Take It or Leave It...or Spend It

That's My Laundry, Not Money

I will not pretend to be surprised. I could have predicted the same thing without surveying the 457 people nationwide. What else would one expect from Baby Boomers with money?
U.S. Trust, a unit of the Bank of America, recently completed a survey of those 457 people all of whom had at least $3 million in assets. Without much hesitation, many of those polled indicated that they would not feel it necessary to leave any money to their heirs...in fact, 49% of them noted that leaving money was not at all important; instead of leaving it to their children, many of them expect to spend their money on travel and focusing on personal relationships (not sure what that means). None of them listed backing a U-Haul trailer up to the cemetery plot and dumping their wealth in with them, but I figure spending it might be the next thing to that. The survey DID provide some interesting facts about those surveyed and their reasons for hesitating to leaving it to heirs:

1. Most of the respondents were "self-made," and didn't trust that their heirs could "handle" the money.
2. Forty-five percent doubted the maturity of their children, even when were 35 years old.
3.Twenty-four percent figured that if they left money to the kids, they'd "just get lazy."
4. Another 20% decided that leaving money would lead to "making poor decisions" (like focusing on personal relationships?)
5. A final 20% just knew that their progeny would "squander" the money that the parents had worked so hard to make.

It all sounds about right to me. If I had assets of $3 million, it probably would mean that I had a nanny raise my kids...and I might not know them well enough to trust their judgment. In addition, I probably would have allowed them to live a sheltered life, surrounded by others in our economic circle...perhaps they WOULD expect to have it all without working, and they probably would NOT know how the majority of people live by attending private schools and Ivy League colleges.
All of this is conjecture, of course. As far as I know, nobody in my realm is worth anything close to $3 million dollars, even if they ARE in unions! Thus, my kids are relatively safe from being unable to handle anything that I might leave behind.
I wouldn't think of bringing a U-Haul to the cemetery just to load my grave with books and laundry.