re: If you die tomorrow, does your significant other have good grasp on financials?

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I would leave her unfettered access to my accounts.

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This is the problem with sharing phone PINs and passwords. The concept of non-repudiation (I can prove it was you because your password was used from your home IP address to clean out that retirement account) evaporates when you share your individual logins. Create separate logins for SO's, and make them part of the "household" or similar, but give them zero ability to impersonate you in any way.

Half of this board is full of dudes that swear their significant other is honest and wouldn't steal just because they don't have tattoos.

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lot of her adult kid’s bills and spends the rest as quickly as she can

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shite, I identified my GF's 17 year old child as a potential failure to launch issue that could bite me/us in five years. Your situation sounds like you have the potential to get sued for common law marriage kind of a mess.

Timely thread. I was speaking with my wife recently on this.

She knows our finances quite well but she needs better access to some logins. She would have very little visibility to life insurance contacts, for example.

Shared note in our Apple accounts called “If I die.” Gives her step by step instructions on that to do, who to call, etc.

Without that, she’d end up homeless.

My wife is extremely engaged in our financial planning with me and is frugal. She will have no problem financially.

Good thread.

I put a lot of effort into this, but still not sure how much my wife understands. She is smart, but not interested in the investment side. She handles all our day to day expenses type stuff.

Below is how I have attempted to deal with it. I am open to suggestions on improving.

We have a financial statement doc that our banks require for our real estate investing. We get loans frequently to buy real estate and build spec houses. The banks require it annually to determine our borrowing power. This lists all our assets by category. Liquid assets, retirement accounts, taxable accounts, and physical assets. I maintain it regularly. It is an excel doc that she can find. She is an excel guru, and knows how to use it. We keep a printed copy with our will documents. We have 2 beneficiaries and have emailed them the details and they know where our will documents are. We also have a copy of our docs in a bank safety deposit box. The lock box version is not always up to date, but could serve as a reminder that the doc exists.

We keep a password sheet on a thumb drive with a 2nd thumb drive in our bank lock box. A paper copy is kept and is what we use to look up passwords. I have been slow to trust password managers. Updates to passwords are done on the paper copy. The thumb drive is updated occasionally, and removed from computer otherwise.

I created a word doc the explains my approach to finances and investing. It has been updated several times over the years. I created it for her, but shared it with our kids and some of our grandkids. We occasionally invest some money for each kid and grandkid. I require that they review the doc with me when we add to their account. I split the investment between the s&p500 and an individual stock. I engage them in the conversation of how to split the money and which individual stock to buy. My wife hears this conversation repeatedly.

I made my money thru the stock market. Then stared using real estate as a diversification. We started with rentals and moved into new construction, mostly in the form of residential spec houses. I created a doc explaining the processes around this activity and shared it with my wife and kids. Some of our kids are now real estate investors; the ones that try to be financially mature.

My wife and I discuss all of this regularly. It is hard for her to really understand the details in the way I hope for because she doesn't actively engage in any of the activities and doesn't want to be more engaged. This thread caused me to ask her a few questions regarding all of this. She didn't answer the questions as well as I hoped for. So we are still a work in progress. Lol.