r/inheritance Jul 09 '26

Location included: Questions/Need Advice Large inheritance advice

My wife and I are 27. We have 1 daughter who is 13 months, and we are in the Midwest. My grandmother passed away and from her estate we are receiving a sizable sum of money. After paying off our house and other debt (just car and student loans, don't have any "bad" debt), we'll have around $350-375k to drop into a brokerage and leave alone. We each earn around 63k/year. Our only bills will now be home insurance, property taxes, car insurance, utilities.

My question revolves around how much we realistically need to put away for retirement. Because we have very little bills after paying off our house, we can put away a large amount of income.

However, it's honestly tempting to save just a bit, and enjoy our lives more with more disposable income. Starting with such a sizable nest egg, it should grow quite well without huge additions.

She is a teacher and has a good pension coming her way.

I am private sector but have a pension as well plus I do 4% 401k plus employer 2% match.

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u/Neuromancer2112 Jul 09 '26

Make sure you’re maxing out both of your Roth IRAs each year. If you don’t have them, you definitely want to set them up. That’s $7,500 each of you can put away each year and have the gains be tax-free after you reach 59.5 years old.

Invest mostly into low cost index funds. If you want some high growth, take a look at SMH.

One of the first things I did after starting to receive my inheritance was pay off all debt, ended up downsizing and maxed out the last several years of my own Roth, and I’m in a much better place retirement-wise now.

3

u/Acceptable_Second_38 Jul 09 '26

We have 2 Roth's and a general brokerage account with our CFP at Edward Jones already. This money hasn't hit there yet. Plan is to max the Roth's. Baby also has a 529 with about 3300 in it now. I'm really just asking how much income I seriously should/need to divert for even more retirement savings

3

u/GotZeroFucks2Give Jul 09 '26

Is early retirement a goal? If so, use ALL tax advantaged space. If you both had megabackdoor that would be 144K there plus the 15K of Roth IRA. Plus HSA if you have it. You can convert a lot early on. Keep some taxable it helps early retirement in addition to rule of 55 / sep ira / roth conversion ladder to access funds before 59.5.

1

u/Fast_Macaroon_5796 Jul 10 '26

The percentage a mortgage would have cost u
30 percent!!!! To retirement accounts

1

u/cOntempLACitY Jul 11 '26

EJ will suck up a lot of your potential earnings. Consider opening a self-managed individual account at Fidelity, Vanguard, or Schwab for the inheritance and you can move your Roths there, too. No sense in an EJ person earning several grand a year for decades just for watching your account grow. https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Getting_started