Arizona Family Court – Changes During the COVID-19 Pandemic

 

 

 

If you have a blended family and do not plan for what happens to your assets in the event of your incapacity or death, you are almost certainly guaranteeing hurt feelings, conflict, and maybe even a long, drawn out court battle.

 

So let’s start with clarity around what a blended family is and whether you have one. If you have stepchildren, or children from a prior marriage, or other people you consider “kin” who are not considered legal relatives in the eyes of the law, you’ve got a blended family.

 

Bottom line: if you have a blended family, you need an estate plan, and not just a will you created for yourself online, or a trust that isn’t specifically and intentionally designed to keep your family out of court and out of conflict. Period. End of story. Unless you are okay with setting your loved ones up for unnecessary heartache, confusion, and pain when something happens to you.

 

What Will the Law Do?

“Blended Families, once considered “non-traditional” families are swiftly becoming the norm. Currently 52% of married couples (or unmarried couples who live together) have a stepkin relationship of some kind, and 4 in 10 new marriages involve remarriage. So, clearly, this is no longer “non-traditional” but quite traditional, though our laws about what happens if you become incapacitated or die are still very much based on tradition.

 

Every state has different provisions for what happens when you become incapacitated or die, and the laws of California may not necessarily match your wishes.

 

For example, in California, all community property assets would go to your surviving spouse, and separate property assets would be distributed partially to a surviving spouse and partially to children, if living, in amounts depending on the number of surviving children.

 

This may not result in the outcome you want for your loved ones, especially if you have a blended family situation. If you have something different in mind as to how you would want things to go, there is good news. The state of California allows you to circumvent those laws, but only if you have an alternate plan in place BEFORE your incapacity or death.

 

Even within “traditional” families, I want to emphasize that having a full plan is the best way to provide for your loved ones. However, with “blended” families, carefully considered estate plans are often even more vital to avoid massive misunderstanding and conflict, and having your assets tied up in court instead of going to the people you want to receive them.

 

Disputes Between Spouse and Children from Previous Marriage

One of the most common problems that arises in a blended family is that the deceased’s children from a prior marriage and the surviving spouse end up in conflict. The courts are filled with these kinds of cases. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

 

When you’re considering all of this for the people you love, it’s important to have a trusted advisor who can help you look at the reality of what will happen if you become incapacitated or when you die. With the complexities of modern families, it’s far better to know and plan than to leave it up to the law or a court to decide. That way, not only do the people you love get the assets that you want them to receive, but you will also be saving them from years of potential legal conflict.

 

Dedicated to empowering your family, building your wealth and defining your legacy,

 

 

 

 

Q&A: Using a trust protector: Preservation | Family Wealth ...

Many people come to us curious (or confused) about trusts and taxes. So, today’s article is going to sort it out and clarify things for you.

 

There are two types of trusts, and each have different tax consequences.

 

Revocable trusts, which are the far more commonly used trusts, have no tax consequences whatsoever. A revocable trust has your social security number as it’s tax identifier, and is not a separate entity from you for tax purposes. It is a separate entity from you for purposes of probate, meaning if you become incapacitated or die your Trustee can take over without a court order, keeping your family out of court. But, until your death, it’s treated as invisible from a tax perspective. At the time of your death, if your revocable trust provides for the creation of irrevocable trusts, then the tax implications will shift.

 

When you have an irrevocable trust, either created during life, at death through a revocable living trust, or through a will that creates a trust, that trust has its own EIN, or employer identification number (also called a TIN or taxpayer identification number). Generally, it pays income taxes on income earned by the trust, as if it’s a separate tax paying entity.

Trust income is taxed at the highest tax bracket applicable to individuals as soon as there is over $12,950 of income, so in some cases a trust will be drafted to provide that the tax consequences pass through to the beneficiary and are taxed at his or her rates. We will often do this when creating a Lifetime Asset Protection Trust for a beneficiary, so that the trust can provide the benefits of credit protection from lawsuits, divorce, or even bankruptcy, but not have the negative tax consequence of the highest tax rates on very little income.

 

Of course, if you have a trust, and you want us to review it for the income tax consequences to your loved ones after your death, please contact us.

 

Now, let’s talk about estate taxes. Currently, if you die with assets over $11.58M, then your estate will be subject to estate tax on all amounts over that $11.58M at the rate of 40%. That’s right, 40% of your taxable state will go to the government. You can mitigate these taxes, or even eliminate them by using various planning methods, most of which are fairly complex, but well worth it if you can save your family that 40% in taxes.

 

If you are trying to figure out whether an irrevocable trust, or a revocable trust or even a Lifetime Asset Protection Trust is best for you and your beneficiaries, you’ll need to weigh that decision by looking at your financial assets, personal situation, and family goals so you can make the right choice for yourself and the people you love. If you’d like help with that analysis, please give us a call.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DIY Marketing for the Solo Entrepreneur | My Business Coach

 

There’s nothing like a major change in the economic climate to make you rethink your day job. “Business as usual” currently means a large element of uncertainty about what the future holds for your working life. Whether you’ve lost your job, had your hours cut, or have seen these things happen to people you know, your feeling of security has likely taken a hit. And, maybe that can be a good thing – something that calls you to action.

 

Last week [ https://www.calilaw.com/using-passive-income-to-escape-the-rat-race/], I talked about how now is the perfect time for you to look at  all the resources available to you, and to consider what you can do to serve the world with under-utilized gifts, skills, and talents. By doing this, you have the potential to take full control over your income, and your family’s long-term security.

 

You also may have noticed a growing trend that existed even before the coronavirus pandemic hit—more and more people are opting out of the traditional 9 to 5 and becoming “solopreneurs,” either by becoming a freelancer or starting a business.

 

As a freelancer, you would draw on the talents you’ve used as an employee, or even other skills you’ve developed outside the scope of your day job, to help support other people’s businesses. And, once you see it going well, you may decide to start a business of your own.

 

There are unlimited possibilities, and the way we live and work in today’s world means there’s never been a better time to get started. Here’s why.

 

We Have the Technology

For a solopreneur, working from home is the norm, and software companies are only helping that trend along. New tech tools exist that make it easier than ever for people to use their own computers for what would normally be done in an office environment. A lot of these tools have free options, and you can scale up your technology according to how much your business is growing.

 

Plus, as we become more connected digitally, it’s quicker and easier to coordinate teams online. That means you can coordinate with your clients and contractors to have meetings, share documents, and pay and get paid more easily.

 

 

 

Be True to Yourself

There is absolutely nothing wrong with being an employee if your role meets your needs personally, professionally, and financially. And many people feel more comfortable as part of a team rather than as the leader of the team.

 

But for others, working for themselves means they have the freedom to choose who to work with and what values they choose to uphold. Which role fits you the best?

 

Live the Life You Want

Another reason to be your own boss is to increase your flexibility. When you manage your own schedule, you don’t need someone else’s permission to go pick up your kids from school, workout in the middle of the day, or work on a project in the evening rather than the middle of the afternoon.

 

In the same way that more technical tools are emerging to meet the new economy, so are new modes of health care. Medical, dental, and other individualized and family plans just for gig workers are becoming common. Whereas it used to be very expensive and difficult for independent contractors to get affordable insurance, the barriers are starting to lower.

 

Scale Your Income

On one hand, the idea of not having a steady paycheck could be nerve-wracking. But on the other, it could open doors to greater wealth and full control, when you’ve made the transition from employee to freelancer or even business owner, wisely. When you work for yourself, you are no longer limited to earning the amount of money that your company says you should. You can raise your rates as your value increases in the marketplace. You can work more hours, or less. You can charge fees that make sense to you and that your best clients will be happy to pay.

 

A steady job is not necessarily a sure thing. If you’re in a place of transition with your life and career, it could be the right time to take the leap and begin working for yourself, and then even becoming the boss you always wish you had.

 

Dedicated to empowering your family, building your wealth and defining your legacy,

 

 

4 passive income ideas for everyone | SaveDelete

Like many people, you may have been raised to think the safest way to live in the working world is to have a stable career and steady paycheck. This financial crisis is challenging that framework for many people. Even if you had a stable job, and even if you still have one, by now we’ve all seen how easy it is for that security to disappear overnight.

 

A sad, yet common, attitude is for us to see money as a scarce resource, and income as something that’s outside of our control. Thinking or talking about money can trigger feelings of guilt and shame in many people.

 

It doesn’t have to be that way. The truth is, money is a tool that you can access and multiply, independent of anyone else’s permission. And even if you do have anxieties that keep you from seeing how money can be a positive part of your life, that can change.

 

Consider this: what if you weren’t relying on a check from your boss (or the unemployment office, as the case may be)?

 

If you have a paycheck, you are converting energy into income – think of this as active income. Active income is not sustainable because at some point you will become unable to work or you may lose your job.

 

If you have something of value which earns income all on its own, independently from you, you are converting assets into income – think of this as passive income. And passive income is your ticket out of the rat race.

 

Are you working for your money or is your money working for you?  If you don’t already have an emergency fund equal to 3-6 months of expenses, start there. Then pay off your debts (at least your consumer debts – credit cards, car loans, student loans, etc). If you own a home, keeping your mortgage is fine. Otherwise, get out of debt and stay out of debt.

 

Once you’re out of debt, you’ll be in control of the game and ready to put your energy into building up your assets. The more energy you invest, and the smarter you invest it, the faster you’ll build assets.

 

Here are three proven ways to turn your energy into assets:

 

  1. Work, work, work. Work as much as you can during your day job. Develop a side hustle. Use the money you make from your energy to pay off your debts (debts are keeping you down and beholden to other’s dreams). Once your debts are gone, put money aside and build up your nest egg so you can invest in your legacy.
  2. Write a book. If you have something of value to share with the world, put it in a book. It’s easier to publish a book now than ever. While it does take a lot of energy to write and publish a successful book, the energy you expend results in more than just a one-time payoff. The asset created (your book) can provide an awesome stream of passive income. And if you can do it once, you can do it multiple times.
  3. Start a business. Starting and building a business takes an enormous amount of energy. Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs never get past the start-up phase which means they’ve done little more than create an energy-sucking job for themselves. And while there are certainly worse things than working for yourself, if you can go beyond that and create an actual business, you’ll have a valuable asset. Not only will your business provide passive income for you, it will serve more people than it could if it is reliant on you. Once your business outgrows you, it serves you and others so much better.

 

Once you have assets to invest, here are three proven ways to turn those assets into passive income generating machines:

 

  1. Buy a business. You can skip the start-up phase and go right into running a business. What that really means, is that the business runs with or without you. You’ll want processes and procedures in place to run the business and the right people in place to run the processes and procedures. Once a business can function independently of its owner, it begins providing passive income serving its customers more deeply.
  2. Invest in the market. This is the old compound return game and it works! For example, a 25-year-old who invests just $100 per month in the market and receives an average 8% gain per year would grow their nest egg to over $300,000 by the time they’re 65. That equates to a six-fold gain on the $48,000 they would have invested. And if they can invest $300 a month, their nest egg would grow to nearly $1 million by retirement.
  3. Invest in income properties. This is my preferred method of generating passive income. It’s completely changed the trajectory of my family’s financial future and it can do it for yours, too. For example, let’s say you buy a half-million-dollar rental property with $100,000 down (financing the rest). If you’ve bought in the right area it won’t take long for that property to appreciate by the $100,000 you’ve got invested. And during that time, you’re colleting rent, too. At just $10,000 per year in cashflow (after your mortgage payment and expenses), you’ve made back your $100,000 in 10 years. If you manage the property yourself, it’s not truly passive income, but it can sure add up quick. And you can roll those profits into a management service or more properties.

 

Yes, I’m an estate planner. But even more than that, I’m a legacy builder, both for myself and for my clients. I firmly believe we all each in control of determining the legacy we’ll leave. All it takes is putting a plan in place and moving forward with intention.

 

 

Dedicated to empowering your family, building your wealth and defining your legacy,

 

With the risks still posed by COVID-19, we all need to face the possibility that we could get sick, even if we take great care of ourselves through good nutrition, sleep, and exercise. And even if you don’t need to be hospitalized, if you do experience symptoms and test positive, you might have to stay quarantined for enough time that you’d lose income. These risks highlight the need for everyone, regardless of their age or current state of health, to have some form of disability insurance coverage.

You might think you don’t need disability insurance, especially if you’re young and in good health. Hopefully, you’re right. Unfortunately, though, becoming disabled can happen to anyone at any time. This isn’t specific to coronavirus either; it has always been true.

The sad fact is that, according to the US government’s statistics, one in four 20-year-olds become disabled before reaching retirement age. That makes it even more important that you consider how to protect yourself with insurance.

And this is especially important: you must get the actual insurance before something happens. If you’re already sick, you can’t buy disability insurance to make up for lost income.

So now is the time to prepare. Here’s some information to get you started.

What Qualifies You for Benefits (And What Doesn’t)
Let’s get clear on one thing that applies to the coronavirus pandemic: only medical quarantine qualifies you for disability benefits. That means only medical self-quarantine related to COVID-19, which is verified by a doctor, will qualify you. Socially quarantining to decrease your chance of contracting the virus in the first place won’t qualify you for your disability insurance benefits. Disability insurance also won’t cover you if you lose income or health insurance because your employer has closed or laid you off.

Also, disability insurance is not the same as health insurance. Though your failed health is the reason you’d get access to your disability insurance in the first place, disability insurance will not cover your medical bills. Disability benefits are basically to help you pay housing and food costs. But in a time when you’re dealing with disability, it’s good to have those bills covered while you are focused on healing and self-care.

There are two different types of disability insurance and knowing the difference will help you save a lot of time.

Short-Term Disability Insurance
Short-term disability insurance normally lasts around 3–6 months, sometimes up to a year or two. It covers about 60–70% of whatever your salary is. The premiums you pay are often higher than long term coverage, ranging from 1–3% of your annual income. So for someone making $50k a year, it would range between $60 to $125 every month. The percentage depends on what kind of health risks the insurance company determines you have. If you smoke, for instance, the premium will probably be higher, just like with many health insurance policies. If you have a risky job, such as dealing with heavy machinery, premiums will likely be higher as well. A major upside, though, is that payouts usually happen within two weeks, which can be a huge relief in an emergency.

Financial expert Dave Ramsey points out that, because of the higher premiums and shorter span of coverage time, you might want to consider building up a solid emergency fund with 3–6 months of expenses instead. You can consider that personal short-term disability coverage that you don’t have to pay premiums on. But if you’re living paycheck-to-paycheck and can’t foresee saving that much (like 80% of American workers, according to CNBC), and your employer doesn’t offer short-term disability insurance, it is something you may want to consider buying yourself.

Long-Term Disability Insurance
This is the type of insurance that is most important to get, no matter what. This is the type that will last through a long recovery or treatment period. Look for a “non-cancellable insurance policy”, which will keep the insurance company from being able to cancel your policy if you have any health changes.

Long-term disability insurance may pay you benefits for a few years or until your disability ends. Most policies cover 40–60% of your salary, but ones that pay up to 70% do exist, and you should try to find one. These policies also cost 1–3% of your yearly income, but they tend to be on the lower side than short-term. A major difference between the two forms of insurance is that it can take up to 6 months to see a payout. This means that it’s not the best option for covering costs if you have to go into medical quarantine for COVID-19.

We recommend that, even if you decide to pass on short-term disability in favor of emergency fund savings (or if your employee already covers it), you should definitely consider a long-term policy to protect your earnings. Remember, though, it will only pay a percentage of the income you’d be taking in otherwise. Make sure you also have health insurance and as much savings as you can get to protect yourself as well.

Dedicated to empowering your family, building your wealth and defining your legacy,

The pandemic is causing us to consider a lot of things that we may not have before, even if maybe we should have.

It brings to mind something a colleague of mine shared recently. One weekend last year, she left her small children with a babysitter and headed out to enjoy dinner at a restaurant with her husband. But as she sat there, a thought crept into her head and wouldn’t leave.

What would happen to her kids, she thought, if she and her husband got into a car accident on the way home?

And even though my colleague is a lawyer herself, and she had a will at home naming guardians for her kids, she didn’t have a definite and clear answer that provided the comfort she wanted. Her will was in a vault, and her named legal guardians lived on the other side of the country.  It was that thought that spurred her to take action.

Chances of COVID-19 Infection in the Family
If you are young and healthy, it might be hard to imagine that you won’t be there to care for your kids. But if the COVID-19 pandemic is showing us anything, it’s that even a healthy person can contract a serious illness that leaves them incapacitated and unable to care for their children.

If there is more than one adult in the house, that may alleviate some of your worry. While naming legal guardians for your kids usually feels especially urgent for a single parent, parents with partners aren’t off the hook. You should take precautions too, especially since there are high infection rates among people who live in the same household.

A professor at the University of Florida has found a more than 19% chance that someone else in the household of a person infected with COVID-19 will also contract the disease. Researchers estimate the average incubation time is about four days and could be infectious for up to two weeks. That means it’s not outside the realm of possibility that you and your partner could both contract the illness, possibly at the same time.

An Easy Way to Find Guardians for Your Children
Even if you never contract COVID-19, you are of course still human, and vulnerable to accidents and other dangers that could separate you from your kids—either temporarily or permanently.

If you haven’t already done so, there’s no better time to decide who would care for your children in the immediate term if something happens to you, even on a short-term basis. 

And, if you are having a difficult time deciding who to name as legal guardians for your children, we can even help you make the right decisions.

Officially answering the question of who will care for your kids if you can’t—even for a short time—is one of the best things you can do right now. It is a real, concrete way you can protect your kids during this scary time.

If you need help with the process, please do give us a call and we’ll be glad to walk you through it.

Dedicated to empowering your family, building your wealth and defining your legacy,

If you’re a parent, you may feel even more guilty than usual.  If so, you are not alone. Currently, the burden is on you to both carry on with your work and manage your child’s full-time care and education. Two full-time jobs that you’re trying to do by yourself, likely without teachers or care providers to help you.

If you are like most parents, you were probably struggling with guilt even before the virus. You may not always make it to every award ceremony or recital, and you might not have as much time to play with your kids or help them with their homework as you’d like. Those feelings of guilt may now be compounded by all the additional responsibilities you’ve taken on in a short space of time.

Take a deep breath and let yourself off the hook. I’m sure you are doing the best you can, and your kids see it, and know it too, even when they are being ungrateful pains in the rear.

Keep reading for a few ideas about how to shift the guilt.

Name Legal Guardians
Let’s start with one thing that is fully within your control, can help to alleviate feelings that you are not doing enough, and that you can get handled easily — name legal guardians for your kids, so only the people you choose will take care of them if anything happens to you.

Legally documenting your choices for who you want to take care of your kids if you can’t is a great first step to getting legal planning in place for the people you love. (Yes, I said “choices” because you want to name at least two alternates after your first choice.) And doing so can provide you with a lot of relief, if you have not yet taken care of this for your kids.

Quality Time Doing…Nothing
While you’re probably already spending a significant amount of time with your kids, you may be too tired or overwhelmed to plan big activities, or the things you used to do for “quality time” may not be available.

So, what’s a parent to do?

Nothing.

Yes, you read that right, nothing.

If you can take 15 minutes or so out of your day and do nothing with your child, it could be the best 15 minutes you spend with them, and with yourself, all day.

It’s truly one of the best gifts you can give to your kids, and the best part is you don’t have to do anything. Mostly, our kids really just want to know we are there, and will give them our full attention, without screens, even if they aren’t paying attention to us.

Talk About It
If you’re on an emotional roller-coaster right now, your kids are probably having some similar struggles. This is an opportunity to connect with them, and a good time to show them a little vulnerability of your own. Remember how important sharing words of love and comfort can be, both to them and to you.

If you have been feeling alone and need support, you can also reach outside of your family for help. Sometimes venting to your friends is enough, and chances are they’ll be able to relate! But if you are not getting the support you need, there are professionals who will communicate via phone and even text message. You can always reach out to us for a referral but you can also find local therapists and phone, video, and online therapists through Psychology Today’s directory.

The point is, you are NOT alone, and you don’t have to feel alone. There are resources available and if we can be of support to you in any way, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Dedicated to empowering your family, building your wealth and defining your legacy,

Wills, trusts, health care directives, powers of attorney, and legal guardian nominations are on many of our hearts and minds as COVID-19 compels us to face our own fragility and mortality.

It’s not as if we didn’t already know we are all mortal, but within our current reality, that mortality becomes all the more real. And one way to feel some control over what’s happening out there is to make sure we all have our legal affairs in order at home. That way, if something does happen to us, our families aren’t left with a big legal mess to clean up while they are grieving.

If you are trying to get your financial house in order right now, you may be just getting some basic documents in place. You may even be doing it yourself.

If that’s the case, it’s very important for you to know that the cost of a failed plan can be very high for the people you love. Plus, if your documents are not properly signed, they will not work—period. End of story. And if your documents don’t work, your family could be stuck in court or conflict, which is probably the exact thing you want to avoid by handling your estate planning now.

There are many ways plans fail, but one of the worst ways we see is when someone starts a plan and doesn’t get it signed properly. You do not want this to happen to your family, trust me. If you care enough about estate planning, you will want to make sure your plan will work when your family needs it.

That means you need to make sure your legal documents are actually signed and signed in the right way. Some legal documents require two witnesses, and some require notarization; however, in today’s social-distancing reality, these signatures could be difficult to come by. Some states have allowed remote notarization, California for some reason, has not.

While we understand you likely have a desire to get documents in place now, we also believe there is going to be a significant increase in conflict and litigation because of DIY estate planning documents for the future. Don’t let that happen to the people you love.

Dedicated to empowering your family, building your wealth and defining your legacy,

It’s an unfortunate fact that predators emerge during times of crisis to take advantage of people. That means the COVID-19 pandemic can leave your elderly parents vulnerable in more ways than one. But even when things go back to normal, this chronic problem of financial exploitation will still be a risk.

We see it happen far too often. Maybe your parents live several hours away, or in another state or country, and someone in their community gets close to them. Or maybe they have a close relationship with a financial advisor who isn’t really looking out for their best interests. This person could even be another family member, friend, business partner, hired caregiver, professional advisor, or just a casual acquaintance.

Sometimes, when bad actors become involved with your parents’ lives and assets, it can lead not only to a loss of money, but even a loss of personal freedom. One of the worst cases of this I’ve heard of is the case of Milo, a retired veteran living in Arizona, and his son Greg, who lives in California. It all started when Milo asked Greg to help him protect his small amount of money from a family member who was “borrowing” it freely. All Milo had was a savings of $140,000 and payments of $3,700 per month from social security, a pension, and veteran’s benefits.

To help his father out, Greg applied for guardianship of Milo’s money, and the court granted it. But at the same time, without notifying Greg, the court appointed a professional financial Conservator that neither Milo nor Greg knew. The Conservator quickly set to draining Milo’s small savings, with the court barring Greg from filing any more motions.

The situation escalated even further when the Conservator decided to move Milo from his assisted living facility to a cheap lock-down facility where he wouldn’t even have access to the outdoors. This would, of course, free up more money for the Conservator to access. Before this could happen, though, Greg hurried to pick his father up and bring him back to California with him.

Now, the two are essentially on-the-run from authorities, who are trying to bring Milo back to Arizona and under the control of the Conservator. Milo and Greg are out of funds and are now trying to raise capital to mount a legal battle and free Milo from this terrible situation.

The scariest part is that Milo and Greg had all the proper legal documents in place. Sometimes, though, that is not enough to protect your parents from being taken advantage of—even to this extreme. Especially in a time of stress and confusion like the COVID-19 pandemic we are currently living in, it is vital to be vigilant and get the best possible counsel to avoid something like this happening.

This isn’t meant to make you paranoid or distrustful of the people around you, or of how your parents handle their own lives. Well, maybe it is a little. Mostly, though, it’s a call to encourage you and your family to be aware, educated, and empowered in knowing what risks are possible for your parents, and for your future inheritance.

Look out for the following “red flag” actions from influencers:

  1. Preventing important communication between family members;
  2. Withholding documents from other family members;
  3. Encouraging financial gifts or economic benefits to recently met connections (usually in the same network as your parents’ “new friend”);
  4. Naming recently met connections as attorney-in-fact (under a financial power of attorney), or as a joint owner on financial accounts, real estate, and other assets;
  5. Giving financial advice that may not be in your or your parents’ best interests, but rather in the interests of the advisor.

We recommend you start talking with your elderly parents now about how they want their affairs to be handled. Also, you should immediately investigate any situation where you suspect your loved ones are being taken advantage of. There have been too many cases of financial abuse or inappropriate influence where family members are too late to stop the bad actor.

Ideally, you’ll know the value of your parents’ tangible assets (i.e., home, car, business, stocks) and intangible assets (i.e., generational stories, personal relationships, theological legacies). Additionally, you should be working with an advisor to help you understand how family dynamics and the law will impact you, and everything that matters to you and your parents when they’re gone.

Dedicated to empowering your family, building your wealth and defining your legacy,

If you or your parents have a retirement account, (or any investment accounts for that matter) now is a perfect time to get connected to how those accounts are invested. While you may have outsourced all of this to a broker, which is fine, I don’t believe you should ever allow your investments to be made without your clear understanding of exactly what you are investing in as well as how and whether your investments align with your plans for the future.  

Some brokers and advisors believe this, too. Unfortunately, because it takes more time to ensure you understand your investments, many brokers and advisors would rather keep you in the dark. Now is not the time (or ever, really) for you to be okay with being in the dark about your investments.

Educate Yourself
If you or your parents have a retirement account, and you are not intimately connected to how those assets are being invested, it’s time to get more involved.

Log in to your retirement account or pull your last statement and look. Many brokerages select investment funds for their clients’ portfolios based on rates of growth. They’ll offer investment options based on a few tiers of growth and risk, and very often you have no idea what your assets are actually invested in.

Labels like “slow-growth” or “conservative” or “high-growth” or “income” aren’t enough to tell you exactly where your money is invested. So, what you want to do now is look at your statement, which should contain the names of the funds chosen for you, and you can go from there to do your research. Look up each of the funds on sites like Yahoo Finance to see what you are investing in, and whether you understand these companies, believe in their future growth, and want to stay invested there.

Go through this process with your parents, too. The money they have invested in the stock market is part of your overall family wealth. If it’s not there to support them through their senior years, that financial responsibility will eventually fall to you. Having these conversations with them now can be difficult, but it’s important.

If you have a broker you work with, call them now, and ask to get on a video conference. Then, have them help you review each investment, why it’s been chosen, and whether there may be better or other options for you or your parents.

Here’s the key: make sure you understand it, and don’t hang up the phone until you do. If your broker is using words you don’t understand, keep asking questions until you do understand. If you need a referral to an advisor give us a call.

With everything that is happening in the world—and with the volatility of the stock market and our current reality —knowing your options is vital to preserving the full legacy you and your parents have worked hard to build.

Dedicated to empowering your family, building your wealth and defining your legacy,