A Wiser Retirement®

233. How Second Marriages and Blended Families Impact Estate Planning

• Wiser Wealth Management • Episode 233

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On this episode of A Wiser Retirement® Podcast, Casey Smith is joined by Shawna Theriault, CFP®, CPA, CDFA® to talk about how second marriages and blended families impact estate planning. They also discuss how to safeguard your family's future, avoiding probate pitfalls, and the often-overlooked risk of unintentionally disinheriting children from a previous marriage.

Podcast Episodes Referenced:
- Ep 230: What Can and Can't be Included in a Prenup
- Ep 119: Choosing a CPA to Meet Your Estate Planning Needs

YouTube Video Referenced:
- Using an Online Estate Planning Service vs Using a Local Attorney

Blog Referenced:
- Legacy Planning vs Estate Planning: Understanding the Difference

Learn More:
- About Wiser Wealth Management
- Schedule a Complimentary Consultation: Discover how we can help you achieve financial freedom.
- Access Our Free Guides: Gain valuable insights on building a financial legacy, the importance of a financial advisor for business owners, post-divorce financial planning, and more!

Stay Connected:
- Social Media: Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter
- A Wiser Retirement® YouTube Channel

This podcast was produced by Wiser Wealth Management. Thanks for listening!

Life Events and Family Achievements

Speaker 1

If you get remarried and you just leave it all to your new spouse, well, they could then take the assets, use them and then change the beneficiaries. They direct it. They could leave it to just their children. Maybe they're not close with your children and now you just disinherited your children, unintentionally, you know, and we hope that the intention is there, but it's very clear to put it on paper.

Speaker 2

Welcome to a Wiser Retirement Podcast where we believe the best financial advice should always be conflict-free. I'm your host, casey Smith, guiding you to financial freedom Today's my co host, shana Theriault. Hi, shana, hi, welcome back.

Speaker 1

Welcome back to you.

Speaker 2

Yes, I'm saying welcome back to you. I'm glad to be back. I guess I wasn't out.

Speaker 1

You were out, so Missy and I had the show last week.

Speaker 2

You did, and I need to go back and listen to that one and make sure that everything was done to my specifications, right your instructions that you left. People tell me that it was great, good, glad to hear it, glad you guys could toe the line for me, absolutely. It's hard to do these things when you're traveling remote and don't know what the internet's going to be like.

Speaker 1

And the sound? Yeah, I know that too. Yeah, but we had a good couple of weeks, so I wish it was.

Speaker 2

We had a. I had a good couple weeks, so I wish it was a vacation for me. Um, there's a little bit of one. We our 12 year old was up in cooperstown playing um baseball for a week.

Speaker 2

They have a big cooper cooperstown dream park and you can only do it when you're 12 oh so it's only for 12 year olds and you find a local team that gets a ticket to go, and so we found a team. Um, if it just so happens, our hometown here in Marietta has started a baseball club and the 12 year old team got a ticket to Cooperstown. So there were 94 teams in Cooperstown. The dreams part.

Speaker 1

Wow.

Speaker 2

Uh, they stay in. The kids stay in barracks, so they with their coaches and when they're not playing, base. Basically, we played seven games over four days, oh gosh. And when they're not playing that, they're trading pens. We had a custom pen made just for the team and I think Owen ended up with 90 pens. He couldn't find four teams.

Speaker 4

Oh, wow.

Speaker 2

That's so fun, so he went with 100 pens pens and he's trying to trade to get all the all the teams, uh, and then, or they're playing wiffle ball, they have this huge wiffle ball area, just big fields, all it is what memories that was it was neat. Um, we took the entire family up to new york for a couple of days made me appreciate grass and driving my own car right, but he'd never been.

Speaker 2

So we did a couple of touristy things up there. Um, so we, we had, we had, uh, the whole front part of a delta plane with just our family, you know, and friends. So we, my, my daughter took uh, uh took her friend, and then ethan took his girlfriend, my oldest son, so there were seven of us three hotel rooms and only Uber XLs around New York for three days.

Speaker 2

So that was fun. Uh, I did. I did get to eat at Danny Meyer's restaurant. Uh, danny Meyer's wrote a book called setting the table. It's a lot of how we engage um customer service here at our firm, and so I always love going to this restaurant. Uh, just how you book the reservation, the communication from their team to you before you eat uh, reasonable new york prices. You don't have to get super dressed up, uh, but it's, it's, uh, it's a great experience. That's my second time eating there and and we got. Uh, he's the guy who created Shake Shack.

Speaker 2

That's probably what people would know, more for that than uh, than that restaurant there, uh. And then after we got home, I turned around the next day and drove my daughter um up to uh, maryland with uh, with her horse.

Speaker 1

How long of a drive is that that?

Speaker 2

was 12 hours With a horse With a horse. Yeah, we left at 4.30 in the morning and got there around dinner time. Wow, yeah, it was kind of two highs. Owen did really well he batted 18 times, he got a hit 15 of the 18, and he hit three home runs, which is really cool.

Speaker 1

That is cool.

Speaker 2

To be able to do that at Cooperstown. And then Caitlin did really well with her horse, henry, and she won the bronze medal for eventing. So how this format was? It's called the Young Riders and there's five regions from different parts of the country, and the South region I selected her and three other of the country. And the South region I selected her and three other young ladies to represent the South. So we we came from Georgia, but they're the rest of the team had come from Florida actually, so they had further their drive, but their, their get ups were a lot different. They had these huge trailers of living quarters on them. They just drive up, set up. They got their own hotel there. You know, um, I'm not a big camper, so that would be Caitlin's dream, that'd be my night.

Speaker 2

But no, she did, she did really well. So she's, um, she's everybody's back home. Uh, actually owns back at camp now and then, while all that was happening, last week my son played in a golf tournament down in St Simon, so it's all over yeah that's just kind of my life right now and I'm very fortunate to have you and all the other people here at Wiser to keep this place running even when I'm not here, so it's been great to watch them excel at what they're really good at or what they're passionate about.

Speaker 1

Absolutely.

Speaker 2

So, yeah, someone captured this picture of me giving her a high five and then later hugging her after the round, and I was trying not to cry, and that picture is now all over the Internet.

Speaker 1

It's kind of embarrassing. No, it's not, that's sweet.

Speaker 2

I just love setting goals and I love achieving goals and and that's something I've tried to instill in my kids is, every year I sit them down and I'm like, okay, what are your goals this year for what you do? Yeah, and her goal was to go to young writers and and place and and she did it, she did it, she was. It was close. I mean, all the girls were separated by fractions of a point. So it was, it was a nail biter at the, at the end, which makes it even more exciting.

Speaker 2

She, she pulled it, she pulled it through. She dropped one rail and stadium and I was like, oh no. And then I looked down at the scoreboard real quick and it's like okay, she could drop a rail. We had a rail can drop one rail, rail. But she hadn't dropped rail, she'd been in second um, and the conditions are horrible, like um, it hadn't rained in a really long time. So on the cross-country phase where they run through these big fields, the horses weren't getting a whole lot of traction, so several we had I think it was three girls fall off oh during the round.

Speaker 2

you're eliminated when that happens, but she's a great rider, she. She navigated to the hardest part very carefully and and sped up through the easier sections and and uh, it was only two seconds late, I think. So that's not a big deal for for the conditions it was in.

Speaker 1

So, anyway, there's nothing like watching your kids accelerate at what they do. It's just really incredible, and looking at my daughters are competitive cheerleaders and watching them do things like that I never did things like that. You know, I can't do that with my body, um, you know, and just watching them accelerate and push themselves in in really strenuous ways, it's amazing.

Speaker 2

Well, I think while I was gone, your daughter secured a modeling contract, right she did.

Speaker 1

She did one of my, my middle daughter, for varsity cheer. She's going to be one of their models for the year chosen for the year. So that's cool. Yeah, that's pretty exciting too.

Speaker 2

So you go to New York for that.

Speaker 1

I don't know yet. They will be travel.

Speaker 2

You probably want to figure out where you got to go Right. This stuff is hard, all this stuff's hardcore, inexpensive. It seems like.

Speaker 1

It is it is but it's worth it to watch them accelerate like that and have those opportunities. It's really exciting.

Speaker 2

I hope that um for all the kids that are excelling in these sports. I hope all this transfers I mean the chances of them statistically being professionals at what they're doing are very small. So not expecting that, but but certainly um understanding, hard work, setting goals and doing all the things that you know, getting through the tough spots.

Speaker 1

Oh yeah, that's how life is.

Speaker 2

You know we got to get through the tough spot.

Speaker 4

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Speaker 2

Now let's get back to the episode. So, anyway, let's get to today's topic, second marriages and blended families, how all that affects estate planning. So you and I both have had 20, we'll call it 20 plus years. It is Of working with families, and I will say that blended families can be simple and they can also get very complicated, and I feel like we've even had situations where blended families had been together for 30 years and it was still very complicated in how to handle assets especially when two sides don't like each other.

Speaker 2

Kids Parents are in love. Kids hate each other.

Speaker 1

Yeah, that's hard.

Speaker 2

So that creates a lot of problems, and so we'll dive into that. But first of all, why don't we even let's just define estate planning? I never know the people who listened to the show. I never know, you know, what their education level is. But when you say estate planning, what is that? What should that mean to somebody?

Speaker 1

So what? What I think of when I think of estate planning, it is how the assets will be distributed or divided after you pass away. Okay, and so it's looking at all of your assets and how will that be divided. But it's not also just when you pass away. I also cluster the powers of attorney with estate planning. So financial powers of attorney and healthcare powers of attorney, and those are enforced when you're still alive. The will dictates what happens when you pass away. So those three documents, if you will the will, financial powers of attorney, healthcare's really looking at your whole asset situation and how that's going to flow when something happens, either financially, health-wise, how that's going to be distributed out or retitled, et cetera.

Speaker 2

Right, and so just touch on that trust for a second. So typically, if you add a trust to the will, the will just says, hey, I have a trust. Please place everything inside the trust.

Speaker 1

There's a couple yes, yes, there's a couple different variations of that, so you could have a trust that you established today. That is a trust that is set up, that's a revocable living trust, which is typical.

Speaker 1

Typical and you could have a will that directs everything into that living trust and that trust is currently alive, if you will, for lack of a better word. There are some trusts that are only created in the will when somebody passes away. Those are testamentary trusts, and so that's two different things and a lot of times you know you can use both in the situation of second marriages. I can explain that whenever you get to that point. But you know so. There could be a trust that's here now while you're alive, but any trust that's created in your will when you pass away, those are not even created yet until the start date of the trust is the date you pass away.

Speaker 4

Right, right.

Speaker 2

So the the will is for probate and a trust can skip probate. You can still choose to probate your estate for various reasons when that's a more advanced estate planning conversation but the will is for probate. So if you want to keep your assets out of probate, you can do that by simply creating revocable living trust. Yes, which is now controlling. So when you pass away, because your assets get titled into that trust. Yes, which is now controlling. So when you pass away, cause your assets get titled into that trust. So when you pass away, um, you don't have to go through that that probate process at all. That's really the only advantage, and you could add some additional things in there. Potentially Like, if you have one child that you feel like is going to beat everybody else to death, you can say, hey, if you fight this, then if you fight with your siblings, you get nothing. You know there's different poison pills.

Speaker 1

So probate in Georgia is actually and we may have listeners all over the country we're in Georgia, so you know probate in Georgia is actually pretty simple. It is now. It's still open to public record. You still have to file things. It's very easy. Probate in Florida is very challenging, so you will see a ton of revocable living trusts in Florida.

Speaker 2

So Florida, Texas, Nevada, California, those are all States that have known for difficult.

Speaker 1

Right, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2

Um, so yeah, you, you, you would have, and if you have assets in multiple States, yes, correct, because what happens, especially real property?

Speaker 1

now it just depends on if you're renting it. That's a whole nother show. You know you may want to title it differently than a revocable trust, but that is a way to avoid probate, because if you have homes here and then in various states, different real property, you have to probate each state Right. So if you have property in another state, so you can title them in a way to avoid that probate. So, but when it comes to second marriages? So when it comes to second marriages, this is where you know titling of the assets matters and the estate plan matters. And so it really starts with what is it you're wanting to do? It really starts with what is it you're wanting to do?

Speaker 1

So if you want to ensure that you are not disinheriting your children from a previous marriage, because many times when we get married, you know, remarried, we have, we both have children from previous marriages, like you said, and they may or may not like each other. And so, agreeing with your spouse up front, you know what, how you want this to be distributed when each other passes, because if you just leave, if you get remarried and you just leave it all to your new spouse. Well, they could then take the assets, use them and then change the beneficiaries. They direct it, they could leave it to just their children. Maybe they're not close with your children and now you just didn't disinherited your children unintentionally, um, you know, and we hope that the intention is there, but it's very clear to put it on paper. So that way, you know, and that's where a lot of lawsuits come from.

Speaker 2

Yeah Is disinherited children.

Speaker 1

Yeah, right, and most of the time is unintentional, it's not intentionally, you know, it's just the way that the titling happens, correct, so you know it's I've seen before. Well, it says well, you know, my will says that I want my portion to go to my children, but then they have everything titled to a joint account. Well, what happens in that is that everything passes to your surviving spouse and then they dictate where that goes. And so a way to avoid that you know titling matters, putting it an individual name. You can do a revocable trust and title it that way so that the trust assets dictate where it goes. But if you have a brokerage account or bank account, an individual name, you can set up a trust in your will. That is a testamentary trust. That means it's set up in your will to say, okay, I want my spouse to be able to use this during her life, his or her lifetime, so that way they're taken care of, they have access to it, but this is how I want it distributed when they pass away.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 1

And it may be to all the children you know, it could be to hers and mine or whatever you know. It really just depends on the family dynamics. So that is a way, a trust is a way to dictate how that happens when you pass away.

Speaker 2

And it's harder to do that inside the will.

Speaker 1

I mean you can do it inside the will, but it's it. You have to make sure that assets are going through the will, because retirement accounts don't.

Speaker 2

Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 1

So I mean a lot of people have wealth in their retirement accounts and so you know you really have to, you know plan for that, and most of the time you just leave it to your spouse, you'd want the retirement account to match what the will says, but it's really hard to do that if it gets complicated.

Speaker 2

It is like three or four blanks, so you'd have to leave it to the estate of in your IRA, which is now going to make it taxable.

Speaker 1

But yes, and there's ways. There's ways to do that with an attorney and I'm not an attorney, you're not an attorney, we know enough to be dangerous and definitely do this with an attorney. But you can do an exhibit where it says here's how I want it left and it's an attachment. Most custodians will take that, some don't. So you can do that to figure out a way to have that titling so that your spouse can have access to that. But then it gets distributed differently potentially. So that's something to think about because otherwise, if you just leave everything to the surviving spouse, then they dictate Now there's there's several spouses that will you know, distributed all to the kids and there's no issue and that was the plan. But they don't have to.

Speaker 2

Yeah, and I think it gets more complicated to when you have, if you have younger children and so you know chances are that you're not going to you're you're when you remarried. Your spouse is not going to have custody of those kids. It's going to go back to the, to the birth parent, right? So if it goes back to the birth parent, if all your assets have gone to the spouse, what obligation does she have to even help those kids?

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 2

I mean now you're putting your ex spouse in a position where she may have to use legal tactics to try to get support potentially. So it can get really messy, so you have to use legal tactics to try to get support.

Speaker 4

Yeah, potentially.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 2

So it can get really messy. So you have to kind of think about these things and, and sometimes you don't want the ex spouse controlling the money, so you do need to find someone to kind of hold assets and say these are for Mike, this is for my kids, this is for their healthcare, their education, their wellbeing Right.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 2

So yeah, it gets complicated. Most their wellbeing, Right yeah, so yeah it gets complicated. Most people do nothing Right. They have a will. They're angry, they got divorced. They have a will that redirects everything to the new spouse, or maybe to the kids, but but then you leave. Now you have, you're remarried. Now the new spouse doesn't have a house to live in, Doesn't you know it?

Speaker 1

just gets complicated. It does yeah.

Speaker 2

So the thing to do is say I'm not here, sit down, you draw out what you think you want that world to look like and then, when you sit down with the estate planning attorney, they can bring the tools in necessary to make to make that.

Speaker 1

A hundred percent that that is. The best thing to do is to get a balance sheet saying okay, here's how everything is titled. How should it be titled? This is what I would want to happen, so that way they have to balance the need of your current spouse versus, you know, maybe even their um, their children and what?

Speaker 2

your children might need yeah, what happens? What if something happened to both of you? Right, right, uh, so you need to figure out what that looks like. Um, obviously, when they're little, it's very different, I feel like when they're grown. Yeah, so there's different, I feel like when they're grown.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 2

So there's different versions of estate planning and typically when your kids are now adults, then you can make changes. You know also. You know we know the state of Georgia really well, but the other states that you're in you may need to look at what the considerations are for that particular state.

Speaker 1

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2

What's actually allowed. I think switching gears for a minute. We just had a podcast recently on prenups.

Speaker 1

That was a good one.

Speaker 2

And going into a second marriage. I could see why you'd might want to do a prenup Um cause you've already had to fight for resources, most likely Right.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Estate Planning and Family Relationships

Speaker 2

So how are? How are we gonna if this marriage doesn't work out? How do we kind of reset things back to where they where they should be? Yeah, but I think once you're married and you die, the prenup doesn't have it doesn't have any bearing.

Speaker 1

I would think it doesn't.

Speaker 2

I would think it wouldn't, right, unless there's something specifically in there which probably people aren't thinking about and that's not the vehicle you'd want to use for that anyway, because I don't know how that would come into effect in the probate court. But you definitely want to be able to have an exit strategy, which I think a prenup can help you with. But after, after that, um, you're going to want to have all this estate planning set up. Yeah, um, so anyway, um, I think you know where do we start. So we know we need to make changes. Where's what's the first thing we do?

Speaker 1

I would say the first thing is to understand where that and I can't stress it enough, I know I've said it like three times that how the assets are titled matters and where it's at Cause I've had so many people come to me and say, oh my, I'm good, I have a will, it's no problem, and all their retirement, all their assets are in retirement accounts and it doesn't even pass that way. So, understanding where it is. So looking at a balance sheet and the titling of that, how you would want it to flow, and understanding are there enough assets to do what you want to do, meaning, if you do have younger children, is there enough assets there to take care of the demands of your you know maybe your divorce decree from before. So sometimes there's. You know life insurance set up for that.

Speaker 1

But also you know, just understanding all the flows of where it's going to go. And is there enough assets there to make sure that your spouse doesn't have a change in lifestyle, if that is your goal and you know what are the other considerations. So just looking at do you have enough assets and life insurance to help with that and how the things everything is titled, and then going to an estate planning attorney and saying this is how I would want it to go. I want to make sure or not insure, it just depends that my children are not disinherited, et cetera. You know how? How should I? We structure this Um and and going with the recommendation of your attorney.

Speaker 2

Yeah, Uh, you know. Something else you might consider as you're looking at this is who's going to settle it. You have some adversarial parties potentially, yeah, and I, you know that's where you might consider a third party to settle the estate. It could be a family friend if you want to do that to them.

Speaker 2

A sibling your sibling Could be a potential sibling. Yeah, If the estate is worth enough. There are companies out there that that's all they do is settle estates and monitor estates. Cumberland Trust comes to mind. Yeah, you can have corporate trustees. Banks will do that. I'd say you'd have to have a lot of money for a bank. They're ridiculously expensive. Probably what? 20, 30 million plus, if I had to guess.

Speaker 1

I mean.

Speaker 2

I've seen it done with less, but they, they, they chew up the all the money Right?

Speaker 1

Exactly, it's a high percentage, for sure.

Speaker 2

Very high percentage. Yeah, um people like Cumberland trust. I think they charge like a 2% fee.

Speaker 1

Yeah, they normally charge.

Speaker 2

So, that's much more reasonable. Um, but yeah, I, I think that the the takeaway here is is we just have to focus on, uh, what your intentions are, get those written down and then, probably every five years, pull up that document and do a deep dive into it again, unless something changes in between, of course. Correct yeah.

Speaker 1

Big changes, absolutely. And and you know, sometimes you don't have to create all the fancy stuff. I mean, I've seen spouses where they were like, well, this is money that I've created in my lifetime and I want to spend it with my spouse, and if there's anything left for the children, great. So you know their goal is not to leave money to the children.

Speaker 2

It is just children. Yes, I could see that.

Speaker 1

Correct, correct, right, and so you know that's. It's really up to you how you want to handle it. It's completely your money, it's your funds. Um, it is a lot cleaner if it is drawn out and knows exactly how things are supposed to flow. Um, for your heirs and, honestly, the surviving spouse too, so they're not forced making these weird decisions that are really challenging.

Speaker 2

I think a letter to go on top of it all is always good to say these are my intentions, but also if you have adult children talking this through with adult children, I think is very important because you don't want is they have expectations in their mind of how much money that they might be getting or they would be getting something. They may not even care about it, but their assumption is they're going to get something.

Speaker 1

Right.

Speaker 2

And when they find out that they didn't, that it went to, it went to new wife. New wife redirected it all to her kids. Yeah, that creates a lot of problems and it usually ends up in court.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 2

So we have clients, widows in that situation now that I think could get, could get contentious potentially, yeah, Um, and some of the things that I've seen them do or don't. I know both sides so I'm like Hmm. I didn't think you're that selfish of a person, but you're. You're acting like you are that you'd be willing to put her out of her house.

Speaker 1

It breaks my heart, honestly, the things that I've seen, because you know, when you're sitting across the table from a client they're like, oh, my kids would never do that, and then and then they go and you're sitting across the table from the kids and it's a completely different.

Speaker 2

I've learned that when, when, when the, the dominant person in the family, passes away, there's complete chaos almost every situation until someone else emerges, as I am now the leader, head leader of this family um do it.

Speaker 2

Some do it in more passive ways, but it's happening every single time yeah, so so that that, anyway, that's something that you need to try to take into account and set the ground rules. You're not here, you're not going to control things from the grave, but you got to kind of set, set the tone, say these are my expectations after I'm gone yeah and you do that through good estate planning and you do that with a letter on top.

Speaker 2

it's kind of maybe telling your story and what your thoughts were and leave your last, your last wishes and your last I love you's in that letter and I've only seen that a couple of times, but it really seemed to calm the situation down.

Speaker 1

Yeah, it's almost uh talking from talking from afar.

Speaker 3

Right, exactly, I know, and it's something you something to keep in mind too.

Speaker 1

You know, I've seen it many times where they did pick one of the siblings to lead the family, if you will, and put them in that role to be the financial power of attorney and eventually the executor.

Speaker 1

And, um, I've seen when, you know, a client has started getting dementia and that family member was then leading and the other siblings were squabbling or not agreeing with what that person was doing. It was like always remember and I was told this once by an attorney you know, always remember that there's a reason that that person, you know, that client, put that child in charge of this. And you know it could be chaotic and maybe everyone's not agreeing with what they're doing, but they're doing the right thing and you know that. And so just never question that, because they obviously know their child better than you, you know. I mean obviously, unless there's something nefarious going on, and that wasn't the case. But it's just interesting to see cause they almost appoint leaders, you know, thinking about your children and who you would put in charge. Just, it's better to have one person versus two or three people fighting and not agreeing, and that case too.

Speaker 2

So also, too, though, I've seen the creation side of it and people go. Well, I have to pick my oldest, because he would be really upset if I didn't pick him, but really, my middle child's really good at this.

Speaker 1

I say pick your middle child.

Speaker 2

I say pick the middle child.

Speaker 1

That's right.

Speaker 2

Conversation with everybody, and this is why I've chosen it, and I think this will be better for everyone. You know, you've, you've talked about it and that and that's. I don't know, maybe that's being a Southerner. We have a hard time.

Speaker 1

Well, I feel like more open to talk about money than they were years and years ago you know and being open and transparent about that.

Speaker 2

Well, especially too with older people and the fraud that's been going on and they have friends that were have been taking advantage of. Uh, and now, with the internet, you can't do things easily, right? If? If you're, you know, older, yeah, you have to ask your kids. I ask my kids now, and I'm only in my forties.

Speaker 3

I'm like wait. What are we doing?

Speaker 1

on this. Um, I have seen, you know, I have seen a couple of times too and that seemed to work, at least in these situations. It really depends again on the family dynamics. Where you know something happens to you, you make the surviving spouse and your one child, or one of the children the trustee together on the spouse's trust. That is for their benefit, until you know what I mean.

Speaker 2

So that way, there is checks and balances.

Speaker 1

Yes, and where you know the child. Of course, hopefully, you trust all your children, but the one that you designated is in charge along with your spouse, and so they're working hopefully together in tandem in that situation, so that both parties win.

Speaker 2

Yeah, true.

Speaker 1

If the family dynamics are such that that would be okay.

Speaker 2

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think our takeaways here are one review the current situation, maybe even start with. This is what I would do today no legalese, just write it down and then review what you got. If you got nothing, you gotta go get something. But look at where you are right now and then from there I would consult with your financial advisor and the attorney. The attorney's there to create the legal documents, but financial advisors are really good at piecing it all together. Uh, because I many times I've worked clients through this process and the attorney does something that's going to create a taxable situation, right, and all you have to say is, hmm, you can't do that here.

Speaker 1

Yeah, but can we do it over here but?

Speaker 2

yes, we can do this over here. Um, so it's, it's under. So that's the importance of a financial advisor is connecting the CPA, the attorney and then the overall family strategy and blending that together. That's what a good financial advisor does, Right? The bad financial advisors are the ones that are just trying to sell you the products and say they can help you with this stuff, but then they tell you we're not attorneys and we're not CPAs. Those are the ones that you're not really getting advice from. You're just getting sold products. Or there are a lot of financial advisors that all they do is manage assets. They really aren't financial advisors, they're asset managers Right.

Speaker 1

And that's only one piece of the pie. Your whole financial picture, it's an important piece, but it's only one piece.

Speaker 2

It is, but it can be a very important piece. But it's only one piece it is. But it can be a very simple piece too, if you do it correctly. And a lot of people try to justify their fees by simply saying look how good I am at asset management. When you can't just be good at asset management, you have to understand the entire picture. That's the difference of a planner and an asset manager. We have an asset manager here in our firm right, that's Andrew.

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker 2

The king of data Right. So, we have Andrew, but the rest of us are planners, and that's what makes all this work.

Speaker 1

Yeah, and then we bring in attorneys and CPAs and as needed.

Speaker 2

We have the best attorneys here in town and CPA. We're really grateful for those relationships. Okay, so a couple of things. Thanks for listening to today's episode. If you're interested in learning more about Wiser Wealth Management, you can schedule a consultation by going to wiserinvestorcom. You can also click on the episode note link. Episode 230, what can and can't be included in a prenup.

Speaker 2

Episode one 19 choosing a CPA to meet with your to meet your estate planning needs or might be good podcast to go back and listen to. Also, we have a YouTube channel a wiser retirement Uh, that thing's blowing up. We're getting all kinds of views there now, so go there. Um may start dressing up for these uh podcasts. Look, you and Missy are always dressed up, not me. I'm always ready to play golf. You should always be ready to play golf Always, although I think I played like five rounds last year.

Speaker 2

I watched a lot but didn't get to play. We have a blog Legacy Planning and Estate Planning Understanding the Difference. So thanks for listening to the podcast and we'll see you guys next week.

Speaker 3

Thanks for listening to a wiser retirement podcast. We hope you enjoyed today's episode. Make sure to subscribe wherever you're listening. That way you don't miss any new episodes. We'd also appreciate if you could leave a rating and review. If you have any questions about anything that was discussed today, head to wiserinvestorcom and reach out. This episode was produced by Rachel Dotson. This podcast is strictly for informational purposes only and is not to be considered as investment advice or solicitation to buy or sell any financial products, securities, digital assets or any other investment vehicles, or a basis to make any financial decisions. Wiser Wealth Management Incorporated is a registered investor advisor. Thank you, listeners. Or similar interests. Investments involve risk and, unless otherwise stated or not guaranteed, be sure to first consult with a qualified financial advisor, tax professional, insurance professional and or legal professional before implementing any strategy discussed herein. Past performance is not indicative of future performance.