Financial Planning Fridays #140: Organizing Your Parents' Finances

Hi friends, I want to talk with you about something that is extremely important: organizing your parents' finances while you have the opportunity to do so. Unfortunately, our health is going to fail us all one day, and having our parents' finances organized ahead of time makes it much easier on them and the rest of the family. We have worked with many clients over the years to review and organize their parents' financial accounts and accomplished a few key things.

First, we created a financial plan for their parents to ensure that they have enough funds to reach all of their goals during their lifetime. This plan is also useful for looking for opportunities to save taxes, make more effective gifts to family, and reduce family stress over finances.

Second, organize all of their investment accounts to one company, or at least to one balance sheet. We have worked with clients' parents that have had investment and savings accounts at up to 30 different financial institutions. This makes it extremely difficult to effectively manage while they're healthy, and almost impossible to effectively transfer after they pass away. Oftentimes their own spouse doesn't even know where all their funds are held. When a parent becomes ill or passes away, the remaining family doesn't know where to look for these accounts, much less be able to manage them.

And finally, we ensure that all of the beneficiaries and account titles are up to date. This way, when a parent does pass away, their investment accounts can easily transfer rather than going through probate and extensive paperwork. We are happy to talk with you about your parents' finances at any time. Please use us as a resource to help organize everything and put a plan in place that everyone will feel great about. Thank you, and I look forward to talking with you next Friday morning.