Posted on 12/07/2023 6:20:34 AM PST by Twotone
Family meetings have long been a practice for wealthy families like the Rockefellers (who hold them twice a year). But with more complex issues facing families that affect family members’ time, money, and wishes, it is a good practice for every family to undertake, regardless of their wealth.
Spending a great deal of my time helping individuals and loved ones prepare for future challenges, as well as having personally been through the deaths of parents and caring for an aging father-in-law, I know firsthand how important it is to talk through these issues with your family.
Here are three topics you should cover with your loved ones as you get together this holiday or during the early parts of next year. Aging
As loved ones age, there are a number of challenges that can wreak havoc on the life of the person aging, as well as the lives of their family members. The first is taking up significant time. Who might change their current day-to-day activities and give part-time or full-time care and advocacy for aging parents and grandparents is an important item to decide as a family, as caregiving can cause life disruption for whoever is charged with the care.
Additionally, the costs associated with aging, whether it is in enhanced living arrangements, outsourced part-time or full-time care, or increased medical expenses, can become a problem for all involved. Make sure that planning has taken place with appropriate insurance or other financial products brought on as early as possible and that a backup plan is in place if the expenses exceed any coverage.
You can put together your own repository of information or use a legacy and wishes planning system, like our Future File system, to help you to navigate the conversation and organize the information for easy access by all. Emergencies
If there is an emergency, whether a medical emergency for a family member, a natural disaster, or an accident, does your family have a plan in place? Who needs to be called, and do they have the appropriate legal authority (such as powers of attorney) to act? Is there a meet-up location for a natural disaster or terror attack? Do you have a listing of and access to critical information, such as medical histories and other household information? Talking with your family about putting this together and supporting one another will help make dealing with anything unexpected go more smoothly. Death
While death is a difficult subject, nothing can transform family members from allies to adversaries more quickly than the stress that comes with a loved one dying. There are a number of issues to consider, from laying the body to rest to wrapping up personal affairs. On the former, it is critical to talk through preferences related to cremation versus burial. This not only prevents fighting through clarity of wishes but also can impact the family.
For example, regarding burial, do other generations of family members want to be buried with their loved ones? If so, you need to find and purchase burial plots that can accommodate a larger number of people.
Also, personal wishes, such as how you want a prized collection cared for or who gets items that hold more sentimental than monetary value, are areas where loved ones who are left behind can find themselves fighting without transparency up front.
And, obviously, clarity on money-related issues, including who is the estate executor and why, who is getting what portion of the estate and why, and where are the accounts and safe deposit boxes or storage located, among other items, can avoid significant family rifts, as well as a drag on time.
Again, you can put together a list yourself or use a system like our Future File legacy and wishes planning system to help guide your family through the information that they need.
Use your holidays or New Year not only to celebrate the good times and talk about family projects but also as an opportunity to plan for other life cycle events that affect every family. Preparation is the best legacy gift you can give your family this year and every year.
Merry Chrr Granpa! Let’s talk about you impeding demise. Try
Except the family members are likely the source of the problem and they insist on not listening anyway.
What makes them think they can tell us what we *should* and should not do?
Mind their own business.
Or maybe just rejoice together on the birth of Christ our savior, share gifts and enjoy a celebratory meal together. Save the funeral talk for Memorial Day. 🙄
You schedule a time to discuss the tough stuff. My family never talks about anything so I had to suddenly fly home when my brother became at the end of his rope living with my elderly mom and moved out and my sisters were at each other’s throats about her care. Better to talk about this stuff on a schedule. Annually. What better time than Christmas when everybody is together? Yes, it’s easier to ignore the elephant in the room. But actually, it is better to discuss. Say open the conversation and let it run for an hour, then table it.
Glenn Beck encourages this crap?
Practical necessity is driving a family talk tqlk this year. It’s not something that I’m not looking forward to it but I hope that it will help my family guard against the ravages of potato-head joe.
The only meeting I’m going to have with my family will be over the vax - my family is very very divided over this issue.
I will be informing them that I will NEVER take another vax again as long as I live - and if that means I cannot go to their homes, go on vacation with them, be in their presence, so be it.
Very true.
Every time I bring up my will or my wishes about death, dying, etc., my daughter goes crazy. Every time I try to gift her with something I want her to have, she refuses denying reality that I am getting older and need to have my affairs in order.
Well my Dad passed away this past summer and it's been a bit of a nightmare organizing the finances. My mother has been no help at all. I've had to jimmy open strongboxes and go through file cabinets in order to piece together what he had and what bills needed to get paid.
For example, he had an IRA that none of us even knew he had. I realized that he had to take an RMD by the end of this year (or get a 50% excise tax). Because my mother is unable to articulate anything invoving finances, I had to call the IRA, convince them I was my father's son (and not a scammer), fill out forms and get them notarized at a bank along with copies of the death certificate, affadavit of domicile and all that, just to find out the beneficiary (which was my mother). Who will not cooperate at all. She just tells me to leave the money in my father's name and I cannot make her understand the consequences of not taking an RMD distribution.
That is just tip of iceberg of what I am dealing with.
So yes, my advice is to have that conversation with your parents, unpleasant as it might be, before they die, so that things can get sorted out much quicker.
Be responsible parents and take care of your will while healthy and give it to your kids. Hopefully you spend time and/or communicate-with your family other than Christmas. No need for drama over end of life issues.
Way too many senior "help" outfits like this:
Local care company accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from elderly woman
They are everywhere and are truly predators. Especially if the senior they are supposedly caring for has no children or they don't live nearly. Predators of the elderly are nearly as common as predators of children.
“What? Can’t hear you! My hearing aids are connected to the tv and the dog is barking at something, and you mumble too much, can’t you hear me? What?”
Merry…….Christmas.
My mom did that for us. She set things up so that if anything should happen to her and she had to go into a nursing home or extended care facility, that our inheritance was protected.
She *sold* the house to us all for $1 each and had legal documents drawn up that we could not evict her unless two different doctors agree that she was incapable of living on her own. Now, none of us would have done that to my mom, my parents raised us right, but she did it far enough out while she was still in good health, that ka number of years had passed, more than allowed for the nursing home to confiscate our inheritance for her care.
As it turned out, she died before she reached a point where nursing care was needed.
But she did what she could. But you have to know your kids and be careful that none of them turn on you like so many do.
A debilitated parent or a death in the family brings out the very worst in people. It’s absolutely appalling the level of greed I’ve seen displayed by some in a family, trying to get the entire inheritance for themselves.
My dad went through a similar event. My mom handled all the money. He was cool with that. She died at 53 and my dad had no clue how to pay bills, where the money was and how much he was worth. I had to have a sit down with him to show him where he was financially. He was about to return food to the grocery store.
This is all much worse than any of you know.
Suppose you have an uncle. He moved to a retirement area like the Villages. No local relatives.
He has a stroke. He cannot communicate.
The hospital has goals of getting people out and gone within a few days, off to a skilled nursing facility. Pretty much simultaneous with that event, a decision is made that no relatives can be found.
A professional guardian is appointed. Professional Guardian.
That person is empowered by the court to pay the person’s bills with his assets and income. One of those bills is the Guardian’s.
If relatives eventually discover he has not responded and it has been months and phone calls maybe are made to local hospitals. He will be found.
And the guardian will not relinquish control to the family member. The courts appointed the guardian and the process for undoing that is extensive and convoluted, and someone has to pay the court/lawyer fees.
And that’s how the uncle’s assets disappear.
You bring up something that needs to be addressed. When you turn over your living situation to another person(s), you may not get to decide what happens. I’ve seen it go south when a spouse gets in the ear of an offspring and soon they are trying to sell the house. Or there is a divorce.
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