Life changing money - how much would it take?

[china mom]

Two separate topics crossed through my brain at the same time and the collision resulted in this question:

How much money falling into your lap would you consider "life changing"?

So, one of the things that got me started on this is that I am trying to settle my mother's estate and it is taking so long that one brother has died and now I am working on his estate too. My two surviving brothers just can't or won't get their act together. I had a lawyer send them two forms to sign and he included a postage paid return envelope. All they had to do is sign and drop it in a mailbox. I have been begging them to get this done and they have been "getting around to it" for weeks.

Both are destitute. One moved his wife and kids into the MIL's after losing his house to foreclosure and the other is always on facebook begging for rides or financial help.

They are each due to inherit somewhere between $150-200K from mom's estate. For someone who is broke, that amount is life changing. I can't understand why they are not eager for it.

The other thought that rolled into my head was why do many people only play the lottery when the jackpot is in the mega millions. I would think that $1M would be pretty life changing for a lot of people.

 

[DisneyHardin]

$150,000 would be great for me. We could pay off our house and buy a new car.

 

[wenrob]

Two separate topics crossed through my brain at the same time and the collision resulted in this question:

How much money falling into your lap would you consider "life changing"?

So, one of the things that got me started on this is that I am trying to settle my mother's estate and it is taking so long that one brother has died and now I am working on his estate too. My two surviving brothers just can't or won't get their act together. I had a lawyer send them two forms to sign and he included a postage paid return envelope. All they had to do is sign and drop it in a mailbox. I have been begging them to get this done and they have been "getting around to it" for weeks.

Both are destitute. One moved his wife and kids into the MIL's after losing his house to foreclosure and the other is always on facebook begging for rides or financial help.

They are each due to inherit somewhere between $150-200K from mom's estate. For someone who is broke, that amount is life changing. I can't understand why they are not eager for it.

The other thought that rolled into my head was why do many people only play the lottery when the jackpot is in the mega millions. I would think that $1M would be pretty life changing for a lot of people.

I can’t tell you why they’re not eager to get it but I can almost guarantee that it would be life changing for them only briefly. People who are perpetually broke by their own making and waiting for their ship to come in rarely learn to magically manage money.

 

[china mom]

I am due the same share as the boys but it isn't going to affect my daily life as I intend to use it to purchase my mother's two rental properties. But, hopefully, I will be more comfortable in retirement for it.

But, if I were to come into a million dollars (after taxes), I would quit my job and use that pot of money to cover my health insurance premiums until medicare kicks in plus have some spending money.

 

[china mom]

I can’t tell you why they’re not eager to get it but I can almost guarantee that it would be life changing for them only briefly. People who are perpetually broke by their own making and waiting for their ship to come in rarely learn to magically manage money.

I agree. My husband predicts that they will blow through it and be broke again in no time. But, call me cold hearted, I don't care. As long as I can get these estates done and out of my life, I don't care what happens to their money.

 

[neverlandsky]

$5 million. Enough to buy a house outright, pay for kids college, and retire.

My best tips. With any large sum of money, sit on it for at least 6 months. If you have to spend any of it, only spend 1% right off the bat. If in debt, follow Dave Ramsey's baby steps. That right there is life changing with or without a large sum of money.

 

[1GoldenSun]

I would define a "life changing" amount of money to be an amount that would make me change my plans for the course of the rest of my life. That would require a very, very large amount of money--several million at least.

A million (or even two or three million) would add a significant chunk to our nest egg and provide a much thicker, softer buffer against calamity, but not enough to make us change our plans much, if at all. You never know what might happen and how much you may need later on.

I guess a life-changing amount of money would be a number that would allow us to no longer have to work, if we chose not to, and possibly even allow our children to pursue whatever life goals they dream of rather than having to focus on supporting themselves. That would make me a little nervous, though. It would be great to be able to tell my children that they can count on us for financial support if they want to choose an occupation that can be hard to make a living at but which would be otherwise rewarding, but I wouldn't want to risk ending up with spoiled, aimless, immature grown children someday (and for them to possibly raise a generation of grandchildren that we would also be expected to support). To be honest, a large sum of money would scare me; I'm not sure I would know how to properly handle it.

ANY amount of money would of course come in handy, and I would certainly be grateful to receive it. I certainly don't understand the difficulty your brothers are having in signing a few papers. It almost seems that something deeper must be going on, although I can't imagine what. Maybe they don't want to face up to Mom's death and this seems to finalize it? Probably not. Maybe they're planning on leaving their wives and want to wait to inherit after the divorce? Maybe they're in one of those situations where they're so down and out that they're paralyzed into inaction? That hardly seems likely to happen to both at once, though. Is it remotely possible that the responsibility for that amount of money could seem scary to them, being used to having so little?

 

[Praying Colonel]

$40,000. That's how much it will take to pay off DS's student loan. DW is working solely to pay that off. Once it's done, she's retiring. We're close, but if that much dropped in our lap, she could retire today.

 

[DLgal]

Life changing money for us would be $500-700k. It would allow us to buy a house here and provide stability for our special needs kids long term.

$5M would be truly life altering. My husband could retire for good. He is military and will "retire" next year from that, but need to start a second career. $1M would not be enough really. I only play the lotto when the jackpot is over $100M. I would take the cash payout and there is always a chance you'd have to share the jackpot, so it needs to be worth it.

 

[msjprincess]

I guess technically $400K would be "life changing". We could pay off the house and car. Its not enough to stop working or anything like that but it would be nice to not have a mortgage or car payment and have more "fun money".

 

[china mom]

1GoldenSun, i like your theory about the boys foot dragging but mom has been gone for two years and the one hadn't seen her for the year prior to that. He accepted her financial support but otherwise had no interaction. He is not married so no "leaving the wife"

The married one initially held things up because he thought that he and I should buy the houses together as an investment. I shot that down and he refused to sign off on the purchase because he thought that he could buy one of the houses. I had the estate lawyer give him a deadline to get financing and he didn't even open the letter until after the deadline passed. In the mean time, he is always mentioning their dire straights when we talk. Most recently they hadn't paid their cell phone bill in so long that they now owe $900.

So, now we have two estate lawyers, each billing $225/hr, eating away at the inheritance.

 

[Minnesota!]

I would say $275,000 - pay off house, student loans, and buy a condo "somewhere". We would still have to work, but we could have jobs we love for the JOB, not the check.

 

[Minnesota!]

Are your brothers close enough that you could go to where they are and have them sign before you - you can be the one who drops it in the mail, then.

 

[morgan98]

We are childless and established in careers. My husband quit his high stress job and is pursuing some hobby jobs for some additional fun money. I continue to work as I am younger than he is and peaking in my career.

$250,000 falling in my lap right now would give me the ability to not worry about health insurance for the next several years and allow me to quit my job and we could do something like move overseas for several years, etc.

 

[disykat]

I don't feel like it would take much to be life changing. Even changing the amount I save each month feels life changing to me. I'm a planner and like to meet specific savings goals.

200,000 sounds huge and I'd rather have it in my control than in limbo, even if I don plan to spend it.

I can totally relate on the signatures. I'm doing trust work for my parents and it takes my brother a week to get a paper signed and notarized even when he knows there's a deadline we're going to miss because of him. It's like he's trying to slow everything down. Paralyzed into inaction is a good description.

 

[RedAngie]

I'd happily accept any money that falls into my lap. But a truly "life changing" amount would have to be around 5 million or more.

 

[soccerdad72]

I suppose it depends upon both the 'life' in question and the 'change' that would take place.

 

[smiths02]

For us it would be about $500,000 after taxes. It would also be an amount that no one else would really need know about.

 

[coast2coastmickey]

$500k would allow us to pay off our house, replace both of our 16 year old beaters, and fully fund our kids' future college expenses. We'd both still work at that point but the freedom of not having a house payment or college savings to worry about would be amazing.

$3 million would afford us all the above, plus neither of us would ever have to work again.

But, if we never get a single dollar of windfall, we'll still be fine; we're doing FAR better than others in our age group. We're late 20s/early 30s milennials with zero debt other than the house, a healthy household income compared to the average in our area, and no major health concerns (knock on wood).

 

[Searc]

A life-changing amount of money for us would be 5 million. It would be enough DH wouldn't have to work anymore, with current retirement savings, we could contribute to charitable causes, set up our children with generous nest eggs and help family.