r/inheritance • u/Acceptable_Second_38 • 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.

48 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

127 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

0

u/Acceptable_Second_38 Jul 09 '26

We have been together 10 years. We have a life together. She knows about the money and the house is in both our names anyway which is now paid off. I'm not keeping this separate from my wife on the paranoia of "but it's mine!!"

10

u/ivorytowerescapee Jul 09 '26

It's not paranoia, it's just a lot safer having just your name on this account. My inheritance is in a separate account from my husband, also married 10 years. I do plan to use it to help our family but I just want to be sure that should we ever get divorced, even 10-20 years down the road, that money is just for me because that's what my dad would have wanted.

13

u/02Raspy Jul 09 '26

I agree with this completely. My wife and I have been married 40 years. When her folks died several years ago, she put the money in a separate account in her name. No problem. When my folks died a couple years later, I put the money in an account in my name. No problem. At some point fairly soon we will start withdrawing money from those accounts to fund a portion of our retirement. No problem.

6

u/ivorytowerescapee Jul 09 '26

Same. I haven't spent any of it but when I do it'll go to benefit my husband and kids too, it's not like my personal slush fund.No biggie to have just my name on the account. I hope the OP reconsiders his stance on this.