I have commingled my two inheritances so far in our marriage and I will also commingle the next one that is likely coming soonish. I highly value my husband’s opinion on what to do with the real property I’m likely to inherit and in fact have been asking him to give me ideas about how to handle it for awhile. We have been joint everything since we got engaged, and it works for us. My husband has also done the vast majority of the financial contributions throughout our marriage (I was out of the workforce for a long time and his career took off) so it feels more than fair to me to add what I’ve received directly to the pot rather than holding some back. If we had a different relationship or numbers were different, I might do things differently.
Post by mysteriouswife on Aug 22, 2024 17:49:31 GMT -5
I will receive a trust that is only mine. The kids are getting a house. I wish it were reversed since both are currently minors. H get nothing. He is aware and told me to leave it in the trust for my retirement. He knows since I stayed home for a majority of our relationship I have no true retirement.
I was given $X,000 earlier this year from my uncle’s settlement. I bought furniture and a whole new wardrobe. H helped pick the furniture.
He will not get an inheritance unless we aren’t aware of one.
Unless the person who passed specified their wishes (like to be used to buy a house), it would just become family money with joint decisions made to how it is spent.
We would sit down and discuss and make a joint decision. I do think whoever received the inheritance would be the one starting with their plan for what to do with it, then we’d compromise. I think we’d probably want to fully fund kids’ college funds first before doing other stuff.
For background - We don’t commingle our finances completely. We have some shared accounts and a family trust that holds our house and is the beneficiary of life insurance, but we have separate credit cards and checking and savings accounts (as well as shared savings accounts for various purposes). We both work in the investment industry, married 15 years, 4 kids.
Post by cricketwife on Aug 22, 2024 18:18:15 GMT -5
H received a large inheritance (by our standards. IDK for this board) and used for joint financial goals. Honestly, I would have spent it slightly differently but either way, I would have spent it to ensure a more secure financial future, which was also what he did. (Sort of like I would have picked investment X but he picked investment y) but both investment are joint between us. ETA: we discussed it jointly but since it was his inheritance I deferred to his preferred plan.
I may receive an inheritance. It really depends on how long my mom lives and if there’s money left. If I do, I already have ideas for the first $20k (if there is that much) — furniture and a family vacation. So I would decide what to spend it on but it would be joint. Anything beyond that we would probably stick into retirement or the kid’s education.
In our marriage, we would share it. But I am sure, that both of us would defer to the other after discussing. Like if the one inherited reallyw wanted a new car or a trip and the save, do that. I think it also depends, I can see a newer relationship keeping it seperate - especially if there were adult children/special needs to consider.
Post by wanderingback on Aug 22, 2024 18:30:45 GMT -5
My partner and I aren’t legally married but share everything including a house and a toddler lol.
My partner’s mom died and I guess since it wasn’t a significant amount it has never really come up. The money is also in another country (so he just uses it when he visits) and him and his siblings also share the house she left and haven’t decided if they are going to keep it or sell it and split the sale. I don’t feel like I need to have a say in what happens to either the money or house. (I don’t know how much money or what money would come from the house but his mom wasn’t rich).
Now if it were millions of dollars then that would be another story and I’m sure we would use it towards our combined household needs and goals.
I did, and treated it like any other money we’ve come into as a married couple. My in laws are a financial hot mess so my husband isn’t going to get anything but a headache when they pass away. We used some of it for home renovations, and family trips, and put the rest away. Whatever we don’t use for our kids’ college expenses will be used for our retirement. I’m very happily married, we are set to celebrate our 20 year anniversary this year, and we have similar financial mindsets. I couldn’t imagine getting that money and not “sharing” it with him. He also helped me care for them both for a significant amount of time before they each passed. I’m an only child and couldn’t do it without him.
Post by lilypad1126 on Aug 22, 2024 18:59:38 GMT -5
I received some money from my grandparents when they died, and it’s in an investment account in my name only. However, I will be using some of it when we eventually move to be closer to my parents towards housing costs. But otherwise, it’s just mine. Same as the money my parents will maybe be leaving meh assuming they don’t use it all up as they age). That’s not to say I won’t use it for joint purposes, bc I will. But it will stay in my own name and not be commingled. And my husband is ok with that. We mostly have separate finances anyway, so this is on par for how we handle finances.
Post by wanderlustmom on Aug 22, 2024 19:10:29 GMT -5
no inheritances so far but we would consider it family money. my dad is the only one of our parents who will leave money to us and he (so far) is super healthy at 80.
I think there’s a lot of variables: the relationship, the amount, financial status and I know I’d feel some type of way about trying to do something that my relative would have wanted.
If it was in the $10k neighborhood, I think I’d feel like I should be able to do whatever I want with it but I’d probably do something for both of our benefit.
More significant amounts, I expect H would want some say. I think each of us would probably give the person inheriting final say.
We have combined finances so it would just go into our general family money, however neither of our parents have any money so we won’t have to worry about it.
My H is a spender. He’s benefited from an inheritance that I received but he doesn’t have access to the money nor does he get any say in how it’s spent and/or invested. H is unlikely to get much of an inheritance himself as his mom will likely need any money she has. I don’t think there is any right or wrong answer as there are so many things that need to be considered.
Similar situation for me. When my husband got his inheritance, he spent it all on stuff he wanted. When my father recently died, I put my inheritance in an account in my name only. He has certainly benefitted from it as well, but no say in it because he is also a spender. That's my nice senior living home money.
So my inheritance will be at least seven figures just in property. Not including cash, which will probably be another large sum.
DH already knows I’m not mixing anything, but have no problem using it for family finances. So we’ll pay off the house, etc.
DH will be lucky if either parents has enough to cover the cost of their deaths. Maybe FIL’s estate will have something left over, but we joke we’re going to have to pay someone to take his house. It’s a mess.
I inherited money before I met H. I put some toward our house DP & some toward our kids' college. The remainder is in my name still, but will be used for our retirement.
I have felt a lot more comfortable keeping it in my name. Not sure how I would feel about money I theoretically inherited now. Probably would depend on how my marriage is.
It really depends on the amount and situation for us.
I have received one small-ish inheritance ($25k after everything was said and done, it was messy and contested with a church, very long story, and split amongst many great nieces/nephews). It was during a recession, DH had just bought out several partners in his still-new business, and we chose to live off the inheritance for a few months and defer his salary to help with temporary cash flow without dipping into savings. I'm a SAHM, DH is and has been the breadwinner for a long time, so this seemed very fair to me.
PDQ I will receive a much larger inheritance in the future through my mom, which came to her through her parents. Both my grandmother and my mother would come back from the dead to haunt me all the days of my life if I do not keep it separate from my husband. The expectation is that we (my sisters and I, we will each inherit 1/3) can use the dividends to provide for our families but that the money in the trust will be passed down to our kids. I'm not sure what I'll do if/when we need to cross this bridge since I am on board with the intention but also wouldn't want to leave my husband in a precarious financial position when we are older. That may be a nonissue since we plan our financial future as if we are fully dependent on DH's earnings. But, generally, the expectation is that I would manage it myself; my sisters and I take turns going with my mom to her quarterly meetings with her banker.
My mother kept two of her inheritances separate from both husbands and I think that is often a good decision. I'm not sure how her trust is set up - I would abide by any of her wishes.
H expects to inherit from his parents and godmother/spouse who are childless. While we have never discussed it, I would expect it will be shared assets.
I inherited a significant sum early in our marriage. We chose to invest it and put the interest earned towards our annual living expenses to help offset the money we “lost” by me staying home when our kids were born. So we benefit as a family but if we divorce, I keep the principal.
We each stand to inherit around half a million from our surviving parents. We’ve agree to use some as “fun money” and then each get to decide how the rest our our inheritance is invested.
I got a small one. I paid off my student loan and paid for our Covid era nanny. We did a few more things. It went into our joint account, we decided together but since the person was education minded we tried to keep it to education based expenses. The Covid era nanny did the elearning.
The expectation for me or my spouse would be to not co-mingle the funds but also use it for long-term retirement, savings, or other investment vehicle including home improvements - as a benefit for both of us or the whole family. The ripple effect would mean that we would have a lot more room in our budget to spend more freely or just more or upgrade (ex trips). We’d probably just have more money in savings. If it was a crazy amount then we’d probably need a while to figure out what to do with it. It would be nice to be fancy donors or a little more fancy in general. Or just really generous.
It would be joint decisions/conversations. It wouldn’t matter if our “share” was uneven from someone else for some reasons.
Coming back because despite me saying our money is joint, in thinking back I guess my FIL money was in an estate that only my H had access to. But majority of it was used as a down payment to our house. I think the small remainder has been invested (in a joint account).
I think it's also dependent on what a "large sum" is. Like 100k I'm more joint money, if someone got 10 million I'd still say go towards joint lifestyle upgrades/fun, but keep it protected.
Coming back because despite me saying our money is joint, in thinking back I guess my FIL money was in an estate that only my H had access to. But majority of it was used as a down payment to our house. I think the small remainder has been invested (in a joint account).
I think it's also dependent on what a "large sum" is. Like 100k I'm more joint money, if someone got 10 million I'd still say go towards joint lifestyle upgrades/fun, but keep it protected.
Yeah I do have a hard time understand what "keeping it separate" means in a practical sense for a large sum.
Like if you got $10 million does that mean you’re going on a fancy vacation every year without your spouse? When it comes to retirement you’re going to the ritz Carlton of nursing homes but the partner is stuck at the holiday inn nursing home?
I know plenty of people have separate finances so like on vacation they split the costs but how does that work if someone has a large inheritance that they keep separate and don’t want to include the other person.
Coming back because despite me saying our money is joint, in thinking back I guess my FIL money was in an estate that only my H had access to. But majority of it was used as a down payment to our house. I think the small remainder has been invested (in a joint account).
I think it's also dependent on what a "large sum" is. Like 100k I'm more joint money, if someone got 10 million I'd still say go towards joint lifestyle upgrades/fun, but keep it protected.
Yeah I do have a hard time understand what "keeping it separate" means in a practical sense for a large sum.
Like if you got $10 million does that mean you’re going on a fancy vacation every year without your spouse? When it comes to retirement you’re going to the ritz Carlton of nursing homes but the partner is stuck at the holiday inn nursing home?
I know plenty of people have separate finances so like on vacation they split the costs but how does that work if someone has a large inheritance that they keep separate and don’t want to include the other person.
Rich people problems
Yea I’m here. Also isn’t getting an inheritance just a lot of luck? Like luck as to who your parents are and how well they managed their financial situations?
Idk. I mean I can’t imagine our marriage would survive if my H inherited a large amount of money and told me it was his and his alone. I would expect that we would discuss the use of it the same way we discuss all other major financial decisions - i.e. I wouldn’t run out and buy a beach house solo or something and would expect the same from him.
Inheritance is separate money under CA communal property law. So that factors into how I'd see things. I have received an inheritance once (from my grandmother who died a month before my dad so it settled after he died, everything from dad went to my mom).
At $10K it was both a lot of money and not (IYKWIM). I put it directly into my separate account that we had almost drained when we first married to create our joint accounts. In retrospect, I shouldn't have done that since DH had some separate accounts that have stayed separate despite our agreement to pool everything except our separate debts (student loans - which were significant at the time but are paid off now).
I think I told DH what I was doing at the time, but it may have been after the fact.
DH stands to inherit a substantial amount (half of a suburban house from his mom, and half of a suburban duplex from his aunt, assuming they haven't sold/spent all their assets but both have pensions that cover their bills right now).
Theoretically, I might inherit half a suburban home from my mom, but I hope not. Her pension ended last year and I hope she will be living on that asset for a long time.
I expect DH will put some of his inheritances towards family goals - paying down our mortgage or the kid's college costs. However, I could see him deciding to keep some separate and invest it. If I do inherit anything, I will keep some/all as separate money. ETA: If I inherited more than 40Kish, I'd probably start using some to pay for things we want rather than squirreling it away as a "things get fucked/death/earthquake hits/emergency" fund).
I'm the opposite of minzy , lol. He will continue to have an income if I get hit by a bus tomorrow but I will need to restart.
This actually happened to us a couple years ago. I wasn't expecting it to be commingled due to state law (CA) and the fact that we always maintained separate accounts anyway.
How it's actually played out is that H keeps some of it invested/saved in his personal accounts, some of it is used for the benefit of our entire household, and he updated his trust to account for this change in finances. I wasn't involved in his selection of investments other than to ask that he put aside some of it in something more conservative & stable just in case the market goes to hell.
I don't have any complaints. Even though we have separate finances, we also always have had joint goals and transparency about money. We have never divided costs per se; we each were responsible for certain bills or expenses. I used to pay out more, but my salary was much higher than his. Now things are pretty much the same re: bills, except he pays for more things since he's bringing in more. And I can save more myself.