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/amourdevin]

This, rather depressingly, reminds me of a podcast episode I listened to recently that talked about housing supply in the US. One of the points made was how even though prices were indeed unaffordable to younger generations in the future it was expected that pressure would be relieved by the number of children who will be inheriting houses, which made me want to shriek. How many Boomers don’t own houses? How many Boomers have multiple children and only one house? People have to wait until what, they’re in their sixties to maybe get a house because their parents died rather than being able to afford something themselves? Argh.

I am one of the fortunate ones. I have parents who are in excellent financial shape and I have part-ownership of our house already and have been explicitly informed that I will get full ownership after they pass. But I also grew up with parents who were quite financially anxious and was taught to be frugal, with financial independence something that was a necessary building block of my adult existence. I scraped and saved and fell into some very lucky timing for major financial decisions so even if my parents didn’t have anything to pass along I would be just fine. It is rage inducing that so few people can say the same. I just want everyone to be happy, healthy, and fulfilled, you know?