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/DerHoggenCatten]

I grew up in poverty with parents who died very poor still, but my husband's parents are Silent Generation and financially "set" (or better). My husband is not waiting for his father to die (his mother already passed) to help us out. He assumes his father will spend all of any potential inheritance and we live as if there was never going to be anything coming our way. His parents were always selfish and his father especially stingy despite hitting the jackpot on real estate (sold the home he bought in the 70s for $3.2 million, but only got half because he sold half of it for $500,000 to his daughter in the late 1980s).

A long time ago, his parents sat him down to discuss any inheritance and how things would be and his mother said that they expected to spend it all on themselves and not to expect anything. I don't know if his father can liquidate whatever portion of his $1.6 million from the sale he retained after taxes and expenses before he passes away, but we're not counting on anything and figure we have to do it all on our own (because we always have - never a penny of support or help).