ByeBye Inheritance
In what’s probably a gigantic blow for Paris Hilton - the rich partygirl - her grandfather, Barron Hilton, has decided to donate 97% of his fortune to charity. Barron’s father, Conrad, founded the Hilton hotel chain in 1919.
3% of his fortune will, when he dies, be left for his children and grandchildren. That’s $69 million in total, meaning that Paris - who expected to inherit $100 million - will get some $5 million when her beloved grandfather dies (and I’m sure she’s very fond of him at this point in time).
Hilariously, when grandfather Hilton announced the plan and the changes in his will, he said that he was “proud to follow my father’s example.” Why is that hilarious you ask? Because when his father died and when Barron saw that 97% of what he thought was rightfully his went to charity, he “challenged the will and reached an accord dividing ownership of the shares with the foundation.”
Wil his children and grandchildren try to challenge Barron Hilton’s will? Who knows. What’s interesting, though, is that Barron Hilton reportedly believes that Paris is a disgrace and embarrassment for the family, which may very well be the reason for his decision to donate practically his entire fortune to a donation that’s meant to help the blind and other physically disabled people.
Whatever the case, one can’t but respect Barron. Donating his money to charity is… very generous and, if I were in his shoes, I would’ve considered doing the same thing. The last thing Paris and her other sister (and cousins) need is more money. They’ve got enough; they need something that money can’t buy.
Lastly, talking about money: Paris doesn’t exactly need her grandfather’s money. Last year she earned an estimated $6.5 million all by herself.
And yes, this post was a very good excuse for me to try to find some good Paris Hilton images.
Oh the poor poor dear, just $5 million? Why, that’s only much, much more than your average person will make in their lifetime, how can she be expected to survive on so little?
Ugh.
The only other females that I think are less deserving of attention than Paris Hilton are Ann Coulter and Shirley Phelps Roper, because they actively poison the world, wheras Paris Hilton merely reduces it’s collective intelligence a bit.
Lynx: lol, yeah, quite horrible huh? And $5 million, well, it’s much of course, but, not a gigantic amount imo. You know, it’s nice, but not enough to take it easy and not do anything so to speak. On the other hand, it’s a nice amount to start your life with, basically. You know, use it as a means to earn more, invest it, create companies, etc.
Anyway, I’ve got a hard time feeling sorry for her as well. In fact, that’s $5 million more than she needs. She would be better off is she was raised with less money, but with more discipline.
That is her grandfather, the poor Paris has only her parents left to rely on more inheritance
I’d suspect that is just a piece of the fortune - from seeing pictures of her house & lifestyle, I would suspect she is already living off of a good trust fund.
A few points:
IF Barrone leaves that 3% only to relatives and doesn’t throw in bequests for his personal staff, etc., it’s $69 million to split up. Just counting his own offspring and descendants (8 kids, 23 g’kids) and assuming an even split (a BIG assumption) that would be $2.3 M each. But he also has nieces and nephews and a brother and a half-sister.
Second point: NO ONE in the Hilton family is on the dole now, nor dependant on Barron Hilton to stay off of the dole. ALL of them are covered by Conrad Hilton’s own trust funds. It’s not as if they’ll have to give up their second homes in Malibu or anything because Barron didn’t leave them a major pile. He can give away his fortune secure in the knowledge that no Hilton is going to starve because he did so.
Third point, Paris-specific: Paris’ daddy Richard Hilton is a major business success in his own right, with a personal fortune of over $300 million from his real estate business in California. And Paris herself has "earned" (if that’s the right word for it) over $15 million in the last three years. She’s not going to starve, or have to take in a roommate to make ends meet, just because Granpa left her a measly couple of mil, or even "$100, the going rate."
Amusingly, my captcha words for this comment are "woman ironic." Ain’t it sweet?
Oh, and anyone who can’t retire quite comfortably on $2M or more needs to re-adjust their wasteful lifestyle. I know I could retire and live quite well on that much, even if it wasn’t enough to eat gold-leafed caviar at every meal.
Tully: if you’re 60 years old, $2 mil is alright. But when you’re 25? Well, then it ain’t enough to stop working (only $50,000 a year for 40 years, you’ll, however, probably live for 50 - 60 years more).
of course, someone with the age of 25 or so shouldn’t think about retiring yet.
If i were her, i’d use the $5 and put it in some fund or another - invest it. When you’re 30 years older it will have, at the very least, doubled, probably even become something like $20 million.
Ah, the young, so unacquainted with financial mathematics! (Just gotta yank your chain, man.)
The interest and income on $2M intelligently and conservatively invested, and allowing for growth in principal to keep even with inflation, would be in the general neighborhood of $80-100K/yr. Note that’s done not only without reducing the principal, but actually letting it grow to hold value and match inflation. You’d still have your $2M as a slight cushion, plus whatever other income funds were yours.
Now, if you were 25 and working (and no one should be retiring that young, it would be a waste of a life) you could use a much smaller portion of the interest and income as a supplement, live much better than you ordinarily could on any given income, AND let the principal grow over time until you’re ready to retire. If you took, say, half the income and interest as you went along and let the rest add to principal and kept the principal invested very conservatively, at today’s market rates you could retire at age 50 with roughly $4 million in hand–which would produce $150-200K/year to keep you comfortable without reducing the principal.
Once again, that would be on top of what you had stacked up on your own from employment and your own investing and accumulation such as home and other assets, and in addition to (in the U.S.) your Social Security.
If you chose to not touch it at all and just let it stack up, and it was invested fairly conservatively (the young should be a bit more aggressive, but I’m just playin’ it safe here) then in 25 years at current market rates and thanks to the joy of compound interest your principal would have grown to somewhere in the $8M range. Which would throw off $300-400K/yr with little problem, without ever touching the principal. Think you could retire comfortably on that? I know I sure could.
That’s what I would do, although I would be a bit more aggressive in my investment policy (taking a risk here and there).
Ah, it’s nice to think about money like that. As it is, my parents being 48 I luckily don’t have to worry about any inheritance for a long time to come. Instead I’ll just try to earn that amount of money myself
LOL. At least I’m younger than your folks, if not by much. But I could "retire" quite comfortably on $2.225M right now, that being 1/32nd share of $69M.
Of course, by "retire" I mean doing what I would do anyway, just doing it because I enjoy doing it rather than trying to squeeze every last dime out of it. As far as really retiring goes, that’ll happen when I’m too feeble to work anymore. By which point I doubt I’ll have too much time left on Earth to run around spending piles of money, other than on medical care.
(If you find something you really enjoy doing and would do anyway, and can make a decent living at it, you’ve already got it made. )