DEAR JEANNE & LEONARD: I have found an idyllic retirement community, one that has all the amenities I care about. However, it requires a buy-in, and I've heard that buy-ins are a bad thing for your heirs. While I want to leave money to my kids, I like this place a lot and really want to move there. Would doing so be unfair to my children?
-- Eleanor
DEAR ELEANOR: Why wait until you die? Why not give your children all your money now -- you know, like King Lear?
Seriously, nowhere is it written that the top priority of parents should be to maximize the amount of money they leave to their children. Of course some parents feel that way. And plenty of children hope their parents feel that way. But so what? This is your money, and you have every right to place your quality of life ahead of your children's inheritances.
So go ahead, buy into retirement heaven. Assuming you can afford to live there -- assuming you're confident there's no danger you'll become an economic burden to your children -- you needn't lose any sleep worrying that you're being unfair.
DEAR JEANNE & LEONARD: Please settle a disagreement I'm having with my wife. Recently we had dinner at an upscale restaurant with another couple. They brought along their 24-year-old son, a nice young man who happened to be home from business school. When the check arrived, we split it 50/50, as we usually do with these friends. But I don't think that was fair. Shouldn't the other couple have offered to pay three-fifths of the bill instead of half? My wife says no. But their son ate a full meal, just like the rest of us, and he had a couple of cocktails as well. By the way, my wife and I like this couple a lot, and our friendship with them isn't in jeopardy. We'd just like to know who's right.
-- B.B.
DEAR B.B.: Sounds like the other couple subscribes to the "It takes a village" school of parenting, at least when it comes to restaurant tabs. Or perhaps they didn't want the bother of doing the math. Whatever their thinking, it was wrong, and so is your wife: Your friends should have offered to pay for their son's share of the bill (restaurants are prepared to split checks 60/40). Moreover, had you suggested that you and your spouse pay two-fifths of the bill, you wouldn't have been out of line.
While there are folks who traditionally leave kids out when dividing a tab, this wasn't some 5-year-old who'd ordered a PB&J from the kiddie menu. This was an adult who ate a full meal, accompanied by cocktails, at a nice restaurant. While "Kids eat free" may be the policy of some restaurants, "My kid eats on you" is not a policy parents should be imposing on their friends.
Jeanne Fleming and Leonard Schwarz are the authors of Isn't It Their Turn to Pick Up the Check? Dealing With All of the Trickiest Money Problems Between Family and Friends (Free Press, 2008). Email them at
Questions@MoneyManners.net
Family on 09/02/2015