A rich boomer couple has been labeled “selfish and privileged” after revealing they intended to burn through their children’s inheritance with luxury holidays.
Victorian parents Leanne and Leon Ryland appeared on SBS program ‘Insight’ to discuss why their two adult sons wouldn’t be seeing a cent of their inheritance.
The couple has spent $114,631 on seeing the “wonders of the world” since their retirement, and their travels have included Machu Picchu in Peru, India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives.
In fact, they plan to continue traveling and joked their sons would only inherit the “shelf of s–t” from their travels.
“It’s changing our mindset”
The couple started their jetsetting ways four years ago after they saw a financial planner about their retirement.
“We’ve done all the right things by investing in property, boosting up our super, making sure that was healthy, going without a lot of things,” Ms Ryland said on the program.
“And he said, ‘You’re crazy if you don’t retire when you can, because you’ll spend most of your wealth on travel or whatever in the first 10 years, and then after that it slows down’.
“It’s changing our mindset. You get into a phase now where you actually spend instead of save.”
The couple have not only taken the mindset themselves, but have taken steps to help other rich, older parents spend their children’s inheritance.
They started a Facebook group called SKIclub, which stands for “spending kids inheritance”, where retirees can share travel tips.
“We’ve got to do spend it all now”
Ms. Ryland told the program she’s trying to convince her husband to do more travel, “because if we don’t spend it, you know he gets it”, pointing to her son.
“We’re not going to be able to spend all this money so let’s do it now because in another 10 years we won’t be climbing the Great Wall of China. We won’t be going up Machu Picchu,” she said.
“We won’t be doing those things. So we’ve gotta do it now because what else is there?”
Ms Ryland also revealed she’d met many similar-aged couples with the same views on their retirement.
“Boomer privilege at its best and still not conscious of it”
Viewers of the program were quick to brand the Victorian couple as “entitled”.
“SBS Insight tonight is hilarious,” one person wrote on social media. “Boomer privilege at its best and still not conscious of it. So entitled.”
“Boomers are evil … bragging about overseas holidays and spending all their money so their kids have no inheritance,” another person wrote.
Despite the backlash, the couple’s son Alex said he supported his parents’ decisions.
“It’s their money,” he told the program.
“They’ve worked hard their entire life and invested well in order to get that money, so I think they should be able to do whatever they like with it.”