What Should I Do With My Inheritance?

The coming $30 trillion wealth transfer from baby boomers to the next generation has been presented in many pieces, and has a number of people thinking about their potential inheritance. As a prudent planner, an individual should have already planned for certain aspects of their retirement without the expectation of an inheritance. But how can you adjust your plan if you are almost positive that you will be getting a good to decent sized inheritance?

There are certain variables that make it difficult to account for an inheritance, such as families being against talking about it, investments may change, and people are living longer than before. The morbid truth is that with people living longer they tend to use up what would be the next generation’s inheritance on living costs and long term care for themselves. Have an in-depth conversation with grandparents about possibly helping out now with the youngest generation – the grandkids – rather than waiting to pass on their estate in bulk on their deathbed.

See Ben Carlson, What Should I Do With My Inheritance?, A Wealth of Common Sense, May 14, 2019.

Special thanks to Joel C. Dobris (Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law) for bringing this article to my attention.