spending the kids inheritance

The third option is helping them out now. Our 4 children are all struggling hard to make ends meet: pay mortgages, support their children, eat and heat their homes, as well as pay travel expenses to get to and from work. Occasionally we bail them out to prevent disasters....and they are always suitably grateful. They club together now and again to give us a treat. Pleasure all round.

We have a running joke. If we spend money on ourselves, the children will chorus "Hey, what about our inheritance?"
If we make them a cash gift, we say that it's less to go to the greedy claws of the future nursing home owner

I'm with you rojon. We have the same problem with ours. We are treated like afterthoughts.

Our house is paid for, and even though it`s not worth very much, it`s all we have to leave to our children. There won`t be any money, as what bit there is will have to pay for our funerals.

Ariadne I could have written exactly that, you have described our situation perfectly.

If one is fortunate enough to have a mortgage free house, then I feel that that is quite enough to leave to one's children!

I do love treating our DC and DGC, and helping them out from time to time, but I also think that Theseus and I deserve to enjoy our hard earned money while we have time. We had a tough beginning, but it worked out, and it's our turn now.

Of course, if disaster struck any of them, that would be a different story.

I agree entirely with you Rogan , you are their mother they should give you some time , why should you have to make up things to "Entice " them.

It is quite heart breaking that offspring treat parents as they do , the only thing I can maybe offer is that after you are gone they will have regrets . {I hope you take that as I meant it , as I am sure you would not wish anything bad on your darling offspring]

I"ll hold good thoughts for you X

Have you tried being crafty? Buy a too-large joint of meat (online order and got the weight wrong?) then ring each of them to say that you bought this by mistake and would they like to come and help you to eat it ?

Or buy something that used to be a favourite when they were all at home and ring them to say you thought of them when you saw it and could not resist it, would they like to come . . .etc etc....

Or just think of an excuse - your birthday, the Xth anniversary of the day one of them started school or some such story, and would they like to come . . .etc etc . . .

The wrong thing to do is to ring them to say that they have not been near you for donkey's ages and pile on the guilt.

Rojon If you wanted to spend the windfall on your children then that is fine.
But it is not fine if you expected something in return.
It sounds to me as though the problem is more that you would like to see more of your family than you do, rather than you wish you had kept the money for yourself.
I think if my children lived as close to me as yours do, I would want to see them more too.
Can you tell them how you feel?

My children are not well off.

I am not particularly materialistic and hope to be able to leave a substantial amount of what I have to them when I finally fall off my twig.

We are fortunate to have paid off our mortgage 5 yrs ago. The endowment we had to cover it matures next month. We intend spending it on ourselves

it is your money to do what you want with. No child should expect anything. Nice if it happens but so is treating yourself!

Treat yourself Rogan , book a nice holiday !! Spend some money !!

I think you should ensure you have a good life before thinking about anything else. Whatever savings you have are probably not keeping pace with inflation so you might as well enjoy them now. It was suggested to me before we retired that you spend more in the first 10 years of retirement than in later years because you are fitter and able to do more travelling etc. so enjoy it now.