"My goal is when they carry me away in that box that my bank account is going to say zero," Willison said. "I’m going to spoil myself now."
Upending the conventional notion of parents carefully tending their financial estates to be passed down at the reading of their wills, many baby boomers say they instead plan to spend the money on themselves while they’re alive.<\/p>\n

In a survey of millionaire boomers by investment firm U.S. Trust, only 49% said it was important to leave money to their children when they die. The low rate was a big surprise for a company that for decades has advised wealthy people how to leave money to their heirs.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The article reports that many boomers feel they have pre-paid their children\u2019s inheritance by helping them pay for college or a house.  Says one boomer:  "I’ve helped launch them with their education and their careers. If they can’t make it on their own now, they can never make it. I’ve done my job. Now I’m going to enjoy life."  <\/p>\n

I can\u2019t help wonder, though, how much the boomer generation\u2014particularly, the leaders they helped elect\u2014contributed to the high entry costs that make it so expensive for their children today to begin new careers, or contributed to the land use regulations that make it so expensive for their children to afford the kind of housing their parents had 30 or 40 years ago.  <\/p>\n

I wish those boomers well who have earned and saved enough to enjoy a comfortable retirement.  Those they leave behind have no claim on them, and the boomers have every right to enjoy their rewards.  We might have liked, however, to have enjoyed more of the economic freedoms they had so that we might have a better chance at our own.  <\/p>\n