Lucky for me my parents were both “I didn’t save anything for retirement, my kids will take care of me when I’m older”, so I don’t have to suffer through this.
Lucky for me my parents were both “I didn’t save anything for retirement, my kids will take care of me when I’m older”, so I don’t have to suffer through this.
I never really considered an inheritance an option. Seems so off-worldly to me, even though I am by no means from a poor family, just lower middle class.
I think the entire concept of inheritance is something more prominent in developing countries like US or India, where there isn’t a well-established safety nets already in place by the government itself.
Of course we have inheritances too, I know a few who got something, but most of it gets taxed away upon receiving or vanishes covering the deceased’s debts, so I’ve never heard anyone I know get anything other than maybe a weekend vacation in the city next over or maybe a small chunk of student debt away.
Then again I’m not very well-off, and I do know there are the upper class families that have a long standing generational wealth passing over to the new generations. I guess it really depends on the circles one’s in.
But I still think it’s not as common here, at least I’ve never considered it to be normal, and I’ve known well people from upper middle class too.
Many people inherit a house or a flat
So I had a relative who passed, but saw it coming and tried to make some moves to make sure his only son was set up to take care of his wife, because his wife had never really had to “be an adult” and went her entire life without handling any bills or finances or anything. So when he passed at least his middle aged son would be there to handle things including their house.
So he died and sure enough, she couldn’t handle independent living. So they decided to sell the house and she’d move in with another relative. So the rest of us are thinking “oh good, at least they cashed out in this crazy high real estate market to have a bit of a cushion”.
However, no one thought about how little the middle aged son had to worry about things like housing and stuff. He never had to buy or rent a house, he had a hand me down trailer parked on a relatives land. He always had a used car gifted to him by and other relative getting rid of it. So he had no idea what he was doing either, thought a seller’s agent was a scam to take their money, and they ended up selling the whole house and land for about $50k before any one else had any idea that they were even thinking of selling.
As well liked as he is, so much frustration when everyone has to take on a burden to help them and they make such a huge mistake that could have made things so much easier.
Interesting to have a relatively large family to see all the scenarios play out. Also have a relative that is spending all his money and is mortgaged to his eyes, and another relative who lived like a pauper who turned out to have a couple million in liquidity in her 80s because she wanted her kid to be surprised when they got hit with a big inheritance.
Unless they’re the sole recipient of a will (doesn’t seem very common), at least here those are almost always liquified and proceeds split according to the will. Doesn’t amount to much usually, though it might be different in countries that have very large and expensive cities.
I’m from US and I re-read “developing countries like us or India” like 3 times and then I realized that you’re absolutely right.
People used to buy land and build a house on it and that was the inheritance. It could then be cut into smaller parcels and new homes built for the kids if they stayed close.
And of course if you were wealthy it was businesses and trust funds which still occurs a lot these days.
The middle class was partially stripped of its wealth by each generation giving less to the next
I am with you I never considered that an option and I don’t want to think about it either. But I do think our parents gets/got a lot (depending on how our grandparents lived) more than we will. My grandparents left house and money and even a vacation house so my parents could put the sould houses and furnitures money into building their own house. My mom even gave me and my sister a bit to use to buy our first apartments. It is still money even tho it is pretty sad way to “earn” money… I assume your friends parents lived in rented apartments if there was not much left.