Plan for if the "money partner" dies first?

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qwerty3656

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I handle all the investments and don't use a financial advisor. In addition to investments I am optimizing taxes, healthcare, social security, estate planning, existing debt, etc.

My wife has zero interest in any of this. If I die first, I'm thinking maybe we need something like a springing financial advisor. Or maybe it's just a well written plan (what to do if qwerty dies...).

Do other people have things like this in place?
 
No, but I'm all ears.
 
I'm in a similar situation but recently have had some serious health scares. DW has now demanded that she become involved and better understand how it all works.

I've also written everything out on the mechanics of it all. She's even recently started taking over paying the bills!!

None of it is extremely complicated and I've also written a plan on how to simplify some of the slightly more involved aspects.

And our accountant handles the broader picture.
 
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We use a CPA for our taxes who is a friend of ours.


A year or two ago, we had a few meetings with a CFP who happens to be my wife's cousin just to review our situation and get his input on anything we might not have thought of. He ran some projections for us including order of withdraw from the portfolio and when to take SS, that sort of thing.


If I die, I know that my wife has those two people to turn to who are already well-acquainted with our situation, lifestyle, risk tolerance, and investment mindset. I feel comfortable knowing that she'd have two advisors who we have both trusted.
 
My father died over 40 years ago of cancer, so he had several months to figure this out. He bought one of those little journal books with blank pages, and wrote down how to do everything he normally did around the house, how to handle the investments, and who my Mom should ask if she had questions or needed assistance. Mom studied it carefully and said it was very helpful. She gradually got help with some of these tasks but this got her through the first two or three years.
 
 
Similar situation. Here’s what we’ve done:
(1) Taxes - we hire a CPA we both know to do them for us
(2) Retirement Financial Plan - I wrote our plan for how to invest during retirement and how we pay for retirement. I update it yearly and review it with her.
(3) Finances - simplified all finances into one investment company plus one bank. Insisted Vanguard provide a Flagship rep who I’ve introduced to my wife. She knows she can let VG manage our investment account if needed. However, I review our investments with her quarterly and have had her execute online some of the few buy/sells we’ve done. Shes pretty comfortable she can manage this if I pass.
(4) Monthly household expenses - she’s done this before and would be ok doing them if I pass.
(5) Estate book - I also put together a notebook of the things an executor may need if I or both of us pass. Lists investment accounts, bank account, bills to be paid, location of deeds, contacts (ex: lawyer and cpa), wills, etc,etc…
Good to be thinking about this stuff when we are still healthy and under no immediate pressures.
 
Whisper66 said:
simplified all finances into one investment company plus one bank.
Click to expand...
This is a big one. We haven't gotten it quite that simple yet but over the past few years, I have consolidated quite a bit and eliminated multiple institutions, bringing as much as I could into Vanguard which now holds over 2/3 of our portfolio. Once I fully retire, I'll roll over my 401k so that will be there as well.


If nothing else, she could always reach out to them and connect with one of their advisors if she has questions or needs help she can't get elsewhere.
 
Yes, I do the money
1) Roth convert her 403b/401k as much as possible in the next 7 years
2) simplify her Roth investments to a single investment company.
3)My pension will be with 100% survivor benefit.
4) I take SS at 70 to maximize survivor benefit.
 
W2R said:
My father died over 40 years ago of cancer, so he had several months to figure this out. He bought one of those little journal books with blank pages, and wrote down how to do everything he normally did around the house, how to handle the investments, and who my Mom should ask if she had questions or needed assistance. Mom studied it carefully and said it was very helpful. She gradually got help with some of these tasks but this got her through the first two or three years.
Click to expand...

I think that in addition to finances, there's a thousand little things "around the house" that are equally important.

How the fuse box works, how to run the sprinkler system, what to do when the garage door won't close, winterizing the outside faucets, rebooting the routers, changing the timers....a hundred little things I call my "magic tricks" that keep a household running without having to call a handyman each time.
 
marko said:
I think that in addition to finances, there's a thousand little things "around the house" that are equally important.

How the fuse box works, how to run the sprinkler system, what to do when the garage door won't close, winterizing the outside faucets, rebooting the routers, changing the timers....a hundred little things I call my "magic tricks" that keep a household running without having to call a handyman each time.
Click to expand...


Marko, thank you for giving me a light bulb moment. I just turned 85, and DW will be 80 late this year.
We had been living in a manufactured home in a +55 MHP, and in a real BTD we are now in a brand new apartment at the beach.
In the MHP, I was taking care of the outside and whatever maintenance was needed inside. Now I do not have to worry.
We have an estate planning binder prepared by a lawyer that has POA's for both of us along with pour over wills.
In the sleeve in front of the binder is a list of all accounts, a list of our passwords, and the name, address, and phone number of all out financial institutions.
 
marko said:
I think that in addition to finances, there's a thousand little things "around the house" that are equally important.

How the fuse box works, how to run the sprinkler system, what to do when the garage door won't close, winterizing the outside faucets, rebooting the routers, changing the timers....a hundred little things I call my "magic tricks" that keep a household running without having to call a handyman each time.
Click to expand...

We created what we call our "End of Life Binder". It lists all of our assets, routine bills, insurance policies, financial accounts, doctors, and final wishes. We have also started to include instructions for items like the ones marko has listed as we think of them.

It will help my wife if I die first, and it will help whoever cleans up the mess if we both die at the same time.
 
I was thinking about this a couple of weeks ago (including the sprinkler system a la Marko).

DW has her IRA with an FA. I manage half of mine (tIRA and Roth) and put the other half (tIRA) with DW's FA to appease her. I also manage taxable investments that DW knows about yet has little interest in.

I'm thinking about putting everything with DW's FA just to simplify matters.
 
I created a Dead Book on the computer years ago and keep adding to it. After finding a ring notebook my Mother stuffed everything she thought was important that made settling her estate easier, I started one of those including the latest printout of the Dead Book. I print out my Password file for all my accounts and put it in the safe at least once a year and my wife has passwords to important things in her passed safe on her computer along with the combination to the safe.

With some of the comments I may add a few more items to the Dead Book. I do need to cover electronic bill paying with her so she has at least done it. One of the thing in the Dead Book is the number to convert our investments to an advisor managed if she needs to but explain why it is setup the way it is and suggest to do nothing to it for at least 6 months then decide if it is necessary to make it actively managed. Everything is setup for joint ownership or passed to the survivor. She has always said she would go first so she didn't need to learn all of my side but I'm the one that has had health problems lately.
 
Same boat. So far I've showed her where to find the passwords and accounts. Went through taxes together this year.

I like the binder idea.
 
marko said:
I think that in addition to finances, there's a thousand little things "around the house" that are equally important.

How the fuse box works, how to run the sprinkler system, what to do when the garage door won't close, winterizing the outside faucets, rebooting the routers, changing the timers....a hundred little things I call my "magic tricks" that keep a household running without having to call a handyman each time.
Click to expand...

Exactly! He wrote down how to do all those things. There were so many things that he always did and she had never had any reason to try doing them. Then during the few months he had left, Mom read what he had written about how to do these things and learned to do most of them. He was an excellent writer so his instructions were pretty clear, but she was able to further clarify a few things in discussions with him while he was still alive, and she did many of them at least once before he died. I know this all sounds heartless and cold, but it was quite the opposite.

He always did the taxes too, and they were very complicated so I'm pretty sure she couldn't figure out how how he did them. But, my two brothers were both CPA's so one or the other would fly out there to help her with taxes.
 
We have vastly simplified our holdings. Either of us is capable of handling - actually, there isn't much "handling" required.

I do the taxes but I have already identified a local firm to turn it over if I am no longer capable.
 
For bills, we sit together monthly and DW goes through the payment process. It takes much much longer than if I just did them, but it is worth reinforcing to her what has to be paid and how. I also maintain a spreadsheet for her for all of our bills, showing which monthly bey must be paid in and the due date within the month.

For finances, she has access to all accounts. I make sure she logs on quarterly to each one.I am simplifying our financial life, we are down to 3 firms for investments and 4 banks. The investments are simplified so that she does not have to do anything, and can just "let things ride". There will be enough cash to make it unnecessary to touch investments. I am still educating her on the RMD concept and what to do if I am not around when those have to be taken.I also maintain for her a document showing the transfer linkages between the accounts.

She has access to my desktop and knows where things such as the password database app is located, and has access to all of my email accounts.

We have also (though 90% of it is my input) created a detailed "estate" document for our children, but she says she also finds it helpful for herself. It includes the financial information above, as well as key information about our house from a homeowners perspective. I try to update it several times a year.

Taxes might be the biggest challenge. I need to have her walk through our tax software. Fortunately we do not have a complex tax return, but math is a challenge for her. This is an area she might have to get help in. Two of our kids are good in doing taxes, one of whom owns a business, so they will be available to help her.

I am more concerned about certain of her relatives and "friends" who may show up and try to tug on her generosity. There are at least 2 who are being held at bay because they know I do not stand for things like that - but if I am gone, I am sure they will try to guilt her into helping them out. She knows enough not to let anyone move into the house, but there will be pressure for that as well as finances that I can only warn her about so much.
 
Very good topic BTW

Some of you may also want to have a look at Fidsafe as a backup to paper folders.

Fidsafe by Fidelity is a free service that offers 5GB of storage for your digital documents. You can create trusted contacts who will have access to your documents in one place. The service also has a FAQ that explains how it works, along with checklists of what documents you should consider storing.

https://www.fidsafe.com/

There is a FAQ that explains how this works, along with checklists of what documents you should consider storing. IMO this is worth reading even if you do not use the service.

https://www.fidsafe.com/resources/checklists-organizers/
 
marko said:
I think that in addition to finances, there's a thousand little things "around the house" that are equally important.

How the fuse box works, how to run the sprinkler system, what to do when the garage door won't close, winterizing the outside faucets, rebooting the routers, changing the timers....a hundred little things I call my "magic tricks" that keep a household running without having to call a handyman each time.
Click to expand...

My wife doesn't have the interest in investing but I have tried to make it as simple as I can. I have typed out plans on which accounts to withdraw from in order of first to last, a list of passwords to all websites we use as well as to get on my computers and cell phone, phone number contacts for trust, bank accounts, investment accounts, etc., and a quarterly updated list of investment and balances. Anything that can have beneficiaries have been identified in addition to a trust and will. I also identified AARP to do the taxes for her as I have been doing for more than 10 years. This is also for me to follow if I become less capable of keeping it all straight.
Although I didn't think about the "thousand little things" I will start making a list of those and who she might contact that we have used in the past. Thanks for the suggestion.

Cheers!
 
I'm the wife, pay all the bills, set up a bond ladder in tIRA (1.3m) after selling our bond funds last year, and keep track of all our expenses. I taught DH how to use LastPass in case of my death. He has no idea how to get into all our accounts to pay bills and keep track of the maturing bonds. I enrolled both of us in Medicare. I give this forum a lot of credit. I learned from the experts :). And DH listens and agrees with my decisions. We have a living trust and an accountant. I understand taxes, and Roth conversions thanks again for the discussions on this forum.

I also organize our vacations, buy tickets, and plan the agenda. I simply showed him where we're staying in Sicily (a great deal). He's the Ph.D. but trusts me after 40 years. We agree on almost everything money. Our house and cars and paid off and we have no debt. Honestly, I'm thinking of him as I'm pretty sure I'll pass first. I have a health condition that puts me the first to go.
 
Useful thread. In addition to DW, I’ve shared instructions, account lists, document locations, etc. with our son. I have a laptop that I use exclusively for finances/taxes, and they can both get in if they need to.
 
Plan for if the "money partner" dies first?

Steps we’ve taken so far:

- We use Vanguard Advisors AUM and DW joins each call. If I croak, they can seamlessly help her with most any retirement planning need.

- We use a local CPA firm and DW knows where they are and how to contact them.

- We have a fire-safe box with the essential legal and financial docs in one place.

Next up:

- We need to update our wills, ideally with an attorney who is much younger than us.


Longer term (we are 57 and 60):

- I like the idea of selling the house and renting instead to eliminate home upkeep, to ensure we’re surrounded by other people, and to greatly simplify our estate by owning virtually no physical property. Renting would also make the eventual transition to an assisted living community a lot simpler.

- We don’t have children and would like to do some philanthropy, so I am attracted to the idea of establishing income-producing gifts with major universities or large national nonprofits for all of our investments, like diversified gift annuities and a charitable remainder trust. If all of our financial assets were in those instruments, money management would be eliminated while income simply arrives each month, and we’d feel like we left the world a little better when we’re gone.

Ideally, by doing these things we’d have very little to deal with in our much older ages, nor would those who have to deal with our stuff.
 
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