Meet the pensioners spending the kids’ inheritance

Happily retired, Sarah Moorhouse is using her private pension “to go places and do nice things at the drop of a hat”.

While other retirees with a decent monthly pension income may choose to build up an inheritance for their children, Sarah, 64, and her husband Geoff are opting to spend their money on living life to the max.

“We like going to Scotland,” says Sarah, a retired school administrator. “We’ve been down to Cambridgeshire, which was lovely. We go up to the Lake District quite regularly to a holiday cottage, and we’re planning to go to Norfolk.”

The couple, who live in the Yorkshire Dales, go on holiday four or five times a year, spending hundreds of pounds each time because, in Sarah’s view, “you only have one opportunity at life”.

They did recently sell their vintage Sunbeam Alpine sports car. But only so they could replace it with a more modern, sporty two-seater convertible, a Mazda MX-5.

“I’m of an age where I’m going to friends’ and acquaintances’ funerals, and I think you just need to live life and enjoy it while you can, because it’s a very precious commodity,” says Sarah.

Sarah and Geoff are part of a global personal finance phenomenon that has been dubbed “skiing”, which stands for spending the kids’ inheritance. It is challenging the notion that assets will get handed down to the next generation.

One in seven UK parents of children of all ages (15%) now plan to prioritise enjoying their money in their retirement over leaving an inheritance, according to a March report, external by pension provider Standard Life.

And in the US, the number of people expecting to get an inheritance from their parents dropped to 20% last year, from 25% in 2024, according to a study, external by financial services firm Northwestern Mutual.