Remember those bumper stickers you used to see on the back of big motor homes that said, "We're spending our children's inheritance?" Well, they weren't a joke.
While 40 percent of the greatest generation thinks it's important to pass financial assets to children, most Baby Boomers have given up on an inheritance.
The trillions of dollars that experts predicted Baby Boomers were going to inherit just aren't materializing. According to a AARP study, just 17 percent of boomers (people born from 1946 to 1964) have received an inheritance. "Mom and Dad are living longer and consequently spending more," says John Gist, associate director of AARP's Public Policy Institute and coauthor of the study.
In addition, many elderly are not saving as they used to and are spending more money on themselves for vacations and hobbies, reported the Christian Science Monitor. Remarriage is also changing inheritances.
Other factors that take a chunk out of the amount of wealth passed along include expenses for health care and setbacks caused by economic downturns. Only 4 percent of Boomers are counting on an inheritance -- mainly because increasing longevity and declining health of parents can eat away at any assets the parents might have saved, according to a Allianz American Legacies study.
With many people planning on working into their 70s or even later, 16% plan to work for themselves or start their own business. A 2004 AARP study shows that the proportion of self-employed workers rises with typical working age, peaking at 24% of working women
at age 66 and 38% of working men at age 65. The numbers reflect that people are "doing this as a transition to retirement, or they tend to be working longer than those who are in wage-and-salary jobs," said Lynn Karoly, a senior economist with Rand and co-author of the AARP study.
How will you be spending the "best years of your life?"
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