This past weekend, my in-laws gifted my wife $30,000. For more background on the gift see my most recent post in the forums.
Steps that have been taken so far:
The checks were deposited into our account on Monday.
The credit card was completely paid off this morning.
We scheduled the builder to begin work on our back porch today. It is raining.
We scheduled an appointment with an attorney to set up special needs trusts for our boys. We'll be meeting with the attorney this Friday afternoon.
Our emergency fund is housed at DW's home-town bank, and that transfer has not been made yet.
Our girls already have 529's set up, but we have not allocated any new funds toward them.
I received some good advice from my forum post. We may pay off the truck (10K) and set up an automatic monthly payment for a Roth IRA for DW for the amount that had been going to the truck payment.
Still not sure exactly how everything will be spent and allocated. It will not be spent on a luxury car or a Caribbean cruise.
$30,000 represents a bit more than half of my annual salary. Heck, 10 years ago, I wasn't even making 30K in one year. I (we) are overwhelmed by the generosity of this gift. It gives us the flexibility to attend to some savings goals that have been sorely neglected, as well as make some needed improvements around the homestead.
The very generous gift
August 7th, 2013 at 01:21 pm
August 7th, 2013 at 01:27 pm 1375882025
Bless your inlaws for their generosity! I haven't made it over to the Forum to read the original post about the circumstances. I haven't had my morning coffee yet and read it as $3K, until I saw the long list of accomplishments!
August 7th, 2013 at 01:48 pm 1375883290
August 7th, 2013 at 03:31 pm 1375889517
Congratulations on getting the credit card paid off.
August 7th, 2013 at 04:23 pm 1375892638
August 7th, 2013 at 05:11 pm 1375895469
Anyway, I hope you have your own wills and life insurance in order. I would hope these things were well in order before you set up a trust, and the lawyer will probably mention this too. Just checking... I can't tell either way, but I keep meeting very careful "ducks in a row" types who are thinking about getting life insurance and wills now that their kids are in college... O.M.G. {I know *way* too many people who lost a parent or two in childhood, so this just strikes me as insane. I think most people figure they don't have to worry about it}.
August 7th, 2013 at 07:21 pm 1375903267
SS: The 2013 exclusion is 14K. Because we are a married couple, the effective exclusion is 56K: 14K from MIL to DW, 14K from FIL to DW, and 14K from each of them to me.
MM: Thanks for checking. Yes, we have adequate term life insurance through my work. The premiums are deducted from my pay check each month. Our wills were written up within a handful of weeks after DD1 was born 11 years ago.
August 7th, 2013 at 07:59 pm 1375905563
August 7th, 2013 at 08:04 pm 1375905883
August 8th, 2013 at 01:16 pm 1375967816
August 12th, 2013 at 05:57 pm 1376330275