<p>^^Jeez, I only hope I have this problem, can’t wait for grandkids!! I don’t know, maybe leave all the kids an equal share, and all the grandkids an equal but smaller share? I’m thinking the reality is that people are individuals, not just a pack that should get an equal share between all of them. It’s just hard to explain that you’re leaving kid #1 XX dollars, and kid #2 gets XX+1 dollars because they don’t have children. Just my opinion.</p>
<p>I’m personally a fan of the “equally near, equally dear” concept – everybody at the same level of consanguinity being treated equally. All offspring the same, and then all grandchildren the same.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, I just paged back and saw your DH’s idea. It is heartwarming. But it could also be sad if the parents, believing they are on their own to save for college, are forced to make compromises in the child’s upbringing that would have been avoidable with more openness about the future funding. I’m thinking of stuff like keeping a kid in daycare who is not thriving there, believing that the college funding burden leaves them with no choice. Or saying no to important tutoring or therapies that would run several thousand dollars a year. It might be bittersweet to have worked your way through these difficulties, believing that the compromises you were making were necessary, only to be presented with the funds, late in the child’s high school years, powerless to re-do the upbringing.</p>
<p>I see your point, but really, it’s not as though we’d watch a grandchild not have surgery he or she needed, all the time rubbing our hands and thinking, “Boy, won’t they be delighted when we spring all that money on them for college!” Obviously if there were a circumstance ahead of time in which assistance was needed, we would adjust accordingly. </p>
<p>I will second countingdown’s advice about life insurance. I know too many people who did not buy when they were younger and could not get insured when later health problems appeared.</p>
<p>My daughter fills out the FAFSA herself since she was a sophomore. She just tells DH what lines she needs the numbers from. So yeah, she knows our income.</p>
<p>I see your point, but really, it’s not as though we’d watch a grandchild not have surgery he or she needed</p>
<p>What I start to wonder is stuff like: Will they not offer music lessons or scrimp on the lessons because they need to put that money in a college fund?</p>
<p>My kids went to school with two families (cousins) whose grandfather was very wealthy. These two families were very average income, and they lived their lifestyle. Parties at their homes were just like parties at our home, the mother worked a minimum wage job at the ice rink to get reduced priced lessons for her kids just like the rest of us, and she went back to work when her husband’s business dropped off. I think the only difference was that their educations were paid for by the grandparents and that allowed them a lot more choice. They all went to catholic schools, and while not expensive, I suspect the grandparents paying the tuition freed up some other money for sports and activities, but the parents still scrimped to make it work.</p>
<p>It’s the grandparents’ choice when or if to give the money. Even Warren Buffett has openly planned to leave his kids very little. He provided an education, and he thinks that’s enough.</p>
<p>“A very rich person should leave his kids enough to do anything but not enough to do nothing.”
Warren Buffett </p>
<p>My husband’s business partner’s great, great grandfather made a fortune from an invention. He set up a trust that future family members could use to cover education costs–the trust money could be for college or grad school or or even private elementary/secondary school. I thought it was a great idea. H’s business partner used money from the trust to fund his education and his three kids did the same. We went to a graduation party for one of the partner’s kids that was held at the grandfather’s house. The grandfather was, at the time, the oldest member of the family that set up the trust. There were framed thank-you notes all around the house from the kids who had been beneficiaries of the educational trust.</p>