<p>Word to the wise: When you die, divide the money equally, regardless of need.</p>
<p>nervedoctor,</p>
<p>I am not sure about that. If there are any leftovers, my wife and I will consider each kid’s ability and their family conditions. Whoever visits us or invites us to visit the most will get some bonuses. ;)</p>
<p>In Chinese culture the boy gets everything so I won’t assume a single cent. The girl is then expected to get married and share a different family’s fortune. Unfortunately I won’t be marrying a Chinese boy so I’m in the dumps.</p>
<p>Yeah, traditional Chinese culture always gave everything to the males (or the lion’s share). The boys were supposed to take care of the girls–often they didn’t.</p>
<p>Nowadays, I think many try to give roughly equal shares to avoid hard feelings among the survivors. I know my SIL tried to be as fair and equal with her brothers as possible.</p>
<p>Even better, spend it all before you die.</p>
<p>Otherwise you can give it to charity! Actually, one of our friends had family spend much of it creating lovely family vacations and memories before MIL’s Alzheimer’s got too bad. It made the grand kids rather close. </p>
<p>We plan to travel–hopefully partly with our kids and try to help them buy places to live in. That should take most of the $.</p>
<p>I think nerve doctor is right, divide equally. In too many families there is one ‘slacker’ for any number of reasons, from mental to physical to emotional there seems to be one kid who never quite gets on their feet. I know families where Mom & Dad bought one kid a house & paid to remodel it, others where the kids watched Mom send a check to the oldest every month for years. Why should that kid, who was never made to grow up, also receive and squander a larger portion of anything remaining.</p>
<p>I can see the point of Susie the teacher versus Mary the doctor where Susie says, “I will never make as much as Mary,” but you know, Susie probably had a choice and Mary worked pretty hard to get her career and probably has a ton of loans. Give them equal portions, unless it is a developmentally delayed child where the money is being left as a care taking trust.</p>
<p>It’s sad to see or hear about families embittered by money differences. Originally, my folks planned to leave the house to the one person in the family who hadn’t purchased one. She married a guy and now they live in his house. Now dad is making noise saying he will leave us all equal shares. We keep encouraging him and mom to enjoy it and spend on themselves. Honestly, whatever he gives us we hope to put into a trust for any grand kids, their educations are likely to be very costly!</p>
<p>The other thought is to create a trust fund. I always said that if I won the lottery I wouldn’t divide up the money. Instead I would create funds for different purposes. Education funds and medical funds would be my top priorities. In this scenario I have a crapload of money though so it’s not applicable to a limited amount of money. What I might do is create a third party of “board members” to decide the amount of money each child gets towards ______________________. That’s how it works in real life anyway.</p>
<p>Word to the wise: When you die, divide the money equally, regardless of need.</p>
<p>That can be a wise decision…or not. If one child has an expensive health issue and the other is financially sound, I probably would not split evenly. However, I probably would discuss my decision with the healthy child.</p>
<p>I have a sibling who has a very serious health issue…ever since she was a young child. If my parents had decided to “give her more,” my other sibs and I would have happily agreed.</p>
<p>However, to split hairs and try to give more to Child A simply because that family’s income is somewhat smaller than Child B’s family income can be unwise. Child B’s family may experience a “setback” at some point. When family incomes don’t differ by that much, trying to make things even is unwise. Besides, who knows what a modest income family may inherit from the spouse’s side. I hava a sib who inherited $2M from inlaws…that was their share from an equal sib split. We had no idea that the inlaws had that kind of money, because only the dad worked and he was a military officer. But the MIL had inherited the big bucks where HER parents passed. </p>
<p>However, if Child B has millions safely invested, while Child A works hard as a teacher, then maybe a 25/75 split would be wise. But, again, discuss with Child B first, so it’s not a shock or seen as an insult.</p>
<p>
I think fair= equal, also. While we would all like to think that there would be no hard feelings, how could there not be when differing amounts are left to sibs? If parents intend do this, at least let their children know upfront, so the ones who will get more have to do more for the parents. And the unfavored children will not have to waste their time and money.</p>
<p>My parents handled this by telling us that they would pay for whatever it cost to go to our state university and we’d make up the difference, UNLESS if we went to a top school. So my sister went to St. Thomas, which was 40,000 a year, and they paid for 12,000 of it (the price of tuition at the University of Minnesota) each year. She had to make up the difference. They are planning on doing the same for each of us children, unless if one of us gets into Harvard or Yale or something. In that case, all they’ve said is “we’d make sure that you were able to go.” You could do something similar for your children, and just explain that since child number 1 got into a premier program, you’re just “making sure” that he could attend it. If child 2 did the same thing, she’d get an equal amount of money.</p>
<p>^^^^Yeahmkay, the funny thing is the cost to go to Harvard might be the same cost as the State School (it was for my nephew who came from a middle class household). </p>
<p>I am thinking about what is fair right now myself…we originally told our kids we would pay $10,000 for their education and they would have to pick a school that offered scholarships or pick up the difference. S1 was a NMF, chose a school that offered almost full tuition, and we have found that our contribution basically takes care of the rest. S2 was a NMF, didn’t get into MIT (which was a relief to us financially/sad for him) and chose an excellent school which covers most of the costs (we are paying food, books and travel expenses.) Both of them will get out of school debt-free. S3 is a high school junior, is as smart as his brothers, but is not a NMSF. We are beginning to look at schools for him, but are not sure of scholarships and believe he will probably pay full price. This is anywhere from $15,000-$40,000 a year, although I am smart enough now to have him look at schools where the net cost (after those automatic scholarships) will be less than $25,000. Even if we increase our amount to $12,000 (for inflation), S3 will get out of college owing anywhere from $12,000 to $52,000. Is it fair that S1 and S2 will be debt free and S3 will not? Should I find a second job so we can pay more for him than the others so he’s debt free, or at least doesn’t owe as much? Would his brothers be upset if we help S3 more? Not sure what to do but it doesn’t seem right IF we can help S3 a little more not to do it. (Of course, S3 knows our $10,000 rule and will chose a college with that in mind at this point.)</p>
<p>OR OR OR… Have one kid ^_^</p>
<p>^^^
That’s insensitive.</p>
<p>We never had any hard and fast rules, and in retrospect are lucky things worked out as well as they did. S was a NMF and got good merit at a U he was satisfied with (his “good” safety). D went to her dream U (same school), but was full pay. We were fortunately able to pay for both of them and have no regrets letting both graduate debt free, even though our share was MUCH more for D. </p>
<p>Happily S has a good job and seems pretty pleased at how things are going for him. We hope D will be able to get a job, but are crossing our fingers as her field is a lot more “creative,” and we don’t understand the career path of it.</p>
<p>Have the siblings previously had a competitive relationship? Is this just a continuation of younger child feeling she’s on the short end of the stick?</p>