On gifting (per @bluebayou). We have a trust set up to absorb money that is not in our retirement plans. We are hoping that the trust will help each kid with a downpayment for a house, grandkids’ eduction if we haven’t funded 529s for them, and emergencies if there are any. Because my retirement plans (originally 412i than 415i) were originally defined benefit plans, we were able to accumulate a fair bit into them, though we had to roll them into a 401k at some point which limited contributions. There is no way to keep those funds out of the estate if we have not spent them and they will be subject to ordinary tax at the highest rate. Assuming we live, I imagine that we will use up most of the funds in the 401ks.
On moving close to a kid and discussing it with them. @Youdon_tsay, for us it would not be weird to discuss moving to be close to the kids, although the move might be in the other direction and has already been raised by ShawD. A few years ago, ShawD was thinking of moving to Boulder CO, which is one of the places I love, and where one of my closest friends lives. Out of the blue, she said, “Dad, I’ll live there and scout out the neighborhoods and then you can buy a two-family house. In the beginning, you and Mom will live upstairs and I will live downstairs. When I have kids, you can help me take care of the kids. Later on, when you get older and stairs are a problem, you guys can move downstairs and I will take care of you.” She moved instead to SF with a bF and lives with ShawSon. She actually found a triple-decker there for us to buy with that same stated purpose (including a unit for ShawSon and his then GF). We love Marin (and I would have happily moved there) but don’t actually want to live in SF. Then, we decided to sell the house we raised the kids in and get a smaller house but one with a view. We succeeded with getting a view by finding an extraordinary lot on a river in the same town but the only drawback was the house on the lot was more than 50% larger than the house we were trying to downsize from. It has two wings. One was a four room in-law suite built by the parents when they moved for six months a year to FL and the other was the 5 BR 4 BR house that they raised their six kids in. The youngest kid raised her family there (at least for the last 10 years). Given all of our space, we made the in-law suite our master bedroom as it is right on the water and would afford one-floor living when we aged. When ShawD visited after we had purchased the house but before we actually closed, she said, “When BF and I have kids, we will move back to SF and live here” (in the main house) and you can help us take care of the kids when they are young and when you get older, I’ll take care of you." So, who knows if this will come to pass, but we never had to ask about our kids helping. Also, since ShawD is a nurse practitioner, her capacity to help aging parents is probably greater than most.
Who knows if that will happen, but I think that she would be geared to take care of us if she moved to us or if we moved to her. No weirdness in that discussion. It is really hard to do what is needed from a distance (both are mothers are a flight away).
Like a lot of you, we have done a lot for our kids. Fortunately, both kids recognize that we have done so. First is the money (school and grad schools paid and no debt for each kid). More important, we invested a massive amount of time and energy into figuring out how to educate ShawSon who is brilliant and severely dyslexic (and had some health issues) and then ShawD, who was diagnosed at age 9 with a rare genetic disease that would lead in a few years to functional blindness. In our son’s case, I read a lot of what was known at the time about dyslexia and how to work with it and negotiated with the school systems (public and private) and met with every teacher every semester (and sometimes in between) and dealt with special ed folks, principals, the Dep. Superintendent of schools etc. I heavily influenced the choice of his undergraduate school (a small LAC over a couple of Ivies) and really pushed him to the grad school he attended as I knew it would be the best for him (a month in, he said, “I now see why you wanted me to go here. I get it. Thanks. I’m really glad I’m here.”). I was one of the investors in his first startup in the fall of his senior year in college (which is still in business 7 years later but will never pay me back the modest sum I invested, but the startup helped get him into the best grad/business school combo in the world for what he wanted to do). With ShawD, we had three years of doing research on retinal disease (me), getting tests (ShawWife) and seeing doctors and pushing them beyond the “let’s wait and see” to figure out what was really wrong (both of us) and vision therapists (ShawWife). In the process, we were able to discover that the original diagnosis, though entirely understandable given the original data, was incorrect and were able to find someone who helped improve her vision to 20/20 distance.
I don’t think that ShawSon would be particularly helpful with respect to physical issues as we age. When he was around 9, I wanted to buy a house in the Canadian Rockies (which would have been a great investment) but ShawWife who handles the physical aspects of life including real estate in our relationship, really did not want to do it, so we didn’t. ShawSon saw that I was disappointed and came up to me and said, “Don’t worry Dad. When I get older, I will buy you your mountain house.” He has not done that, but in the past couple of years, ShawSon has volunteered that he would like to put money into the trust if he does well. As a co-founder of a venture-backed Silicon Valley startup, his net worth could rapidly exceed mine. He knows the money would in that case would benefit us if we needed it or his sister. Complicated issues with his actually putting money in the trust, but his heart is in the right place. He would generally be helpful with financial management (and money if it were needed). As I may have mentioned earlier in this thread, I suggested to him that, because it might be hard for him to put money into the trust, if he does well and we don’t need financial help, he might help ShawD a bit (help her buy a nicer house or education for her kids if that is not covered, etc.).
We feel very fortunate that we were able to help our kids when they needed it the most and that they are supportive of each other and want to reciprocate if they can. Our goal, like @cbreeze, which we have stated to the kids, is that we live in our new house until they wheel us out (assuming no bike ride over the cliff). We don’t expect to stop working as we love what we do and we are set up to have one floor living (except for my office, which is on the second floor).
Finally, @88jm19, we have planned our life on the assumption that there would be no inheritance. Assuming our financial plans work as planned and there is some inheritance (still likely but already a lot smaller than it could have been given my MIL"s strange financial decision-making), we would disclaim it so that it would go directly to our kids or to our trust.
