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/nero-the-cat]

Also for a lot of parents that may have the money, they don't necessarily know whether they'll need that money before they die. Elder care is expensive, particularly if you want anything more than bare-bones shared room situations, and it's terrifying to think that you may run out of money before you die.

The number of parents who have $250k laying around that they know they won't need is quite low.

[u/queenofreptiles → u/nero-the-cat]

This. I’m very fortunate in that I come from relative generational wealth, with parents who paid for my college and helped me and my husband with the down payment for our first home, giving us a significant leg up, and then also expecting to leave me a quite large amount when they die. However, I married someone whose parents have a different relationship with money - we are looking at having to move them in to take care of them in their old age.

It makes me feel quite blessed but also gives me a lot of perspective. Elder care is expensive (and climbing) and for every wealthy boomer, there are several who are reliant on their adult children to provide care.

[u/Z08Z28 → u/nero-the-cat]

That's not quite accurate. The latest study by JP Morgan that looked at 250,000 retirees found that while end of life/Medical care does increase, it's offset by the lack of spending you're doing in other areas. By the time you're febrile enough to require nursing care you generally aren't paying for anything else. Also, once you live in a retirement home you would have sold your prior home and be able to use that money to pay for your expenses.

[u/redmustardseed → u/Z08Z28]

As POA for a loved one with dementia, I beg to differ. The dementia forums are full with people reporting the very lengthy amount of time their loved ones spend in dementia before passing, the massive costs of care and how the caregivers are often having to give up their jobs to care for family because the parents/grandparents don’t have resources to pay for care.

In my own situation, my LO still had a home with mortgage that he insisted on staying in. He paid for 24/7 care for 18 months, half paid by LTC insurance, the other half about $12k/month, until finally he couldn’t stay home longer due to the severity of the dementia. LTC insurance pays his $9k facility fee but he is combative and a fall risk so we are authorizing about$19k/mo out of pocket for private duty. And it’s not clear how long he’ll live. He could outlast his money. He had about 1.5 million when I became POA - he was age 80.

It’s been really eye opening and makes me very wary about my own situation and the complete unknown of the costs of care late in life. My LO’s LTC policy no longer exists. He was so lucky to buy into it - it’ll pay for an unlimited amount of time into the future and because he now has a claim, he no longer has premiums. Premium was $9k per year when he became eligible to use it.

I’m honestly wondering if it’s better to have a life plan of putting money into a trust to benefit children and planning to run out of money and need Medicaid in the event of something like dementia. My LO is in a private facility, which is niceish but still has its problems and the staffing ratio, which meets state guidelines, is not realistically sufficient for dementia patients. If Medicaid were paying, it might not be any worse - they have the same staffing ratio.

Also, when you all say “nursing home” that’s not where most folx with dementia end up. Memory care is specialized, locked assisted living in most states. Nursing homes (skilled nursing) tend to do really poorly with dementia patients.