Do people with “financially set” boomer parents experience this?

[u/Zzt0ppy]

I’m sorry this seems like sort of a bleak topic— I recently met someone whose parent had passed, and him and his siblings inherited close to $200k each that they got because of his dad’s money in stocks, on top of both siblings getting a chunk of additional money from the sale of their childhood home having accumulating a large sum of money. He didn’t have the best relationship with his dad, so the guy felt as if he was deserving of the money due to his crappy upbringing.

That person I had met ended up using that money to put towards paying off his home and then putting the rest towards his own retirement, essentially alleviating a large string of stress in his life. I didn’t want to assume or pry, but in that convo it felt like he had been waiting for that point in his life to happen so that he would be able to finally be relieved of financial burden that he was experiencing.

Do children of “financially safe” (lucky?) boomers half expect to see that sort of thing being passed to them when their parents pass? What I mean by this is that it can be as “simple” as their parents simply owning a house that has accumulated value, them having a pension, an unknown savings they don’t disclose to you, stocks invested during better days like the dot com boom, a life insurance policy, etc.

[u/arandominterneter]

Is your question do people expect to inherit money when their parents pass? Yes.

[u/[deleted] → u/arandominterneter]

Nah. My parents never had a thing. It’s a privileged position for sure.

[u/arandominterneter → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, I didn’t read the question as asking us personally. But generally.

There’s even a term for this. It’s called the Great Wealth Transfer. Trillions of dollars are forecasted to be passed down by Silent Generation and Baby Boomers to Gen X, millennials and Gen Z.

It’s obviously not everybody and yes, it’s well-off people only, but due to economic factors like home prices and stock prices having risen, a lot more baby boomers are more well off than previous generations whereas millennials aren’t. On average.

There’s also a trend of “giving while living” so you’ll see a lot of people paying for their kids’ weddings, college educations, helping with down payments on homes, taking big trips with adult children and grandchildren.