Parents resent our FIRE plan

I would bet that as their assets drop, they will change there spending trajectory. Also as previously noted, as they age they will likely slow down on the expensive travel. You need to live your life. Jmho
 
I think they were joking too. Maybe to caution you to work longer to live better? Everyone thinks that their method is the correct one.
 
Bestwifeever said:
Did you tell both sets of parents? Sounds like just one set?

I wouldn’t take your parents (or your inlaws?) comments too seriously—they probably just want you to not be including a potential inheritance in your decision and tried to be humorous about it. I bet they are just fine financially. “Spending our kids’ inheritance” is something we old invincible boomers like to laugh about.
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I hope you are right that they are just trying to be humorous about it, because by the time we reach 60 times of annual spending with our savings and retire early, our savings won't support one hundred and twenty thousands a year budget for decades.

Yes I'm talking about one set of our parents, although we did tell both sets of our parents of our plan. Our other parents live a simple life, spend as much as their pensions/rental income and have savings for emergency. They also do not have mortgage or any other debt. They plan to sell one of the properties to pay for elderly cares later on.

The point is, we are willing to help our parents in need, and it would be great if they don't try to make our plan harder.
 
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Parents that try to push their kids into producing grandkids get very little sympathy from me. If the OP feels the same I would hope they wouldn't be shy about letting their parents know it.
 
DINKFIRE said:
The point is, we are willing to help our parents in need, and it would be great if they don't try to make our plan harder.
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In your OP, you asked for suggestions. Suggestions for what? :confused: If this set of parents deliberately spends all their money on luxuries and leaves themselves with nothing for their elder years, do you still intend to step up to support them? You can't prevent them from continuing this lifestyle. But you do have the power to insulate yourself and your spouse from their bad decisions.

Suggestion: If they continue to ridicule you, cut out the weekly visits. Tell them you're not going to support them when they run out of money. End of story.
 
OP At some point it's none of their business. Many years ago DW and I moved half way across the country to get away from nonsense from both sets of parents.
 
DINKFIRE said:
However, they also told us they are spending at least ten thousand dollars monthly on average, and their financial adviser projected them to run out of money in 20 years.
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How long do they expect to live?

they suggest that if we can't afford to spend ten thousand dollars a month in retirement, we are not ready to retire.
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Obviously makes no sense. $10k/mo might or might not work for them. Their magic number has nothing to do with you.

My concern is that they would overspend their wealth and will have to count on us to support them later on, and we will have to go back to work when we are in our 60s to do that. It just doesn't seem fair that we would live a frugal lifestyle and have to pay for their exorbitant lifestyle.
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It wouldn't be fair.

Have you expressed this feeling to them?
 
DINKFIRE said:
One reason that make me concern the most is that their mother is still alive and well in her mid-90s, but they plan to run out of money years younger, even though they are very healthy and live an active lifestyle.
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Their mother? Are your parents brother and sister? Probably a good thing you skipped having kids.
 
DINKFIRE said:
Thank you for your responses so far. It seems easy to say that we are not responsible to support them later on, but it is much harder to do so, especially when have good relationship so far. I don't believe they deliberately trying to make us pay for their elder years, it's just that they are not happy we want to retire early, and not having grand children. It is hard to predict when life will throw a curve ball at you, so if they fall in hardship a decade down the road due to illness, even though they could have ride it out if they keep a healthy saving, we would not be in the right to not help them. To tell them that we won't support them financially will definitely damage our relationship.
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Of course you are right.

It's sad that they have this attitude. I would feel bad if I wasn't going to have any grandchildren, but I would hope that I wouldn't get angry and vent like they have.

Hopefully, some time will pass and cooler heads will prevail. Hopefully, you'll find a way to gently indicate that you are hoping they won't plan on financial support from you (even though as you say, we sometimes have to do what we'd rather not when it comes to family).

Good luck.
 
If they do outspend their money, and it seems like many parents do from watching Dave Ramsey, including ones that were once wealthy, they would still get Social Security and Medicare, Medicaid for long term care and if they really are out of money may qualify for other low income programs such as senior housing, food stamps, energy assistance, life line phone, etc. In our area the senior center provides free senior transportation, discounted public transportation, lunch (enough calories for two meals), and activities for seniors. Our area also has a matching program for senior roommates, so a senior could rent a room in another senior's house.

Worst case, they might eventually have to live like college students, but with Medicare / Social Security and other programs available and you may decide just to help out with large uncovered expenses like dental bills or hearing aids. It is not the life they are used to, but I wouldn't feel obligated to provide them with more than a college student equivalent lifestyle. One of our adult kids' friends who is still in college not only rents a room but shares a bedroom with a friend, eats vegan and uses public transportation. Even in a high cost of living area their annual expenses have to be pretty low.

I have a relative who is very bad with money. I also don't want to see this person homeless and I didn't want them living with us, so I have thought about this problem and what we would do for them. Plus we've supported kids in college and they seemed pretty happy on the college student lifestyle. It didn't cost us too much and that was without SS, Medicare or qualifying for any senior or low income programs, other than ACA for healthcare and financial aid for college.
 
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easysurfer said:
Seems like a very fair trade. Parents say to you "Don't expect any inheritance" and you say to parents "Don't expect any support when they get old and dependent". Life is about choices.
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I fail to see how anyone could object to this.
 
REWahoo said:
(My bold)

Odds are this is the root cause of their attitude toward your financial plans.
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After reading the thread, going with the above response. You can be cordial and have a great relationship, but would not support them if they are living LATM's lifestyle.

My parents gave my brother a 20k gift to assist in redoing a kitchen. As I am in charge of their finances, they asked me from a financial sense and of course it was fine. Not blowing their dough just to do it, plus brother and wife make a good living.
 
daylatedollarshort said:
If they do outspend their money, and it seems like many parents do from watching Dave Ramsey
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Don't draw those kinds of conclusions by watching Dave Ramsey's self-selected callers. In fact, don't watch Dave Ramsey at all.
 
Well, that's a pickle. They still have their social security I suppose. So when money runs out, they won't be doing Europe and Cruise travels. So no worries .. they will still have food on the table. Anyway, at 80 yrs old, they won't be traveling often I suppose
 
I, too, believe the root of their behavior stems from you not having children. They will most likely reduce their traveling and spending as they enter the slow go and no go years.

Since you state you’re very close my suggestion would be to have a sit down chat and discuss your concerns. Make sure they have LTC if they feel they’ll run out of money. Let them know you and your wife will be able to retire early because of your frugal lifestyle, but will not have extra money to support them if they run out. It is much easier said than done, but just as parents have had to close the purse strings on kids that keep needing financial support, you’ll be having to do the same with helping them out financially.

My other suggestion, since in your heart you know you won’t turn your back on them is to put some money aside for them for later years “just in case”. Yes, it might mean working an extra 6 months or year, but it’ll give you peace of mind.

Personally, I hope if you all sit down to discuss this that they realize how very selfish they’re being in this regard
 
joeea said:
How long do they expect to live?


Obviously makes no sense. $10k/mo might or might not work for them. Their magic number has nothing to do with you.


It wouldn't be fair.

Have you expressed this feeling to them?
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I agree that $10K/mo doesn't make sense, especially we live in a city with median household income of less that $80K per year and COL index just slightly over national average.
 
Their plan actually sounds pretty good to me (not that I would do it myself).

Once they need to be in a nursing home, they have to be flat-broke to get Medicaid to pay for it. If they are sitting on a pile of cash, it will all go to the nursing home otherwise. As long as they aren't expecting to be put up at a "nice" nursing home, what is the problem?
 
If your parents want to live that lifestyle, and as it appears, rubbing it in your nose, why should your decisions matter? Sound like you're doing the right things, except being too concerned about their future. Honor them, but don't make up for their mistakes or choices.
 
Carol1862 said:
I, too, believe the root of their behavior stems from you not having children. They will most likely reduce their traveling and spending as they enter the slow go and no go years.

Since you state you’re very close my suggestion would be to have a sit down chat and discuss your concerns. Make sure they have LTC if they feel they’ll run out of money. Let them know you and your wife will be able to retire early because of your frugal lifestyle, but will not have extra money to support them if they run out. It is much easier said than done, but just as parents have had to close the purse strings on kids that keep needing financial support, you’ll be having to do the same with helping them out financially.

My other suggestion, since in your heart you know you won’t turn your back on them is to put some money aside for them for later years “just in case”. Yes, it might mean working an extra 6 months or year, but it’ll give you peace of mind.

Personally, I hope if you all sit down to discuss this that they realize how very selfish they’re being in this regard
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I think the most difficult part of having a sit-down discussion is that they believe they are totally capable of timing their spending accurately, because they are both highly educated, and the stock market and real-estate market have been doing great so far, and their financial adviser told them so. However, since I'm myself a finance professional, I have tried to gauge how qualified their FA was a few years back. The answer I got was the FA invite them to personal meetings a couple times a year and buy them dinners. On the other hand, they had to put major expenses (tens of thousands) on credit card and carry the balance for several months. To me things like this should not happen with a good FA, but maybe they just did not listen to their FA. They also believe their FA can time the market and beat the market return by trading their investments.
 
DINKFIRE said:
I think the most difficult part of having a sit-down discussion is that they believe they are totally capable of timing their spending accurately, because they are both highly educated, and the stock market and real-estate market have been doing great so far, and their financial adviser told them so. However, since I'm myself a finance professional, I have tried to gauge how qualified their FA was a few years back. The answer I got was the FA invite them to personal meetings a couple times a year and buy them dinners. On the other hand, they had to put major expenses (tens of thousands) on credit card and carry the balance for several months. To me things like this should not happen with a good FA, but maybe they just did not listen to their FA. They also believe their FA can time the market and beat the market return by trading their investments.
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So has their FA beat the market over a long period of time? We know how these stories usually end.
 
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