Family-Focused Retirement: Keep Bonds Strong, Finances Stable
Family-Focused Retirement: Keep Bonds Strong, Finances Stable
Retirement brings changes that can either strengthen family bonds or strain them. It’s a time to prioritize relationships over financial concerns, ensuring family stays at the heart of your endgame. Here are some ways to navigate retirement while keeping family relationships as the primary focus.
Tip 1: Communicate Your Retirement Goals with Family
Your retirement is personal, but it affects your Loved Ones, too. Whether it’s downsizing or relocating, let family in on your plans, so they understand your choices. An open dialogue makes transitions easier and lessens the chance of family discord.
Tip 2: Make Family Time Part of the Plan
Retirement is an opportunity to be more present with family, so plan it in. Set aside time for family traditions, vacations, or regular visits. This keeps relationships fresh and ensures you have a support network.
Tip 3: Avoid Financial Dependence on Loved Ones
While the family may be willing to step in if needed, fostering financial independence through careful planning protects your relationships from the strain of financial reliance. Strategies like budgeting, savings, and investing in financial independence mean your Loved Ones can remain just that—Loved Ones, not financial lifelines.
Have you considered your legacy beyond finances? What values do you want your Loved Ones to remember?
Conclusion:
Retirement is more than just finances; it’s about securing relationships that matter most. Imagine leaving a legacy of love, stability, and wisdom that helps your family thrive rather than worry. If this resonates with you, let’s talk! Schedule a phone call today to discuss strategies that protect your financial independence while strengthening the bonds with those you hold dear. Make your retirement truly family-focused—start planning for the life you envision with those you love.
HOMESCHOOLING: Haven or Havoc?
Your child's school years are precious and fleeting.
Now could be your best time to step up where your school is letting your child down. Let this series of myth-busting short chapters encourage you.
2 Major Mistakes
Which one will you make?
Which of these 2 retirement mistakes are you making right now? It's impossible to entirely avoid both mistakes.
You won't know for sure which mistake will work out better for you until it's too late.
How to choose?
Finding the Will
(Part 1)
Part 1: Have the will to arrange for a smooth transition when you’re no longer around to answer questions
Have the will to arrange for a smooth transition when you’re no longer around to answer questions (Part 1)
Ensuring your children or other Loved Ones can readily access your important papers when you die entails a sound process versus one or two conversations. You must overcome aversion to the subject of death, procrastination of anything that is long-term, and the tendency to assume things will be fine. Family dynamics can be sweet, spicy, or dicey.
Finding the Will
(Part 2)
Part 2: Getting Organized
While the internet permits convenient access to accounts, policies, and stored documents, it presents a plethora of password management problems. which too many people avoid by succumbing to password laziness, such as:
- re-using passwords for multiple logins, or
- use simple, easy to remember passwords, or
- writing them on sticky notes placed on their monitor or under their keyboard, or
- keeping them in a spreadsheet on their computer, or
- letting their browser remember passwords for them
Embrace Your Clarence
Is Clarence your future?
Golden insight from a golden retriever.
Post-Pandemic W.E.L.L.ness
Working, Earning, Learning, and Launching to Thrive
Where life drastically changed forever two years ago, everyone adjusted to the best of their abilities.
Here are a few of the key adjustments--"pandemic pivots"--that sustained some and prospered others.
Prenuptial Adulting
Equip Them for Happily Ever After
“Mom, Dad, we’re getting married!"
“Wonderful, congratulations! Here’s what you both need to do first.”
Equipping newlyweds with essentials of responsibility leaves plenty of life yet to be discovered on their own. Adults understand that love isn’t oogly feelings; it’s a hard choice. It’s putting your commitments and your money where your mouth is.
Many of the following steps also apply to one’s turning 18 years old. Becoming engaged adds urgency and a deadline.
Rethinking Competing Funds for College and Retirement
We live in a time of skyrocketing inflation topping decades of unbridled higher education costs.
Is the tension between funding your retirement and funding (at least partially) your children’s college education keeping you up at night?
You’re not alone.
Married? Is Your Endgame 100% or Just 50%?
Are you single? That other 50% could be whoever is most important to you.
Multiple unforgiving players factor into your retirement and estate plans (collectively your “endgame”). Household names include the Internal Revenue Service, the Social Security Administration, and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Key decisions with these players are nearly impossible to reverse. Plus, if you qualify for a pension, how you activate it is another irreversible decision.
Are you more of a planner than your spouse? It’s all too common for one spouse to blindly trust the planning spouse. Countless endgame “plans” were created by 50% of a couple:
