At our house, typically I’ve tracked bills and monthly expenses. My husband has no interest in that. But pre-retirement he he did an excellent job handling/growing our investments. As we approached retirement, we no longer had the dandy pensions we had once hoped for. Luckily we had decent 401k accounts and investments. But we needed help to guide us through the less fun steps of spend-down, have a neutral party step us through it. He arranged what I fondly call our “Schwab paycheck” (auto-deposit from investment accounts to our checking account). It’s an approach I recommend to other retirees if their pension/SS income not enough. It could be set up with or without a FA.
The FA these days is actually the former assistant of the older fellow who retired. He has been at quarterly meetings (either as note taker or lead FA) with us for about 6 years. At this point he’s also a bit of a life coach, helps us get on the same page as a couple. If something were to happen to my husband, I would likely have him also start managing my 401K/IRA. He is about the same age as our kids, and someday he will probably help them deal with our estate.
It’s interesting. I have felt that grocery prices have been climbing, certainly for the items that I buy. However, when I went to my grocery store today, so many sales on products, making some items weirdly cheap. I purchased a couple of bags for the local food pantry.
People in this country now hold record levels of debt. Gas prices are down somewhat, though not below pre-Pandemic levels. Medical costs, insurance costs skyrocketing, eating out is more costly. The stock market is booming.
There are so many conflicts here, I don’t know what to think except for my long held theory……those with enough investments, home purchased (back when mortgage rates were low or paid off mortgages), high paying job in hand with benefits or retired, those people have it made. The rest don’t (unless they have sweet inheritances, of course). The haves and the have nots, it certainly is becoming more pronounced.
Not cherry picking, just from the article I read, it said that the gas prices have gone down, but not to pre-Pandemic levels. And my point is that I’m confused. Of course, in Washington state, our gas prices are still pretty high, because our legislature socked us with huge gas taxes.
I assumed that to be the case, not being critical of you BD, but the author. What’s is their significance of 2018-19? Why choose that time frame, unless to say, still more expensive than Trump’s first term? If so, make that (political) point. Why not go back to Obama?
Make a list or spreadsheet of all accounts, account numbers, username/password for online access. If you have annuities and/or life insurance, policies or copies of policies should be readily available. If an annuity or pension has a survivor benefit, be sure your spouse knows that (include that information on the list/spreadsheet). My MIL didn’t realize that she had a survivor benefit on an annuity in my FIL’s name - we’re currently in the process of helping her get $40,000 she is owed in back benefits.
Good WSJ article. Something we have done that she could’ve done earlier is to loop the kids in. We’ve had both kids sit in on different Zoom mtgs with our FA, just so that they could meet him and hear our thinking when we were of sound mind and body. They both agree how helpful this was, both in terms of knowing our finances and making them think about their own.
In reading the article, I think part of the problem was that their assets were spread out in many places. She consolidated them, he probably should have done that years before. We have consolidated our investments into only a few places, so it is easier to manage. Even without a death, having investments spread out, makes it hard to keep track of and can lead to forgetting about some of them.
In our household, I have been the bill payer since we got married (41 years ago). I can’t remember the last time my husband wrote a check or paid a bill! My husband manages our brokerage account and I manage the CDs we have in banks.
Because the world went to hell in a hand basket in 2020. So a statistical anomaly without which the prices would have been where they would have been had the prices steadily increased with the normal rates of inflation.
ok, I’ll bite. The Author’s point is still wrong; ‘gas prices have not declined to 2019 levels’. Well, why should they? By definition, gas prices should be higher today than in 2019, given “normal rates of inflation”. (however defined)
Note I was not saying that the prices should now be at the 2019 level. Just explaining why that it was used as a benchmark. And by “normal” inflation I mean the rates targeted by the Fed which is where they were before 2020. The pandemic definitely was a one off event with a huge ripple effect. Add the tariffs and greedflation, and here we are.
One of our FAs has a policy of meeting with the kids of their clients to talk about college planning and finances. They have a person who works with kids. When ShawD had to make decisions about benefits, about planning for a move to CA, and about whether she could afford to buy the two-family house she was looking to buy. Each of our kids has an account with the FA (and with the other FA). The other FA has not provided advice but would if asked. Both kids use that FA for their basic accounts into which salaries are deposited and from which they pay their bills.
I think it is both a good practice for them and good for the kids to have a relationship with the FAs. I also have our accountant handle their tax returns. And they know one of our lawyers – he’s a family friend. But, I think more is needed. ShawD just gave my MIL a document from an organization called Five Wishes to help someone think about his/her wishes for advanced care. Looks potentially helpful.
I agree with this assessment. Ive also seen people with unrealistic expectations and unwillingness to sacrifice, especially at a younger age.
People with six figure incomes but they dont have much retirement savings. Why? Because they want to be comfortable.
That’s fine but some people choose to be confortable earlier in life but then wonder why they dont have money. Other people choose to sacrifice and then live comfortably later.
But of course if you’re in the latter category, people point and say, hey you have money, you should pay more of your share.
Everyone climbing up the wealth ladder pays “their share” if they earned income and were taxed along the way.
As many of you know, I was widowed about 6 months ago. I am begging you and your spouses to please become aware of both your investment/ saving situation as well as daily finances ( income/ expenses/ bill paying). Show this to your spouse if you need to.
In our case we always met with our FA ( he is in a different city) on the phone and went over everything together. I do this now on my own and I’m very comfortable with both the financial information, know what to ask about and was comfortable reaching out to our FA when I had a tax question a few months ago.
H always did our bill paying, etc. but I always had a general idea of what was coming in and from where and what we were paying for. I also have a password list (I’m at the point now where I rarely need it) that was invaluable. It included a list of monthly bills, etc . I have that all updated for D.
We redid our estate plan in 2024, and I cannot tell you how thankful I am for that.
The last 6 months ( and the 2 months H was sick/ hospitalized) have been hard in many ways. But being knowledgeable and prepared financially has been a huge help. You ( or your spouse) really need to be prepared.
I tell all of my friends this including all of you here.
I did not know until your previous post and am very sorry to hear. I do everything financial in our family and ShawWife without a lot of assistance would have no idea what is going on. I feared precisely that for ShawWife if I died first.
So, I selected a primary financial advisor who is aware of all of our investments and activities. ShawWife attends quarterly meetings (on Zoom) with them and in the old days the originating partner would come out for dinner. She sold to another firm but kept the guy who is great at explaining. She has met once with our accountant and our primary lawyer (not estate lawyer) is her close friend’s husband. His firm did a big part of our estate plan but alas they had only one partner in that practice and he left so I need to redo our plan and find a firm to do it.
One upside. ShawD has worked very hard, with the help of the good explainer, at becoming financially literate. I have also helped. ShawSon has an MBA from a great school and although finance was trivial for him, he understands it.
Given my background (business school prof, worked on Wall Street, helped set up a hedge fund, work on deals), there won’t be a problem if ShawWife dies first, unless my faculties are fading. We’ve asked ShawD to be our health care person and ShawSon to be our finance person.
Thanks. My situation is not super complicated other than having a large traditional 401k/IRA balances and more than enough that being tax efficient for our heirs is meaningful. I had a rough idea of what I should be looking at (delaying SS until 70, using non tax sheltered savings and managing 401k withdrawals between traditional and Roth to minimize income tax). ChatGpt pretty much confirmed this plus doing a bunch of Roth conversions between retirement and when I turn 75.
I have been with the same wealth manager for over 20 years. We have 1 account where he and I “play” with hunches; we’ll share ideas once a month or so. Other accounts are part of large pooled accounts he runs for his clients. He has a lady who specializes in retirement planning in terms of managing cashflow and minimizing taxes. I am curious what she comes up with.
In general, I feel I am pretty knowledgeable about investing and investment products, but I also know that there are others with far greater experience and expertise. Have had an FA and tax accountant since my mid 30’s. I try to be informed about what they are doing.
They have a very small community mailbox about a block from their home - and I’m not sure about the ‘key’ with the larger box being in that community mailbox as a good option. Some months ago, the community mailbox was damaged (IDK if it got hit by a driver or what happened to it) and it took months for the post office (or whoever gets contracted for it) to replace it – so they had to go to a very distant post office for their mail. They have a San Antonio address, but the house is actually physically in Helotes. The Helotes post office is actually more convenient to them. SIL got his TX driver’s license saying Helotes (because the property listing gave Helotes as the city but gave the right zip code before they knew different). So they also had a car title ‘wrong’ and had trouble with the US mail on that too. US mail will not deliver mail with the right zip code but the wrong city name - even though it seems that is a common problem in this Helotes/San Antonio community.
Some may have good experiences with big city mail.
We hope to think carefully on the mail aspect to not have extra angst about it.
Of course SIL ‘blames’ the US postal service for his driver’s license and the car title issues.
I understand how USPS sets zip codes and then communities grow up and take over areas (like Helotes) and USPS doesn’t change their zip codes or how they decide to operate.
Thank you for sharing. Sincere condolences on the loss of your DH. Hugs, especially through the upcoming holidays and going through all the first-year special times.
So glad the financial aspects have been well laid out so you didn’t have an extra burden with confusion there.