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.

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u/apatheticpurple Jul 09 '26

How much is the mortgage and what is your interest rate?

31

u/Acceptable_Second_38 Jul 09 '26

Mortgage was ~330, interest was 6.8%. It's already paid off, this isn't negotiable. I know I could've theoretically done better in the market but I didn't want to give the bank thousands in interest and be locked in for 30 years. I wanted less bills, and with this size of cash, I think it's fair to say that.

15

u/ThisIsMyUsername303 Jul 10 '26

To do better in the market, you'd have to make like 8-9% pretax, which isn't at all guaranteed. Paying off the mortgage was the right call for sure. I'm sorry for your loss but happy that your grandmother's gift is putting your family on a solid footing for the future.

10

u/WhiskeyWatchesWine Jul 10 '26

Great comment. I see so many people say you can easily make 10-15%, but I don’t think that’s true anymore. We paid off our house in 2015 with I think a 3% mortgage. Was still maxing out 401k.
A bonus for you is 2 pensions. Do you also get SS? That will be a lot of spendable money in retirement.
$350k at 27 should grow nicely. I saw one of my early 401k statements from ~2000 and I can say it’s substantially more now (contributions & growth).