Dear Older Self,
You have been managing your finances for many years. Sometimes you have experienced the challenges and gifts of living on a small income. And at other times you have experienced the challenges and gifts of having an abundance. In either situation, finances have always seemed like a private and personal matter to you. Money is not something you have talked about much with other people.
This sense of privacy about economics has already been changing in your life and it will need to continue to change. Actually, talking about money is not a completely new reality for you.
Many years ago when your children were very young you got legal help to write a will. You didn’t have much in the way of assets at the time but you wanted to be clear about the people you wanted to be guardians of your children if anything should happen to you. This involved talking about money—with the lawyer and with guardians you had chosen.
Years later you had enough in the way of assets that you sought out legal help to draw up a revocable trust. You wanted your beneficiaries to be able to access their inheritance without the delays or the expense of going through probate. Your own parents had done this for you and when the time came you were grateful that they had made appropriate preparations. It made matters so much simpler.
This limited experience with financial disclosure and transparency falls far short, however, of what may now be needed. If you haven’t already done so, dear older self, it is probably time to lay everything out in a clear and open way for your children or closest family members.
Remember your elderly parent who was never able to be transparent about his finances? You knew that it would eventually be your responsibility to manage his money, to write his checks, to submit his tax returns and to distribute his assets when he died. Unfortunately when the time came you didn’t have the information you needed. There were bank accounts you did not know about. There were investments that were difficult to track down. It was an enormous task to even figure out what needed to be figured out.
A first step in letting go of privacy about your finances might be to have one of your children, or support people go with you to the bank and be put on your bank account as a co-signer. There are a few reasons why this is a wise thing to do. It is possible you might become unable to pay your bills or keep tract of your finances. This might happen gradually or it might happen suddenly. It just makes sense for someone to be able to quickly step in and do this for you.
It is also possible that you could die suddenly. If that happens, even though you have most of your assets in a trust, the person or persons who are to act as executors of your trust will not have access to funds to pay for final arrangements or to pay current bills. Without immediate access to your bank account they will have to depend on their own assets in order to take care of your bills.
It might help you to move forward with this step when you remember what it was like when you had to take care of financial matters after one of the elderly men in your life could no longer get out and about very easily. Keep in mind how he had to struggle physically, with your help, to get to the bank in order to put you on his checking account.
By contrast, you do well to remember that you also participated with an elderly woman who invited you to meet her at her bank long before she was disabled in any way so you could be on her accounts when the time came. When the time did come for you to begin to write checks for her all was in place for this transition to happen smoothly. These contrasting experiences may help you to take this step earlier than may seem necessary. It is something you need to do for yourself and for your loved ones.
Another step you will want to take is to make sure that appropriate people know where to find your financial information, your trust documents and contact information for your financial advisor, lawyer and the person who prepares your taxes.
Remember the elderly parent who showed you many times the file cabinet where all of his financial information was stored? He not only reminded you of the location of these important papers but sometimes pulled them out and went over them with you. This revisiting of his financial papers, seeing the balances in all his accounts, and the value of his various investments turned out to be very helpful when the time came for you to take over.
It is true that being more transparent about your finances will take some work. It is worth doing because you care about the people to whom you are leaving your assets and because sooner or later you will need help with your finances.
So, dear older self, please let go of neglecting your finances. Embrace including others.
This meditation is taken from Notes to Our Older Selves: Suggestions for Aging With Grace by Juanita Ryan and Mary Rae. You can get a copy at Amazon.com
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