About the Kids
About the Kids
Richard Quinn February 27, 2021
Should leaving money to our children be a formal part of our financial strategy—or should we focus on our own wants and needs, and let the chips fall where they may?
My wife and I have four children ages 45 to 50. They’re all married and, between them, have 13 children ages five to 17. They’re also all college graduates, with almost the entire cost paid by my wife and me. Three have master’s degrees. Arguably, we did our job when it comes to our children. They were given every opportunity.
Since graduating college, however, all four have had more employers than I did in 50 years. None has a pension. Only two have a 401(k), one with the employer match suspended. Raises have been scarce. One son works on commission.
Like many Americans, they’re caught in the crunch of saving for both their children’s college and their own retirement. They’ll have kids in college—some just starting college—when they reach retirement age. By contrast, I was age 55 when my youngest graduated college.
Here I sit with a pension, Social Security, no debt and investments I don’t plan to spend. Instead, those investments will be liquidated only if I predecease my wife and she needs the money or if there’s an extreme emergency, such as long-term-care expenses in excess of what our insurance will cover.
I’ve made it clear in the past that I’m big on reasonable frugality, living within your means, personal responsibility and so on. And yet I very much want to—and am planning to—leave as much money to my children as possible.
Is there any contradiction between my advocacy of personal responsibility and my determination to help my kids? There would be if I concluded my kids weren’t responsible individuals. But that isn’t the case. I don’t expect them to be exactly like me and I hesitate to hold them to my somewhat unique standards.
What if they violate my financial philosophy with the money we bequeath? I can’t do anything about that. But in any case, they won’t be receiving enough to become beach bums.
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