My mom and changing her will; has anyone gone through that everything is a secret?
I don’t know if I talked about my mom and changing her will after everything that has happened with my brother pretty much writing her out of his life. I just keep praying that he is happy and maybe some day he will change his heart. Anyway, I took her to her lawyer so she could do a living will and that way I know what she wants. Of course I was in the lobby and I got a phone call from the assisted living where my FIL is. He wanted to walk to the bank. I didn’t recognize the number so I didn’t pick it up. So the message was they said no but maybe i can talk to him. I called my husband to deal with it but he was on a big call. So I called and now she offered to take him to the bank. Back to the will. My mom got in the car and she said I hope I did right. Then she said that I will be happy and surprised. Then she was talking about how the granddaughters who haven’t spoken to her in two years will end up with it all in the end. But remember I will be pleasantly surprised. It’s hers and she can do whatever she wants. I just asked her if it’s going to cause more problems. It shouldn’t. It’s almost like she wants to show them how much she loved them and they didn’t care about her. Okay my question is has anyone gone through that everything is a secret. I just go back to when I found a mess with her bills. So what else are we going to be surprised about. All my life everything was a secret. Why can’t we just talk about it so we are prepared. Has anyone gone through this. Thank you all. I am so grateful for this forum. Plus now she wants to prepay her funeral. If that’s what she wants no problem but she really has other things that will be coming up. Have any of you gone through prepaying the funeral.
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As for the funeral preplanning, this is my experience: my mom and dad paid for years for their final “preparations”. They bought plots from an aunt who moved out of town. I remember when Dad died in 1995, my husband paid for Dad’s burial and he got a free marker b/c he was a vet. Was about $2,000. WELL...when my mom passed, she had continued to pay on this plan that they set up through cemetery. Decades at about $36 per month. She passed in 2016 and I swear, I have no idea what she paid for. I multiplied what she paid by the years she paid it. She paid over $10,000. When I went to make her arrangements, I found out it would still cost us $7,000. She had no funeral, no service and not even a casket. She was cremated and buried. The cemetery fee was $3,000 and the marker was $5,000. I will never convince myself that we didn’t get royally ripped off. Were it up to me, I would set up a trust through her bank to be used only for her final expenses and only that.
If money was involved, yep it was a secret.
but, her will was no secret to me. Only thing that wasn't.
It wasn't until my Mom passed, and Dad didn't want to bother with bill payment duties, I found out the extent of the financial situation. I had to grit my teeth to keep from screaming because all the frustration helping out my parents with running here, running there, grocery shopping... car needed inspection... Mom wanted to try a 3rd hearing aid place... Target had a sale on jelly... pick up pills from the pharmacy... run to the post office box to bring to their house junk mail, etc. for over 6 years, all while I was working full-time. My gosh, they could have hired a "driver" to be on call along with matching 401(k) contributions without making me a nervous wreck driving. Where was my helmet, I needed to bang my head against the wall :P
Staffbull, even if your Mom left Fort Knox in the Will to the grand-daughters, there may not be much money left over as Mom ages and needs to pay for more help, or even Assisted Living, etc. There will be major sticker shock.
A will is private. Its Moms money. I think she has to honor Dads will but what she was left is hers.
Freqflyer is right in that Mom may need care later and her money will need to be used.
Mother held that stupid "will" over our heads our whole lives. Cutting people out, favoring one kid over the other...ugh.
I actually have a "debt:" owed to the trust. $1500. What for? Don't know. It's a posthumous "FU" says my son (who's an attorney). It HURT to read that. SO bad.
My brother who is the executor finally sat me down and told me the exact amount of money I should inherit. $9,875.
Good night nurse! I can't buy a crappy used car for that! Mother still acts likes it's some secret, but we all know.
Sis who "borrowed" $70K and didn't pay it back will inherit the same amount.
Wills are just what they are---a "gift" of sorts. IMHO, don't expect to inherit anything and you won't be disappointed.
Kind of similar situation here with my SIL and borrowed money that will never be paid back. My MIL took out a home equity loan and let my SIL, fresh out of college with an entry level job, borrow $95,000 to put down on a house. (Because she didn’t save a down payment. As soon as she got her first post-college job she decided she needed to buy a house). MIL saw it as an investment so she gladly took out a huge hone equity loan and the money was supposed to be paid back after the house was sold years later (it was a small starter home not a dream home). Well housing prices sky rocketed not long after that and then crashed down and I know the house was refinanced to pay off SILs student loans somewhere along the line. It’s been rented out for over 12 years now because there hasn’t been enough equity to reimburse MIL & put some money in SILs pocket. Anyway.....MIL passed last June so her “investment” is now lost, SIL will get to keep all the money when she finally sells that house PLUS she gets 1/5 of the money when MILs house is sold and the proceeds distributed amongst the 5 kids. She got an equal share of all of MILs assets (cash in the bank and retirement.) The only thing about the whole situation that bothers me is that I know that if the tables were turned and it was my husband who had borrowed the money, she would have never let it go and she would have written him out of the trust since it wouldn’t be fair for him to get the money she put into his house AND a share of her house. She would never ever do that my SIL because she was the favorite. And she would never do it to my BIL because he is the irresponsible one who needs her help. My husband was always the responsible one which put him at an advantage in her eyes, if he had nicer things and could afford to do things because he was financially responsible then it wasn’t fair that his siblings couldn’t afford to travel or have nice things too. I know i probably shouldn’t think like that but it’s hard not too after years and years of this.
hgn
several grifters in the will whose company she enjoyed because they endlessly flattered her. Ugh. Who cares? My father has same tendency, but not to same degree, mainly with cultivating relationships with grifter types. I've had to deal with hostile grifter types most of my adult life. People who wanted to be "adopted" by my parents to get in their will. People who had criminal records and were actively engaged in a bunch of
shady stuff.
At the end of the day, because both of my parents were narcissistic and so
obsessed with their own egos and personal comfort, their finances weren't
so great. Good but not enough to throw around. There'll be enough for my
father's care, doubt there will little if any left as inheritance. My main concern at this point, after years of intensive care and exhaustion is not to
drain my own health or finances any further.
Dangling money over the heads of your children to get them to jump at your
beck and call is no way to go about things. But seems to be a tactic some
parents like to resort to. How depressing.
My DH feels I should take my $9875 and give it to the brother who took mother and daddy in. I feel I have done sufficient CG to take this and walk away. It's not DH's decision and although he said he would be "disappointed in me" for keeping money that he feels should go to brother, he hasn't even SEEN my mother for well over a year. He has not had to deal with ultra-controlling brother who gets angry and literally screams at me when I overstep (in his mind) mother's care. She has begged me to take her into my home and that will never happen...she's that unhappy in his home.
IF I actually inherit this, I am taking my little family on a vacation. That amount won't even pay for the tickets to Disneyland and the hotels! It won't make on iota of difference in my life.
My FIL, on the other hand--we were so worried when he passed that we were going to be able to afford the burial and such--turns out he had been squirreling away money like a miser--and DH came home from the attorney's with this look on his face and told me the 3 kids would each inherit over $250K. Nobody had any idea.
What a blessing that money was! A year later my DH had to have a liver transplant and it was not "in plan" so we were out over $250K out of pocket---w/o that inheritance, we would have lost everything to medical bills.
Our kids know the contents of our will. It's there for US, not them. We don't know what the future holds and none of them are holding their breaths for grand inheritances. In fact, all 5 are far better off than we are--3 are millionaires, what do they need with OUR money?