Personal Finance

My husband and I have plenty of money to retire now - should we keep working to leave our son a larger inheritance?

Christy Bieber

Published: February 2, 2025 6:26 pm

Should you stop working during your prime earning years, or stay on the job to provide a larger inheritance to a child who may not earn much money? A Redditor user is currently trying to answer this question.

The original poster (OP) and her husband are both 48 years old and have good jobs and simple tastes. This has resulted in them having a combined net worth of $8.1 million. She said they are thinking about retiring and moving at the end of the year, but she’s feeling guilty because she thinks she should continue earning to set her son up with more of an inheritance.

So, should the OP sacrifice her dreams of early retirement to save more money for her son, or should she quit work and allow her child to make his own way in the world? 

How much do parents owe their kids?

The OP has already done a substantial amount to set her son up financially based on her post.  Her son is in college and he will be graduating with no student loans and enough money to attend graduate school without borrowing. They’ve also set him up with a stock account worth around $250,000.

Her husband thinks that they have provided enough of a head start for their son and it’s now time for him to take over and earn his own money. However, she feels guilty and selfish about going off to relax and spend her money — especially since her son is majoring in a field that is a perfect fit for him but that is not going to come with high pay.  She said he is very hard-working, doing jobs and internships while in school but her goal is to protect him from ever having any financial struggles — and she’s afraid he won’t be well-off.  

Now, the reality is that she has done a lot more than most parents, and after supporting her child through grad school and starting him off in life with $250K, she has absolutely fulfilled her moral responsibilities as a parent and then some. However, her fears about her child’s future well-being are really impacting her ability to enjoy her money so it’s not as simple as saying she’s met her obligations. She doesn’t think so and she deserves to enjoy her money even if that means giving her son more of it. 

That doesn’t mean she has to put off early retirement, though. She can, and should, find a way to balance both her desire to stop working and her desire to shield her son from money hardships.

How to balance retirement and family obligations 

While the OP is focused on her son’s inheritance, that’s most likely the wrong approach to take. She’ll hopefully live a long time and often, by the time young people actually receive an inheritance, they are already well established in their careers and have been supporting themselves for decades. 

So, rather than thinking about what money she can leave to her son in 40 or 50 years, the OP should look at finding ways to help her son now. And she should see if she can find a way to do that financially while still being able to retire early.

With an $8.1 million net worth, she should receive an annual income from her investments of around $300K assuming she follows a safe withdrawal rate which experts now put at 3.7%. Since she and her husband have “simple tastes” and are planning to leave their high-cost-of-living area upon retirement, this would likely give her plenty of extra money. She could gift some to her son each year, or save up the funds to help him buy a house when he is ready. 

Now, she has no obligation to do this and she has done enough by all objective measures. But if one of her ways of enjoying her money is to provide for a child who she says is hard-working but just might not make much, then there’s nothing wrong with that. She shouldn’t give up her retirement plans, but should instead find a way to do both so everyone is happy.