Leaving an Inheritance to My Great-Grandchildren

Do you want to give your kids the best possible chance at life, but you’re afraid of spoiling them, or worse? Are you concerned that leaving an inheritance will only end in disaster? Learn why “leaving an inheritance to my great-grandchildren” is a good thing and how to do it.

Many parents are undecided about whether they want to leave an inheritance to their children. They fear raising ungrateful “trust fund babies” or leaving their kids with money they cannot possibly be good stewards of. Some parents didn’t receive an inheritance at all, so they don’t think their own children could possibly need it.

But what if you could leave an inheritance not only to your children but your grandchildren, and even your great-grandchildren? It’s not about how much money you have, it’s about how you prepare your children to take good care of that money and become value creators in their own right. 

Today, we’re talking about how the Marshall family approaches money and inheritance, and how you can begin preparing your kids to be great stewards of your legacy now and later. Learn how and why I am leaving an inheritance to my great-grandchildren, and you can too. Tune in now!

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The Inheritance Spectrum

Leaving an inheritance to your children or grandchildren can be a tricky subject to navigate. There are many pros and cons to both leaving or not leaving an inheritance that has a lot to do with HOW you go about it. In our case, we think inheritance is a spectrum of sorts. On one end, you’ve got those who are just dumping money on the next generation without much preparation or care. On the other side of the spectrum, you have people who are intentionally withholding an inheritance for various reasons. Then, you have everything in between. 

The side that is against leaving an inheritance generally comes from two schools of thought. Some people believe that they weren’t left anything, and so their children don’t need it either. They want to be selfish with their money, and they want their kids to figure it out on their own. The other camp is the parents who don’t wish to ruin their kids by spoiling them or leaving them with a cushy life without developing the work ethic or business savvy to keep it.

Both sides of this spectrum are pretty extreme and can be damaging. There’s a middle ground that we advocate for that can actually ensure that your legacy lasts for generations, and that’s by building something to leave your children while also raising them to be good stewards of it. This could include involving your kids in the family business, teaching them good money principles, and making sure that they know how to continue growing their assets. By doing this, you create a generation that can do the same with their children so that many generations down the line your family is still prospering. 

[09:50] “It’s not the money that causes the problems. The challenge is money brings up all of this emotion… we attach it to our identity, our sense of self-worth.”

The Marshall Family Values

One of my family’s values is freedom. Most people conjure up the same mental image of freedom, but there are actually two major meanings of the word freedom when we go back to Hebrews in scripture. There’s a good form of freedom and a bad form of freedom. The way that most people conceptualize freedom is to be free FROM something—for example, freedom from obligations. This is why many people think of retirement as one of the ultimate freedoms because they won’t be tied down or expected to do anything. 

The other kind of freedom is the freedom to choose—not to be free of obligations, but to pick the obligations that matter to you and develop accordingly. This choice is about service, and it allows you to build a fulfilling life that has incredible ripple effects.

When you instill this kind of mindset within the family, you see how it creates this wellspring of good not just inside of your family, but outside of it. And this kind of freedom naturally attracts money, because money is a result of providing value in the marketplace. We’ve seen the positive evidence of this approach in our own family, and we know the seeds are there for our children to be good stewards of the family legacy. 

Have Your Kids Create Value

In our family, we decided not to give an allowance to our children and instead encouraged them to create value. This eventually led to our daughter creating her own business, after attending a five-day course that helped her think about the many ways in which she could provide value. The idea had to be both something she was interested in AND something that people wanted and would be profitable. 

Eventually, our daughter decided she wanted to bake and sell cookies, so we workshopped ways in which this could be a recurring, profitable business. What we landed on was a cookie club, where she made and delivered cookie dough for people to bake in their own homes so that they could enjoy the freshly baked cookie smell. Her business is now in its fourth year and still going strong. 

Even now, we’re always talking about ways to improve and develop cookie club while also slinging other possible business ventures. So now our children are considering all of the ways that they can provide value to other people, and it’s incredible to see her grow in this way.

If you have children that aren’t quite ready to start a business yet, you can still instill these principles through chores, because chores provide value to the family. There’s a wide variety of age-appropriate chores that your children can do, and these responsibilities help them be contributors. Additionally, think about what chores are expected on an ongoing basis and what chores are above and beyond that you might pay for. 

Once your children are earning money, be sure to teach them good stewardship of that money, too. Help your children to save a percentage of their money. When our daughter started earning money, we encouraged her to give 10%, save 40%, and use the other 50% how she chose. This is a priority.

[29:00] “Whatever you put your attention on is the thing that’s going to grow. And if you celebrate something and you reward your children for something—you bring it up on a regular basis and you compliment them and you praise them for something—that’s going to be the thing that they want to continue doing.”

Leaving an Inheritance to My Great-Grandchildren

Our inheritance for our children and grandchildren lives in a trust so that it will exist well beyond us and benefit our family for generations. The money is designed to be used based on our family values, to fund things that we would do while we’re living. The family bank includes stipulations for repaying the money, as well as caveats for when that money need not be paid back. 

Our intention with this is to create a money supply that is going to last and last well beyond us, without “spoiling” anyone or encouraging poor stewardship. This trust is funded by our whole life insurance, and will only grow as the family grows and as death benefits are paid. This is the balance between dumping money and withholding money—creating purpose for our money that our family members are a part of creating. 

Financial Wisdom for Kids

We’ve actually developed a course called Financial Wisdom for Kids, which identifies five key lessons that your kids must learn in order to handle their inheritance well. The course walks you through how to teach these lessons and includes age-appropriate examples for you to develop these skills at any age. 

Get 54% off our Financial Wisdom For Kids, so you can equip your children with the top 5 financial literacy lessons they need and avoid the pitfalls of unprepared heirs squandering their inheritance when you buy Seven Generations Legacy: Design a Multigenerational Legacy of More Than Money for just $4.99 https://sevengenerationslegacy.com/.

Book A Strategy Call

Do you want to coordinate your finances so that everything works together to improve your life today, accelerate time and money freedom, and leave the greatest legacy? We can help!  Book an Introductory Call with our team today https://themoneyadvantage.com/calendar/, and find out how Privatized Banking, alternative investments, or cash flow strategies can help you accomplish your goals better and faster. That being said, if you want to find out more about how Privatized Banking gives you the most safety, liquidity, and growth… plus boosts your investment returns, and guarantees a legacy, go to https://privatizedbankingsecrets.com/freeguide to learn more.