Posts By :

    Bob Mauterstock

    Have You Had the Money Conversation With Your Children?

    What is your relationship with money? Do you completely ignore it and let your spouse handle it? Or are you a saver, keeping track of every penny you are able to add to your savings account? Are you a risk taker, making big bets on the next big thing, or a risk avoider, not even sure if you can trust the banks to protect your money? Do you associate spending money and buying things with pleasure or pain?

    Why do I ask you these questions? Because whether you know it or not, your relationship and attitude about money has influenced your children and how they relate to money. It is important to begin to understand this connection when you start talking to them about their finances and your own.

    As she has done many times in the past, my daughter taught me an important lesson five years ago. She asked me, “Dad, you’re a financial planner, and every day you are talking to your clients about money. How come you have never talked to me about it?” I was stunned, speechless. I realized that I had never shared our financial goals with her and had never inquired about her own financial situation.

    From that day forward we have had an annual financial planning meeting around the Christmas holiday. I share with her what our financial goals are and I ask her what her plans are for the next three to five years. It is a way for each of us to keep our intentions clear and it has been a wonderful tool in cementing our relationship.

    At first I had difficulty sharing with her what our income was and how much we had saved for retirement, but after a while, it became much easier. After all, I really didn’t have anything to hide. In the same way I had to be careful not to judge her for the amount of credit card debt she had or the amount she had saved.

    As each year has progressed, we have become more confident is sharing financial information with each other. She has become more willing to ask me questions about her future and get my input on the best course of action for her to take. And to my constant amazement, her financial situation has improved significantly each year. At this point her income is much higher and she has saved much more than I had at her age. A true miracle!

    I believe it is very valuable to have this money conversation with each of your children every year. I suggest strongly that you set a specific date to have a financial meeting with them. Your daughter might expect the meeting on the first day of summer, your son on Father’s Day. In this way they will know and look forward to this event.

    The first few times may seem uncomfortable, but eventually you will find that you feel much closer and are more honest with each other. You may even find that you have a clearer picture of your own financial goals.

    =======================
    PERMISSION TO REPRINT:
    =======================
    Financial Advisors may reprint any articles from The Gift of Communication Blog in your own print or electronic newsletter. But please include the following paragraph:

    Reprinted from Bob Mauterstock’s The Gift of Communication Blog. Subscribe at http://www.GiftofCommunication.com  and receive Bob’s Family Meeting Checklist Guide.

    Will You Go to a Nursing Home?

    In a recent AARP study, nearly 75% of adults 45 and older said they strongly desire to stay in their current home as long as possible if they have a chronic illness or need long term care. Many baby boomers state that they would never cross the threshold of a traditional nursing home. But what happens if a spouse is not able to take care of you or you can no longer get around your home?

    Many assisted living residences have replaced nursing homes to provide care to those who are chronically ill or have lost their mental capacity. But Increasing numbers of baby boomers will seek out new alternatives for independent living where care can be provided.

    Intentional communities for philosophical, religious, and lifestyle groups are emerging. Wikipedia describes an intentional community as “a planned residential community designed from the start to have a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political, religious, or spiritual vision and often follow an alternative lifestyle. They typically share responsibilities and resources.”

    Alex Mawhinney , a developer of retirement communities for over 25 years, reports that “intentional elder neighborhoods are becoming the new paradigm for elder living.” He states that boomers will no longer be interested in “the older generation of elder living options that were available to our parents that follows this model:

    • Age in place — in a home not designed for aging in place, and eventually aging alone
    • Move in with children or other relatives
    • Move to an institution — and pay dearly for care delivered by strangers, under their rules and according to their schedules. The institution might be a nursing home, an assisted living facility, a rest home, a retirement hotel, or a continuing care retirement community with multiple levels of care.

    There are SOTELs (service-oriented technically enhanced living—like an upscale Embassy Suites); ecovillages; senior cohousing; and the new lifestyle communities like those being developed by Canyon Ranch.These elder neighborhoods are taking many different forms.

    The common traits of these new alternatives are that they are:

    • Human scaled (not large and impersonal)
    • Relationship-based
    • Resident managed/centered, with an overlay of lifelong learning, later-life spirituality giving back to the community

    Dr. Bill Thomas, came up with an alternative that he describes as “Green Houses” in the 1990s, based on “a really radical idea: Let’s abolish the nursing home.”

    Thomas, a geriatrician from upstate New York, had patients then who lived in nursing homes, and he realized “that the medicines I was prescribing were not treating the true source of suffering, which was loneliness.”

    He also realized that traditional nursing homes were going to have to be replaced soon anyway. “Most of them were built in the 1960s and ’70s, and, you know, their time is done. So I got to asking the question: ‘What comes next?’”

    What came next were the first Green House homes, which opened in Tupelo, Miss., in 2004. Now, with 148 Green House homes nationwide, there’s enough research to get an idea of how they’re working.

    And they’re doing pretty well.

    Each resident has their own private room. There are no strict schedules at Green House homes, so while many of the residents gather at the table for lunch, they can have their meals sent to their room. David Farrell, director of the Green House Project nationwide, explains that those private rooms aren’t a luxury — they’re safer than a traditional nursing home, where two or even three people might share a room and also share a bathroom with the two or three people in the room next door.

    Research also shows that Green House residents maintain their independence longer than residents of traditional nursing homes, where hallways are long and schedules are tight. “So people really are kind of relegated to a wheelchair in order to efficiently move them around,” Farrell says, “and they quickly lose their ability to walk.”

    This program of private rooms and personal service sounds like it could be much more expensive than the traditional nursing home, but Green House home costs have shown to be about the median for nursing homes nationally.

    There are now about 150 more Green House homes in development, where residents will be able to enjoy the privacy of their own rooms or the company of the communal table. It’ll be their choice.

    =======================
    PERMISSION TO REPRINT:
    =======================
    Financial Advisors may reprint any articles from The Gift of Communication Blog in your own print or electronic newsletter. But please include the following paragraph:

    Reprinted from Bob Mauterstock’s The Gift of Communication Blog. Subscribe at http://www.GiftofCommunication.com  and receive Bob’s Family Meeting Checklist Guide.

    Have You Discussed Your Estate Plan With Your Children?

    As a financial advisor to families for over 30 years, one of the most difficult conversations I had with clients was convincing them to discuss their estate plans with their children. They would often tell me. “The kids will work it out after we are gone” This was a recipe for disaster, setting the children up for messy battles that could tear a family apart.

    One of my clients worked for his father in his waste management company starting when he was in high school. His older and younger brother also worked with him to support his dad’s business. When Dad passed away, he stipulated in his will that the oldest brother would inherit the business expecting my client and his younger brother to go to work for him.

    Unfortunately it didn’t work out that way. My client felt like he had been cheated out of his future. He never spoke to his older brother again and started his own waste management business which became very successful.

    It certainly seems easier to let our executors share with our family our intentions after we are gone. But it is a grave mistake. It is our responsibility to share with our children what our intentions and desires are before we die.

    This is especially true if we own vacation real estate. One of my clients has a beautiful cottage on a lake in New Hampshire. His children and grandchildren have been going there since they were born. I asked him what his plans were for the cottage after he was gone. He replied, “ I don’t know. I will let the kids decide that”

    I asked him what he thought would happen if two of his three children wanted to keep the cottage but the third couldn’t afford to support it. How would they decide what to do with his share? I informed him that this type of situation would do nothing but create friction within the family that could have horrendous ramifications. He needed to meet with his children and develop a strategy that they all could live with.

    Fortunately he agreed with me and had a family meeting that was very successful, making it very clear to the family how the cottage would be handled and avoiding any future conflict.

    =======================
    PERMISSION TO REPRINT:
    =======================
    Financial Advisors may reprint any articles from The Gift of Communication Blog in your own print or electronic newsletter. But please include the following paragraph:

    Reprinted from Bob Mauterstock’s The Gift of Communication Blog. Subscribe at http://www.GiftofCommunication.com  and receive Bob’s Family Meeting Checklist Guide.

    Are Your Children Prepared to Manage Your Money?

    Many boomers who have been fortunate (or skilled) enough to build up a sizable investment portfolio are concerned that their children are not prepared to manage it. “What will happen to our money when our children inherit it?” is a very important question.

    The Investment News has reported that over the next 30 years, an epic $30 trillion will be passed down from baby boomers to their heirs. In their book, Preparing Heirs, Roy Williams and Vic Preisser describe their survey of 3250 wealthy families that transferred their wealth to their adult children. They discovered that 70% of those transfers failed. In other words 70% the heirs lost control of the assets ( spent it all, invested poorly or lost control of a business)

    And why did this happen? Was it poor financial skills, lack of investment experience or business savvy that caused the failure? From their study Williams and Preisser concluded that “The origins of the 70% failure rate in estate transitions lie within the family itself.” What does this mean?

    In his brilliant little book, Wealth in Families, Charles W. Collier, Harvard University’s very successful senior philanthropic adviser, explains this phenomenon in more detail. He reports that it is not the failure of training in financial skills that causes this breakdown in the transfer of wealth but the failure of the family itself. “”Money casts a spell-and it can be for good. It is important, indeed critical for families to think seriously about the meaning of their financial wealth, the messages they send to their children about money, and the example they set by their own uses of their resources”

    “ To undertake effective succession planning, you may want to define a family vision and mission, create a structure for decision making appropriate to your family, foster open communication and encourage the growth and development of your family members.”

    Successful wealth transfer is not strictly about teaching good money management skills. It is about creating an environment in which children learn that they are listened to and have an important role in establishing the family’s mission, that money is a tool to express the family’s core values and principles.

    Families need to discuss what is important to them. They need to share what they believe is the meaning and purpose of the family’s financial wealth.

    This is certainly not an easy task for most families. It is much easier to enroll your children in a good investment or accounting class. But it is so much more valuable to create an environment in which the family can discuss how the family’s wealth was created, what is important to them and how money can be used to further that mission.

    =======================
    PERMISSION TO REPRINT:
    =======================
    Financial Advisors may reprint any articles from The Gift of Communication Blog in your own print or electronic newsletter. But please include the following paragraph:

    Reprinted from Bob Mauterstock’s The Gift of Communication Blog. Subscribe at http://www.GiftofCommunication.com  and receive Bob’s Family Meeting Checklist Guide.

    It Takes a Village to Serve Elders

    Many seniors want to do everything they can to stay in their homes as they get older. But often they need help to handle various responsibilities including getting to medical appointments, shopping, socializing with friends, preparing meals, and managing things around the house.

    They usually have two choices to get these services. First they can rely on family members to help them. This is often difficult if their children are working or are not in the immediate area. Second they can hire aides to come to the home. But this can be very expensive. Aides often cost $20 an hour or more and many seniors just can’t afford them.

    But a new alternative is emerging. It is a volunteer nonprofit organization created by a community to allow neighbors to help other neighbors. Each senior pays a fee to become part of the network. Fees vary by community and services offered . They range from $175 to $900 a year. Community members volunteer to provide most of the services. Discounted fees are available to people with lower incomes.

    Beacon Hill in Boston was probably one of the first neighborhoods to offer such a program. Beacon Hill Village was founded in 2001.

    A group of friends in the neighborhood started to talk. What if they banded together and created a network of like-minded people who were aging, but who knew they didn’t want to go to a nursing home? They could help one another when they needed it, recommend plumbers and doctors and home-care aides to each other, and schedule social events so no one would be isolated at home. The network would mean they wouldn’t have to be a burden to their children, and they wouldn’t have to go to a nursing home, either.

    Services offered to members include:

    • Referrals to discounted, vetted providers for everything from dog walkers to plumbers
    • A volunteer to assist you in your home or around town
    • Geriatric care management for you or your family members anywhere in the US
    • Rides home from a medical procedure that are required by the hospital/doctor
    • Personalized grocery shopping—we will drive you or deliver groceries to your home
    • Discounts to all providers: Electricians, plumbers, organizers, personal trainers, massage therapists, home care specialists

    A similar program was started on Cape Cod in 2011. It is called Nauset Neighbors that states “One call does it all”. It is staffed by 320 volunteers and serves over 260 seniors in the lower Cape. Volunteers provide transportation, light home maintenance, technical support, and other support tasks

    There are now eight open villages in Massachusetts. Each village is unique to its area and resources.  Nauset Neighbors is part of the Village to Village Network which now is composed of 190 open villages with another 185 in development around the country.

    =======================
    PERMISSION TO REPRINT:
    =======================
    Financial Advisors may reprint any articles from The Gift of Communication Blog in your own print or electronic newsletter. But please include the following paragraph:

    Reprinted from Bob Mauterstock’s The Gift of Communication Blog. Subscribe at http://www.GiftofCommunication.com  and receive Bob’s Family Meeting Checklist Guide.