Lowes Inheritance Guide (Old)

LOWES INHERITANCE GUIDE

1 Keep enough for yourself

We’re all living, on average, for much longer; mortality rates in the UK have been on the decline since the 19th century. It is estimated that one in three babies born today will live to celebrate their 100th birthdays.

With these increasingly longer lives comes a desire to gift money to the next generation during our lifetimes, rather than waiting until death to leave a more traditional inheritance. Living for longer can result in higher costs, especially in the later stages of retirement when care fees become an essential consideration. An estimated 4 million older people in the UK, which is around half of over 65s, have care needs of some form. Before paying an early inheritance to the next generation, it’s essential to make sure you keep enough money for yourself. The ability to maintain your desired lifestyle in retirement, especially in later life, should take priority over givingmoney to children or grandchildren during your lifetime.

One very effective way to approach this challenge is to work with a Lowes Consultant to create a lifetime cash flow forecast. This forecast is a method we use to help our clients understand what their income and assets might look like in the future. As part of this process, we can include different scenarios and demonstrate the likely impact of these, for example, making a specific gift during your life to the next generation. It relies on making a set of reasonable assumptions about the future, as well as keeping the forecast under regular review each year, to adjust the assumptions as they change over time. This approach of carefully considering the long-term financial impact of any gifts you choose to make helps to provide a degree of peace of mind that you can genuinely afford to gift money, without running out of funds, before the end of your life.

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