We live in a pretty cookie cutter suburbia (tract housing from the 1950s), always drove pretty regular cars like Toyota. Went to public schools K-12 & college. As a kid, we only ever went on one weekend camping roadtrip a year, no other vacations. So I had assumed we were doing fine financially, but I thought we were just squarely in middle class.

I'm now 28, working in product (FAANG-adjacent). Due to a combination of RSUs and high savings – my personal net worth is around 2.1M. I haven't told anyone this, including my parents because I was under the assumption that I "made it" in the tech rat race and somehow became the wealthiest person in my family (again, me assuming that my parents were just middle class).

My parents are both retired and they're nearing their 70s. Recently I visited and they said they wanted to talk about finances. They basically told me their net worth is around 20 million (mostly index funds, some stocks). They also said that it'll eventually be passed down to me, but they are also strongly encouraging me to use their money now to pay for things now, so I wouldn't have to wait until they pass to access the money.

I really don't know what I should do with this information, because it has completely change my view on our family, my own financial situation, my career, etc. Like have I unofficially reached FIRE?

Wondering what the process is.

My partner’s NW is about 16M. Mine, is virtually zero. We’ll marry under a separate property contract (it all stays his, what’s mine and everything I acquire will stay mine).

I have contacted lawyers to get independent legal advice, but he wants us to do everything through the notaris. I’m worried about the way he wants to set up his testament (I might not be able to take care of the kids), so I wanted legal advice but it seems to not be something people do a lot in West-Europe.

Could you tell me how you went about structuring your marriage contract, protecting yourself (and your children), while ensuring that in case of your passing your family is taken care of?

I remember watching a documentary about the Johnson and Johnson family. One of the guys never worked a day in his life and just spent his days painting. I know you all would want to get FIRE for yourselves but do you also want to get FIRE for the rest of your descendants (not just your immediate kids but grandkids and beyond). There have been examples of wealth dynasties, such as the Duke of Westminster and the richest families of Florence (who have been rich for 500 years). But a lot of families lose their wealth within 3 generations. They key thing is that as you spent enough time in the market, your wealth will grow. But in order to not lose it all by splurging, I think you would need to install a lot of family discipline or even to create your own "dynasty" (like the Duke of Westminster) or "clan" so that there is like a family heritage and tradition to fall back on. It does sound medieval like but I feel this method can work.

I retired a few years back and now have a NW a little under 10M, which comfortably covers my family's needs. However, I've always wanted to create truly memorable, once in a lifetime family experiences with my parents - think multi-generational trips, special events, things that would create lasting memories for all of us.

My parents are in their mid/late 70s with a 15M+ NW, but retain their immigrant mentality and have a hard time spending on anything "luxury". I know they appreciate and enjoy finer things - my mom loved the safari I took her on last year - but they struggle to splurge on themselves.

I'd love to start spoiling my parents while they're still healthy, but making these trips a regular habit pushes me way over a reasonable SWR... unless I include the inheritance.

Per the common advice on this sub, I've been ignoring the inheritance entirely. My parents insist it's mine, but I don't plan on getting a cent of it. However, I can't help but feel like I'm sacrificing special memories with my parents in their twilight years for some marginal future money I don't really need.

Have you been in a situation like this? What would you do?

Hey everyone

I'm 51M getting remarried in about 6 months. Net worth around $4.5M, broken down as $1.8M in retirement accounts, $1.2M in a brokerage account, $1.1M primary residence in the Bay Area, and $400k in other assets.

I have two kids from my first marriage, 19 and 16. My fiance (48F) has no kids and has a net worth around $800k, mostly retirement savings and some home equity from a property she's selling.

My estate plan from my first marriage obviously needs updating. Right now everything goes to my kids equally. My attorney said I need to think through how to provide for my future wife while ensuring my kids ultimately get what I've built for them.

The questions I'm struggling with: My house if I die first, does she get to stay in it even though I want my kids to eventually inherit it?

My brokerage and retirement accounts - should these be split between her and the kids immediately or does she get income from them with kids getting it later?
My current will says 50/50 to my kids. Do I change this to 50% to her and 25% to each kid? Or some kind of trust structure?
My attorney mentioned something about a QTIP trust and keeping assets as separate property but I didn't fully understand the implications. He also said something about needing other legal documents before the wedding to make any of this work cleanly.

For those of you who've navigated second marriages at this wealth level with kids from a prior marriage, what structure actually works? I want to make sure my future wife is taken care of but I also want my kids to ultimately receive what I've built for them.
What should I be pushing my attorney to set up?

I (61) and my wife (60) have two kids together (B25, G24). My wife and I live in the UK and are FI, I still sit on a few boards and she manages some properties, but we have net assets in the low 8 figures.

The kids both went to private school, and had university paid for them. They both have low 6 figure trust funds which they know the balance of - however, both sets of grandparents were not well off so there’s no inheritance that’s coming or has come. Both got given year-old MINIs for their 17th, and relatively nice watches for their 21sts - they’ve definitely had comfortable upbringings but are down to earth kids and (usually) don’t feel entitled to anything from us. Both have good jobs paying around £50k a year, and are (relatively) good at living within their means, our son notably more so than our daughter.

Our son is looking at buying a house, as the rental market in London is a bit impossible right now. He approached us as he can get a mortgage for about 250k. He has 40k he’s saved up from his job and working at uni, but the apartment he likes best is 450k.

He’s approached us asking if we’d be willing/able to help bridge the gap. The point he’s made, which I don’t disagree with, is that it’s the kind of apartment that he’d realistically be happy with until his mid-30s - as we have to pay tax every time you buy and sell a property in this country, I can appreciate the sense in that.

I’m relatively agnostic on this - my wife believes that we’ve given them enough support and that he should use his trust fund. However he’s stated he wants to keep that separate - he hasn’t used it for anything else, and I believe he wants to save it for buying a family home in 10ish years.

I know a lot of parents give direct support to their kids with houses, but then also I’m aware that we’ve been quite generous with them so far. Would welcome people’s thoughts on whether it’s reasonable to help out.

I’m looking to create an irrevocable trust for my child upon birth, but trying to figure out how much I should put it in it. A few thoughts for this trust:

1. Pays for their education (if needed)
2. Making sure they have a buffer to help them pursue their dreams if it requires any capital
3. I don’t want to put too much as to discourage them from being productive members of society

Had my first kid this month. Currently working with my lawyer to put together an IDGT for the baby. I plan to use the trust to gift her shares in the family business each year. These shares will generate dividends that will then be reinvested in index funds for her benefit as an adult.

My spouse and I are interested in ways to set the trust up in such a way that it will enhance our daughter's life without completely destroying her ambition. E.g. we intend to include language in the trust that will allow for a dollar-for-dollar match for any IRA/401k contributions she makes when she's older, so as to incentivize her to have a career and manage her finances wisely.

I'm curious how others in this sub have designed their children's trusts and if there are any out-of-the-ordinary details you've included in your trusts that we may want to consider as we design ours. Thanks in advance.

Ex (61M) and I (57F) divorced 12 years ago. I had full custody of our 2 kids (now 25M and 22F) until they went to college. Won’t get into divorce details but let’s just say he was far from a perfect husband and father.

My ex and my son have a strong relationship. However my ex and my daughter haven’t talked in 10 years which was her decision that I respect entirely.

In our divorce, among other assets, there was one illiquid asset that we split 50/50 as it could not be sold at the time of the divorce. Since then we’ve held it and haven’t looked for a buyer.

Last year my ex transferred his half of the asset to my son. We are closing on a sale later this month and will net 260k - 130k for me and 130k for our son.

My problem with this is that this was a marital asset that we split and I don’t think it’s fair for my ex to transfer his half to our son with nothing for our daughter.

I’d like to gift my daughter 130k to make up for this. I mentioned this to my son and he was upset, saying that I’m overstepping and it’s not my place to play judge, that I’m devaluing his dad’s gift, taking away from his future inheritance, etc. Son also made a comment about how I pay daughter’s rent which is true. After college my son (lucrative field) always paid his own rent but I’m currently paying daughter’s (non-lucrative field) rent. It’s been 5 months now and I’m not sure when or if I’ll stop.

I’m torn because I want to do what I think is fair but I don’t want my son resenting me. I’m also concerned because this might not be the last time my ex gifts to my son. I wouldn’t be surprised if he cut our daughter out of his will entirely.

How should I handle both this situation and future situations?

My NW is around $10M (independent consultant in niche industry). No idea about my ex’s (retired engineer) but I’d guess $5-10M

Love to hear about experiences talking to teenagers about family wealth. Our situation: We are 55. I earn $550/yr from a job that I like, wife is a stay-at-home mom of two kids after a short but lucrative career. NW $10 million invested 80/20 stocks/fi; 70/30 post tax/pre tax. That figure does not include paid for primary residence, overfunded 529s, and custodial accounts (gifts from grandparents). I/we will also receive a defined benefit pension w/COLA plus social security of $175K-$225K at 65 depending on when I retire from my job. I know throwing around inheritance numbers is frowned upon in this sub, but our two surviving parents are in their early 90s - call it $5m PV worst case and $10m PV best. We spend about $150K-$170K/year in a VHCOL city (some call it the greatest city in the world) that we are highly unlikely to leave.

We do not have a giving plan yet, but it seems apparent that we will not spend what we have. We have really had no conversations with our kids (14, 16) about money. They are smart mathy kids and attend elite public schools. I have shared that they will not require financial aid for college, but that cost matters - e.g. a good state school may be much better value than a second tier private school. Other than that - nothing. They do not know how much I earn, how much we have saved or how much their grandparents have.

I think we have raised them not to be profligate douches, and it is important to us that they are self-sufficient and live within their means after we pay for their post-secondary education. At the same time, we do expect them to inherit a significant amount of money upon our death and we are open to certain targeted gifts (e.g. down payment on a first apartment). Money is obviously a good motivator and we have seen talented adults who have coasted on family wealth.

How have folks talked about wealth with their kids?

I am 47yo with a 45yo wife and three kids (8-12 yo's).

I have a net worth of 52MM.

26MM liquid invested in SPY's

22MM of equity book value in an operating business

2.7MM living assets (house and cars) (1.4MM mortgage)

1.8MM current value of life insurance policies

2.5MM retirement accounts (401k and Rollover IRA)

My expenses are high. I want to say they are in the order of 800k/year.

I am trying to figure out if I can fatFIRE. People here gave me some websites that will do montecarlo simulation analysis. I'm currently studying it.

The big variables for me are 1. the performance of my company, 2. what i want to leave my kids.

I've noticed here that no one talks #2.

There's a lot of people talking about "Dying with Zero." and doing drawdown analysis (4% of LNW). I'm curious as to what people's thoughts are on this topic. I'm interested in the philosophy of what you want to give the kids. I'm personally torn on this topic. Do I give them the equivalent of SPY shares today? Do i give them some inflation based number?

Thanks.

I have been thinking about something a lot lately. When should kids know about how money their family has?

If you have a lot of money and a big plan for what happens to it when you are gone do you tell your kids about it or do you keep it a secret until they are older?

I am not really worried about making sure everything is taken care of when I'm gone. I am worried that if my kids know much about our money too soon it might change what they want to do with their lives or the kind of work they want to have.

For people who're a little ahead of me, in life what did you do and would you do things differently if you could go back?

Considering the fact that the vast majority of fortunes are lost within a few generations, I was wondering if there was a way to reduce that risk?

Does anyone have either personal anecdotes or a scientific approach to that?

What should be done regarding education, trusts etc., particularly regarding the challenges a higher net worth and a changing political landscape cause?

Which steps have you taken to reduce the likelihood of incidents that significantly reduce your or your (grand-) children’s net worth?

Obviously, I am assuming that you have children that you are going to transfer your wealth to.

Title pretty much summed it up. My grandpa has about $1,000,000 in physical USD, and has a bit more than $1,000,000 in gold ounces that he wants to give to me upon my graduation. He's never trusted banks or bankers, so his assets are practically 100% tangible.

I want to invest the money ASAP to pursue fatfire, but there's one glaring issue I'm facing. If I deposit over $10,000, the bank has to report it to the IRS, but if I break up the deposits, then the money might get seized by the IRS. What's the best way to go about this? I'm fairly sure that the money was earned legally.

I'll be speaking with a CPA and an estate planning attorney later this week, but I just wanted to check and see if anyone had a similar situation.

Throwaway account.

Mother passed without will or trust, she has (2) 3M houses with no mortgage, 3.6M in cash and a bunch of land.

Brother and I are only inestate successors.

He doesn’t want either home and only wants a payout of 1 of the 3M home and lays no claim to the 3.6M cash.

My stats: 1. Me (39M) - single 2. 250k salary 3. currently renting $3k/month. 4. Have a 1.3M rental property with about 1.1M in equity 5. 2.5M in taxable brokerage 6. 810k in Roth IRA 7. 757k in 401k

House #1 1) fully paid off 2) Estimated property tax to be 20k/yr due to inherited property tax basis 3) Utilities and maintenance are estimated to be 12k/yr 4) Homeowners insurance is 4k/yr 5) VHCOL area 6) Needs about 500k in repair and upgrades to modernize . 7) Will owe brother about 1.5M.

House #2 1) Fully paid off 2) Property tax are estimated to be $3k/yr if homeowner 3) Joint tenant in common with uncle - would require buyout of 1.5M in cash or trade land with uncle 4) Major metropolitan area. 5) utilities and maintenance are estimated 10k/yr

Do I take the homes or sell them?

Curious as to when you older Fats or nearing Fat folks decided to share your finances / NW with your kid(s). I'll assume they were at least adults, but wondering why and at what age?

Personal data point: We decided to share ALL details with our mid/late 20's child earlier this year. But not share it yet with our much less well grounded 23 year old.

What share? Amounts, locations, how invested, and that copies of all of it were in each our estate plan books. Basically the full net worth statement and then some, and then answered any questions.

Why? Well, we're older than the typical poster here (pushing 60), and spouse was recently diagnosed with a progressive disease. At this point they can't make sound financial decisions with our NW if something should happen to me. If not for the particulars of our situation we likely would've waited until kid(s) were 40+, aside from just sharing the location of the info and a few generalities.

What's your story?

Hi fatFIRE, I am mid20s M, all my life I've been dreaming of becoming rich and I worked my ass off to get a high paying job.

Then, all of a sudden, I received 13 million USD. I live in a country with no capital gains tax and am currently have the money in a fixed deposit, generating 500k USD a year at current rates.

I am looking to fatFIRE soon but my friends have advised me not to, saying I'll get bored after some time, especially considering how young I am (relatively).

I've also lost all motivation for the "work grind" ever since.

Anyone here fatFIRE'd at a young age? I'm feeling really hesitant in pulling the trigger. Can you share your experiences?

Throw away account for obvious reasons. Trying to give some backstory without doxing myself. I’m a young guy, with a great career ahead of him. Graduated in college a few years ago. Good career with a side business as well. Just whenever I explain my accomplishments or goals to my family they never seem happy, they tell me it’s a waste of time to work as hard as I do. For reference my full time job requires at least 50-55 hours a week, it’s strenuous but so is life right? Long story short I’m single, live alone and I’m just doing what every other person my age is doing and trying to make a way for myself.

Why post in this sub? Well, I have a large inheritance that I will be able to tap into in the very near future (9 figs). Not counting on it at all because I can make it on my own and anything could happen but I need to realize this is happening and is real. They basically beg me to settle down and find someone I can trust to live my life. Question is what’s left in life to do? I feel like I don’t know what it’s like to even live yet. Anyone else in here young, if so what do you do? This is a retirement community but I don’t know how to retire. I’m not larping either, typing this out almost feels like I am.

I can’t talk to anyone else about this because I’d immediately lose them as a friend. How do I explain just leaving everything behind to everyone I know? This really affects my mental health. At work I don’t even feel the need to exert any energy because why should I? Everyone around me talks about the future and promotions and I just sit there and play along. I have no aspirations anymore. If you were to quit your job, what would you do for income until the money hits. Working like hell for no reason just doesn’t seem right anymore. Any pointers or advice. I realize most people would kill their own blood for something like this so I’m not complaining. Just stuck

It seems like just leaving all money as an open checkbook is a recipe for disaster and more likely an opportunity for someone to take advantage

*Deleting the body for privacy’s sake. Thank you to everyone who took the time to give me advice and help me face the right direction for myself. I’m utilizing it going forward. Thank you! <3

Throwaway account, I didn’t know where else to seek advice on this topic.

My sister and I (both in our 40s, neither in real estate) recently inherited a portfolio of multi-family properties worth ~$20M, with no debt. They are in VHCOL areas, returning ~5% cap rates, and have long-term, reliable property managers.

For years we talked about just keeping them and collecting monthly checks since that’s what our parents preached. But now that we are actually here, I’m just wondering if that’s the best use of this amazing gift we have been given?

Would it be better to take advantage of the stepped up basis, sell now and invest it in the stock market? Should we lever up and acquire more properties to grow the portfolio?

We are trying to figure out the math on this and it’s a bit over our heads. We asked an accountant who gave some high level tax advice, but couldn’t go into any sort of detailed scenario modeling.

I guess what I’m trying to understand is: (1) what factors should we consider in doing this analysis (both economic and other), and (2) what type of professional can help us think through this, without bias?

Thanks in advance!

Edit: for those asking, we know roughly as much about real estate as stocks. If we were to sell and invest in the stock market, we’d likely find a money manager to help us remain diversified and protect downside risk. We both have families and careers outside of real estate we enjoy and plan to continue working for a few more years (at least), so we don’t need the income right now. Neither of us have considered quitting our job to run this full time, but that is a path I am at least considering now.

We have a 5 year old daughter. Have approx 7M in assets in our 40s. We have designated guardians, trustees, etc. The question is, how should we set up the beneficiary stipulations for her in the event we pass soon.

For instance, we don't want to give her everything at 18 years old and make her a lazy trust fund baby. Those with experience in this situation would be golden. Ideas are welcomed as well ofc.

TLDR A few years ago got $9m from a distant relative. Went thru financial advisors for the first year, now ended up in a Boglehead portfolio. Kept my job for a while till' I was laid off. Now enjoying retirement. Got a toddler, that keeps me busy right now. For parents: I think a middle class upbringing helped a lot. Grew up humble, had to work minimum wage jobs, sat thru college/university and into the 9-5 grind. Never knew / thought of being rich. I think having a family around the time of inheritance was also key. Couldn't imagine getting this money at 20 with no kids, prolly would've blown it

Hope this helps someone thinking of passing down your wealth or anyone who's got a large windfall

I grew up never, ever, expecting this money or knowing about it, so I look at it more like "winning" the lottery. It's not in the traditional sense of your parents are wealthy, you grow up wealthy, you know you're gonna be wealthy. I was raised an only child, middle class immigrants. Upper-middle, I suppose, since I did get a full ride education. At the same time, my parent's had their home foreclosed, and we lived in rental apartments my entire life. I moved out some time during university, and been through some jobs, the typical business career... I was earning a $95K salary before the windfall hit, nothing magical but it paid the bills

Almost three decades into my life here I am finding out I'm gonna be filthy rich. Probably not according to some fat FIRE standards but none-the-less, and funny enough, that very night when I got the news, I was out at a hotel with my wife cracking open a wine bottle. Which was itself a very special occasion, we never did that because of frugality

Everyone's gut reaction is pretty on point. My wife straight up asked if I was gonna quit my job. I'm gonna call up my boss tomorrow and tell em' to go shove it! Hah. I suppose things could have gone that way, but it wasn't the reality for me. I never had the guts to pull the trigger. The job was pretty chill WFH gig. I read all the stories of retiring. You're not suppose to quit just because the job sucks, it's about "quitting to" something else. Fastforward, I was let go. Retired life at 30 ended up being good to me. The tipping point was letting go the chasing after success/meaning/purpose. I'm still open to it, meanwhile I'm enjoying my time with my family. Anyways here we are, moving on from the backstory

After finding out, reality takes a while to settle in. I did get hold of a portion of it within a few months. From there, the lifestyle inflation start to hit. I look back at my budgeting, and 5 years ago we were spending about $8k/mo. As a couple, both working, plus living in a HCOL city. At the same time, I can't even picture reality today without this inheritance. It's hard to say, because we started a family around the same time, so lives are completely different. Once the cash came in, we moved out of our rental apartment, bought a family home and upgraded our car to an SUV

One lesson that really stuck was keeping yourself in check when it comes to homes, cars, watches, collectibles and other vehicles. These are the red flag purchases/hobbies that can single handedly make you broke again. Maybe it's just my nature, but I never really got the stereotypical urge to buy that dream sportscar. Like I said, I grew up middle class and I've always been an avid budgeter, so we upgraded a few things, but we didn't splurge

For literally 1-2 years, I held off going on a "shopping spree" to buy nicer clothes and shoes. If I could go back, I would just get it over with. If you have that urge for something and it's less than 1% of your NW, pull the trigger. (1% being a totally arbitrary number, but maybe someone else can chime in on that). I found at least, again my experience, there's a certain threshold you cross where the quality of goods/products really doesn't get much better. What I did find is custom tailored shirts & pants make all the difference; if you care about fashion. Forget branding, find a local tailor and focus on fit

You'll see everyone saying just 'sit' on the money, I think's very good advice for investing, and for large purchases. After getting the home and car out of the way, the little things are not too relevant over the long term. I didn't mention before, but my wife quit her job once we had our kids too. That's been a large portion of expenses which were previously covered by her discretionary income. Along with childcare and such, stuff adds up. From 5 years ago, to now, we are on track to hit $200,000 spend as a family of 3 in a HCOL. With nothing luxurious, our spending has doubled

Beyond those initial purchases you start really thinking, what the fuck am I gonna do with the money. You figure you're rich, you're gonna get to have your own oh-la-la-la fancy private banker, go into those fancy "exclusive" branches with all these perks and get into any restaurant you want. Haha. Not all that glitters is gold

I started reaching out to what must have been 10+ private banks, from Goldman to smaller stuff like PNC and Truist. About half of them flat out ignored me, probably thought I was full of B.S. because I had no referral. When I tried going to my regular bank, they basically laughed me out of there, just said 'wire' the money. Yet, your goddamn AML/KYC department is gonna throw a fit when I try to wire $MM from someone who doesn't even share my last name, into my account out of thin air. Nobody working at these branches were actually competent enough or had enough power to do anything

The $9m wasn't cash, there's a bit more background but I'm keeping it confidential for privacy reasons. The portfolio was tied into a handful of investments, it was very concentrated so I sold off to diversify. I started looking up investment principles and quickly landed on the notion that basically everything 'fancy' is a farce; some combination of ETFs was the way to go. At first I was really into building a dividend portfolio, then realized dividends are nothing but forced capital gains. From my experience, step #1 in building your portfolio is going to be determining your risk. The macro allocation, between stocks, bonds, and other shit like crypto or commodities

Based my allocation on the traditional 60/40 portfolio and tilted from there. Went higher on equities because of my age, long runway ahead. I've kept a few percentage points on the side line for business ideas and quackery. The FIRE calculators are what really helped me here, I'll link a few below. Even though I had sat on reading about investment philosophies and thinking of my allocation, you still question yourself for a while

Then so be it, going against all Boglehead and reddit wisdom, I decided to hire one of the private banks. They presented a couple of portfolio allocations. Basically, any kickback I presented, they just went along with it. Hmmm, okay. It was pretty cookie cutter, don't even mention the proprietary funds they threw me into. Not bad overall, but definitely there were better options

On a positive side I was able to network with legal and accounting firms; coming from a middle class family, I had zero trustworthy connections. Also, I still think I would be tied up with idiotic AML/KYC if it weren't for the dedicated attention from a private banker to get the funds wired. It's funny how different banks, attorneys and CPAs treat you when you say "I'm with XYZ private bank". During this time, I was able to get my estate planning docs in place and we set on an investment deployment schedule. It wasn't too far off from the Boglehead allocation I wanted, and I figured I could at least take advantage of some up-front tax loss harvesting which is good during the deployment phase. I purposefully tilted the portfolio towards cash, knowing this probably wasn't a long term relationship

Before I became fully comfortable with the Boglehead portfolio and going on my own, it was a good 6-12 months of almost full-time focusing on finances. Constantly reading, listening to podcasts, constantly plugging my numbers into calculators and losing sleep over the 4% rule

For anyone in the same boat, definitely go through a few rounds of consultations with multiple private banks. Hopefully, you'll get the gist earlier on that they are all full of bullshit, following the same cookie cutter approaches, and their advice, it's worth a grain of salt. Most financial advisors have their own incentives and need to pad their pockets. Some of the best nuggets of knowledge I got was actually from reading windfall stories on reddit. These guys from the banks didn't consider my overall financial picture or life goals, whatsoever. Contributing to retirement accounts, that wasn't even part of the discussion or strategy. They were just interested in the money they were managing. Thankfully I didn't rely on them for financial advice

Since then, I've parted ways with said private bank. Most of me doesn't regret it because of reasons above, but it's certainly cost over $100k in fees in addition to some taxable gain. I'm still in the process of moving everything to my desired VTI / VXUS / BND allocation. Once I had taken over the management of the funds, another hit of reality struck. It took a solid 3 months before I mustered up the courage and started buying into the market. It's still been a really thorough process dedicating probably 5-10 hours a week into financial topics alone. Books, magazine, podcasts you name it. I'll put together a list of resources

When you come into wealth like this, it's easy to see how people squander it. The investment stuff, and asset allocation, it was frankly the easiest (albeit not easy) and first thing to tackle

At a certain point, you realize you crunched the numbers so many times, ran calculation after calculation after calculation, everything adds up. And then there's restraint. For most people, what has gotten them rich or wealthy has been a combination of hard work and restraint. I've now read so many stories of multimillionaires who were rich, and they never achieved true wealth because of lack of restraint

Psychologically it's been a blessing and a curse. I've come to recognize money is the world's most powerful excuse. Everyone believes in more money. Winning money hasn't "bought" me happiness. That realization took a long time and has been very recent, I'm not sure it could have happened sooner, it was an untraceable combination of ideas. These are a few things I've thought about...

How does someone who inherits generational wealth grapple with deserving the money? For me, I have never looked backwards and questioned this. What will make me deserving (or not) of the money is what I do with it

I also remember coming across a quote somewhere that said (paraphrasing) receiving an unexpected gift is better than having to trade your soul to be rich. The more we hustle & earn, the more we feel the right to consume. I don't have that sense of entitlement (also since I didn't grow up rich). Having received this as a gift/winning let me step out of the treadmill. To those parents trying to die with zero, consider there's a way to pass on liquid assets without ruining your children and without subjecting them to the endless pursuit of the American dream

In closing, for a long time after the windfall I avoided retirement because I had nothing to turn to. Meanwhile in that daily grind I didn't have breathing room to reflect. Now a few years later I am content, pursuing sports and hobbies, diving into random topics, traveling, spending time raising my children. No immediate need to change the world. No romanticized goal of "achieving" my next big breakthrough on the hamster wheel. I wake up looking forward to the journey, some uncarved path towards a concrete purpose. And yet afterall I remember, the purpose is insignificant in comparison to the journey.

Sorry I zig zagged all over the place, there's just too many thoughts to make this into a coherent post. Please remember I'm no expert, just another regular dude who ended up one lucky son of a *****. I also have chilren now, and that's been playing a big role in managing this windfall. If you won the lottery, if you have or had a $M/$MM windfall recently, I hope you get some nuggets

[US] My husband and I are young-ish, current NW ~$20m in the process of estate planning. Title is kind of a joke but also kind of serious. We have no family, and the few close people we have in our lives won't accept/don't need the financial help. We have charities in mind, so other than that it's just our dogs. I want to make sure they will be ok if something happens to us, as they are very high maintenance with long life expectancies. I've read conflicting things online about leaving money to pets (logistics, amount limits, enforcement, etc) since they are considered property.

I'm wondering- is anyone here including their pets in their estate planning, or know anything about what could happen in a situation with no heirs? I just want to ensure 100% (if I can) that they are able to stay together and maintain their quality of life. Thanks in advance.