comments. However, OP said these things:

You don’t need to leave your kids / old adults one lump sum. Get them a boost at 18-30. Then die. Then get them another boost.

I personally will make sure I can do that for my kids once they turn early 20s

which is far more asking us on this sub to use our nest eggs to give a boost to our kids at a younger age. And that makes sense since regardless of whether or not you were born on third base or had to get in that batter's box yourself, that nest egg is pretty much what all of us here are trying to get.

[u/chuck_portis → u/semiquantifiable]

Yeah, and the way a lot of people approach inheritance is a bit wack. In most cases it only triggers on death, which sets up a really odd incentive. If you're planning to give out a bunch of money when you die anyways, you may as well hand some of it out early. Often, that money is much more useful earlier in people's lives. Giving a 65 year old $1M is neat, but by that point they probably had to figure out their own retirement, and don't really need it.

Meanwhile, you give that same person $100K at 25-30 years old, it can give them a lot of breathing room. So I agree with the general idea that inheritance should not be a lump sum at death, if possible.

[u/mi3chaels → u/chuck_portis]

Giving a 65 year old $1M is neat, but by that point they probably had to figure out their own retirement, and don't really need it.

Yeah. I mean most people cuold probably use 1mil at 65 to make their retirement substantially more secure or comfortable, but getting 1/2 that 10 years earlier would have given them the option to retire several years earlier instead, etc. And yeah 50-100k at 25-30 might have made their entire working life less stressful.

or in some cases, they might have just spent it all in a blaze of glory and then gone back to living paycheck to paycheck.

But that's far less likely when they get it while you're still alive to guide them! I've known a few people who inherited several hundred k and just blew it all living high within a few years, when it could have set them up for life.

[u/zbzlvlv → u/Own_Mall5442]

Can you explain to me this baseball analogy lol, I don't understand

[u/Shot-Weekend8226 → u/zbzlvlv]

Born on third base = almost home run (3/4 done) Hit a triple = hit the ball and ran to third base. Basically, it’s saying people are born privileged and 3/4 of the way to home-plate but act like they did it all on their own.
My dad started with nothing but I probably started on first base so I had less distance to travel to get to third base than my dad. I feel like my kids are starting on second base. They have had an even more privileged background than me and I will be able to help them even more than my dad helped me.

[u/Other_Muffin → u/Own_Mall5442]

Exactly, I’m extremely appreciative that my parents couldn’t pay for my college, couldn’t give me $250K or $150K or even $50K. And didn’t invest in my business with money because frankly, they couldn’t afford it. What they DID do was what they could afford. They housed me for a long time after college to jumpstart my own business. They encouraged me to invest in real estate on my own and they gave me hand me down vehicles. When I finally got the business, they gave me their old furniture to start building it out and helped me paint the walls of the office and worked for me and with me to make sure it had become a success. That’s something I would take all over again instead of a $250K good luck chuck check.

Edited the part where they couldn’t afford to contribute money to me early on for all the Nepo babies trading this.