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re: If you die tomorrow, does your significant other have good grasp on financials?
Posted on 5/28/26 at 4:48 pm to tigger4ever
Posted on 5/28/26 at 4:48 pm to tigger4ever
My wife is not interested either. We are in our mid 60's. I manage everything but the first of every month I run our balance sheet on paper and she looks at it so she knows where everything is. I also got one of those planning books and wrote down what she needs to know to access all accounts. She recently handled my FIL's estate so she is familiar with the process. I've tried to interest her in investing and financial management of our stuff but she just doesn't want to invest in learning it.
2
Posted on 5/28/26 at 5:04 pm to Everyday Is Saturday
My wife is incredibly smart but doesn’t want anything to do with our finances. Right before I retired she got worried and questioned how much I had saved up. She asked, “how much do we have, is it about $X?” She was low by a factor of five. LOL.
I also came to the realization that she wouldn’t be able to manage the financials and activities of my real estate LLC and my partners were probably incapable also, so I put all the properties up for sale. My goal is to simplify everything as much as I can. God willing we both live to 100, but we don’t get to decide those specifics.
I also came to the realization that she wouldn’t be able to manage the financials and activities of my real estate LLC and my partners were probably incapable also, so I put all the properties up for sale. My goal is to simplify everything as much as I can. God willing we both live to 100, but we don’t get to decide those specifics.
Posted on 5/28/26 at 6:27 pm to bovine1
Really interested in the putting stuff in a trust. What are your thoughts on it?
Posted on 5/28/26 at 7:05 pm to kaaj24
quote:come on , baw. No need to talk like that. Just get her on Ozempic.
I need to provide detail instructions for my wide.
Posted on 5/28/26 at 7:37 pm to bovine1
quote:
My wife is not interested either. We are in our mid 60's. I manage everything but the first of every month I run our balance sheet on paper and she looks at it so she knows where everything is. I also got one of those planning books and wrote down what she needs to know to access all accounts. She recently handled my FIL's estate so she is familiar with the process. I've tried to interest her in investing and financial management of our stuff but she just doesn't want to invest in learning it.
Sure seem to be a lot of wives who aren't interested in financial matters. We are in our early sixties and both have very substantial financial holdings. Being that she doesn't want to deal with financial holdings and my family has a very bad history of very early ALZ/dementia we offloaded her holdings to a financial adviser that has a CFA designation. He has been quite helpful although my wife quit sitting in on quarterly meetings as she was bored. She is going to need him in the future and he definitely doesn't churn investments to generate commission income for himself. Forgot to include I send him quarterly statements of my holdings for the meetings and he knows what's going on with my finances.
This post was edited on 5/28/26 at 7:40 pm
Posted on 5/28/26 at 9:02 pm to tirebiter
Yeah, mine is incredibly book smart and kind of frugal, but she’s not good with financial issues, but I would be leaving her many millions, cause that’s where I excel, so she really won’t have to be that good, lol. Her next husband will love me though
Posted on 5/28/26 at 9:56 pm to Everyday Is Saturday
Will
Trust
Established relationship with an attorney/firm who wrote it.
Financial institution/advisor where your account(s) are at and where the trust is held.
Attorney told me that I should never worry about forgetting to disclose every single thing every year, because he can find it within a few months. Probably not 100% true if you do shady stuff, but attorneys seem to find everything.
We are all set for tragedy.
Trust
Established relationship with an attorney/firm who wrote it.
Financial institution/advisor where your account(s) are at and where the trust is held.
Attorney told me that I should never worry about forgetting to disclose every single thing every year, because he can find it within a few months. Probably not 100% true if you do shady stuff, but attorneys seem to find everything.
We are all set for tragedy.
This post was edited on 5/28/26 at 9:57 pm
Posted on 5/29/26 at 1:20 am to Everyday Is Saturday
No. I’ve moved about 40% of my assets to a traditional financial firm, and have explained to them for now everything will be self managed, but if anything happens to me she’s to call them.
In the meantime I’m using a LLM to develop detailed procedures of how I want things handled if I’m not around. She’ll be able to hand them to the firm and my son can keep an eye on it for her.
In the meantime I’m using a LLM to develop detailed procedures of how I want things handled if I’m not around. She’ll be able to hand them to the firm and my son can keep an eye on it for her.
Posted on 5/29/26 at 10:53 am to TorchtheFlyingTiger
quote:Yes, a very good grasp.
If you die tomorrow, does your significant other have good grasp on financials?
We've worked that way for years.
Posted on 5/29/26 at 2:44 pm to RoyalWe
quote:
She has access to all accounts. They are in trusts to avoid probate.
I did this as well but everything is in the trust except the 401k's that would Tigger a tax. So my question is how did you put the 401k in the trust
Posted on 5/29/26 at 3:40 pm to CenlaLowell
Good question. I didn’t go into the details initially, but I’m happy to explain how we handled it.
We have a family trust for our after-tax assets. For retirement assets, we each also have separate trust planning in place. For now, though, we chose to name each other as the primary beneficiary on our retirement accounts, with the trust as the secondary beneficiary.
So if one of us dies, the surviving spouse receives the retirement assets directly. Then, after the second spouse dies, the trust is intended to receive the remaining retirement assets for the benefit of our children.
The weak spot is that the surviving spouse still has control over the beneficiary designations after the first spouse dies. In theory, the survivor could later change the beneficiaries and bypass the trust entirely. For example, if the surviving spouse remarried and the new spouse influenced them to change beneficiaries, assets that were originally intended for our children could end up going somewhere else.
That’s the tradeoff we accepted: simplicity and full spousal control first, with the trust as the backstop — but not an ironclad guarantee if the surviving spouse later changes course.
We have discussed that if either of us ever wanted to remarry, we would involve our attorney before making any beneficiary or estate-planning changes, so the original intent is preserved as much as possible. My main concern is not my wife personally; it’s the general risk that assets intended for our children could eventually be redirected to someone else’s family through remarriage, pressure, or poor planning. My wife understands that concern, and we’ve talked through it.
We have a family trust for our after-tax assets. For retirement assets, we each also have separate trust planning in place. For now, though, we chose to name each other as the primary beneficiary on our retirement accounts, with the trust as the secondary beneficiary.
So if one of us dies, the surviving spouse receives the retirement assets directly. Then, after the second spouse dies, the trust is intended to receive the remaining retirement assets for the benefit of our children.
The weak spot is that the surviving spouse still has control over the beneficiary designations after the first spouse dies. In theory, the survivor could later change the beneficiaries and bypass the trust entirely. For example, if the surviving spouse remarried and the new spouse influenced them to change beneficiaries, assets that were originally intended for our children could end up going somewhere else.
That’s the tradeoff we accepted: simplicity and full spousal control first, with the trust as the backstop — but not an ironclad guarantee if the surviving spouse later changes course.
We have discussed that if either of us ever wanted to remarry, we would involve our attorney before making any beneficiary or estate-planning changes, so the original intent is preserved as much as possible. My main concern is not my wife personally; it’s the general risk that assets intended for our children could eventually be redirected to someone else’s family through remarriage, pressure, or poor planning. My wife understands that concern, and we’ve talked through it.
Posted on 5/29/26 at 4:00 pm to CenlaLowell
quote:Not in ours. For flexibility, we have it passing directly to the spouse rather than to the trust. The surviving spouse rolls the inherited 401k into their own IRA, then renames the trust as beneficiary of that IRA. Assets from that point pass on to kids through the trust.
how did you put the 401k in the trust
Posted on 5/31/26 at 12:33 am to Everyday Is Saturday
quote:
retirement tax efficiency planning
I cannot overstate the importance of this…
Posted on 5/31/26 at 1:49 am to Spankum
quote:I get it, but it seems no matter what direction I turn, there are no easy answers. I would have had to be sensitive to this issue while I was building my retirement wealth -- and I wasn't. Roth wasn't a thing early in career and I made too much money to invest in a Roth IRA when it came to be. Finally my company offered a Roth 401K. If I could go back, I would have had more post-tax brokerage investments. I'm pretty much just screwed unless I inherit post-tax cash to pay to do Roth conversions, but even then I don't know if it will make sense to do it. I'll worry about that bridge when I get to it.
I cannot overstate the importance of this…
Posted on 5/31/26 at 7:57 am to RoyalWe
quote:
My main concern is not my wife personally; it’s the general risk that assets intended for our children could eventually be redirected to someone else’s family through remarriage, pressure, or poor planning
My mom’s dad married woman younger than my mom. Mom and siblings were cut out of that estate. What you described isn’t a fear I’m ready to discuss with my wife but I want to be sure the fruits of our labor go to our children and not to a gold digger.
Posted on 5/31/26 at 8:52 am to Larry Gooseman
quote:FYI, I’m fairly certain my lawyer could rewrite the retirement trust in a way that gives my wife lifetime benefit/control after my death, while still ensuring the remaining assets pass to my children after her death. In other words, the plan could probably be structured to close the loophole where the surviving spouse could later change beneficiaries and redirect the assets.
Mom and siblings were cut out of that estate.
One downside is that if the IRA is made payable to a trust instead of directly to my spouse, the tax treatment can be much less favorable. A direct spouse beneficiary usually has special options, including the ability to treat the IRA as their own. A trust may not get that treatment. Depending on how the trust is drafted, the IRA could be subject to the 10-year distribution rule, and if distributions are retained inside the trust, they may be taxed at compressed trust tax rates. So the trust can provide more control, but it can also create a worse tax result.
Posted on 5/31/26 at 9:06 am to Everyday Is Saturday
She sort of does. The good thing is i switched to in house about a decade ago and partner with a bunch of smart financial people. My wife knows some of them and my people know to make sure she and the kids are heading in the right direction. I worry about it because I am absolutely worth more dead than alive and she knows it as well .
.Posted on 5/31/26 at 9:12 am to Everyday Is Saturday
If I died my husband would be fine .. if he dies first, well I know who to go to and have “some” more than basic understanding of the investments.
My husband is a farmer .. one day years ago I realized that should he die prior to harvest and a crop was in the field .. what would I do. He told me all the farmers around here would do what was needed to get the crop finished. AlI need to know on the financial side of the farm is the bank he works with and the FSA office.
My husband is a farmer .. one day years ago I realized that should he die prior to harvest and a crop was in the field .. what would I do. He told me all the farmers around here would do what was needed to get the crop finished. AlI need to know on the financial side of the farm is the bank he works with and the FSA office.
Posted on 5/31/26 at 9:32 am to MSTiger33
quote:
I am absolutely worth more dead than alive and she knows it as well
The day before I retired, this was true for me.
Ended life insurance (no longer needed).
Then wife and I discussed the widow tax. All was right again in the universe. Kidding.
May you not become a 48-hours episode.
This post was edited on 5/31/26 at 9:33 am
Posted on 5/31/26 at 10:05 am to Everyday Is Saturday
My wife and I discuss it regularly. She has notes on who to contact if I die and what help they can provide, plus she has access to the password manager.
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