My kids told me their starting salaries after college, and even their GFs came pretty close (One exactly, the other very close). One S is due to get a big raise soon and I’m sure he will share the amount with me. The other doesn’t talk to me much, but suspect he would tell me if I asked.
The son who talks to me knows our mortgage is paid off, and knows I am seriously thinking of retiring early next year, but doesn’t know my exact finances. He will likely be our executor (if we ever do a will - shame on us), so he will find out at that time. My step daughter is not good with “secrets/personal info.” so we don’t share much with her.
@1214mom Shame on you!!! (lol) get your will done. That’s a big load to throw on your kids shoulders.
@shawbridge - I appreciated your overly detailed response. 
How true that it would be smart for financial advisors to provide information to the kids of clients! “Otherwise you lose assets when your clients die.”
Our kids know our salaries and even bonuses. They read DH’s latest offer letter with amusement, and asked a lot of questions because they aren’t familiar with the terminologies in the letter. We are pretty open with them. They also know the number in their 529. They just don’t know our savings. They also know that not all the money will go to them when we passed. Probably more than half will go to our own charity organizations.
@Nhatrang, interesting. Our kids have never asked how much I make (which is tricky to answer because as a company owner, profit varies year to year). They are really different kids – one is a strategist at the core (like me) and the other is not. We live in a very affluent exurb and each kid went part to public and part to private school.
Relative to our peer group, we are frugal (ShawWife is often excessively frugal). When ShawSon was in college, he asked, “We don’t have the fanciest house in town but it is nice. Whenever we needed something, we could afford it. When ShawD or I needed to go to private school, you sent us. If we needed help with medical problems or learning disabilities, we could afford it. There is money to pay for college. We traveled all over the world. What salary would I have to make to have the same life for me and my family?” The first time ShawD ever asked anything about salary was when she was applying for jobs as a nurse practitioner and I did an online search to see what salaries she could expect as a new NP. She asked, “Is that a good salary?”
This thread is making me think I should go over our assets with them and also how to get all of the information if something were to happen to me. ShawWife is terrible with finances and numbers generally. When my father had a stroke, I had to reconstruct his situation from scraps of paper and find computer passwords. I did and money was in many accounts. So, I consolidated it all. When my mother shortly thereafter came down with Guillane-Barre syndrome, I took over their financial life. I had POA so I started paying their bills from their accounts. It was a lot of work. In my case, the combination of my executive assistant, our accountant (both for me and for my companies), our FAs and our lawyer (for both companies and personal) collectively understand where our assets are and how to get access to accounts etc. It wouldn’t be a mess, but I should probably explain to both how to get information should anything happen to me.
We have an, “If we die,” envelope. I think this has been discussed on this thread before. We try to remember to update it each year. Should probably do it again soon. I always think of it near ds’s birthday. It has all pertinent information, and he knows where to find it. I, myself, would need some of the information in there as well as dh handles our finances. I know what we have and generally where it is, but the envelope has more details in it. The biggest challenge for me (or ds should we die at the same time) would be dealing with dh’s deferred compensation payout. Who to contact, etc. The payout schedule shortens from what he has now should he die before the that time period runs.
I have much of our info (when one or both of us dies - financial, wills, life insurance policies, etc) in two different spots - so will go over that with H and DD2 next time she is home (DD2 is single/no kids, so she has more time/flexibility to follow through should something happen to H and me). One never knows. Two female HS classmates of mine just died (both were 64) - and my class size was around 140 - one lived in local area while other lived far away; one had run marathons etc…IDK the cause of death of either. The marathon runner was a friend of mine in HS and we were both in DECA (if any of you know what that is/was). Spouse of a very good friend of mine has stage 4 clear cell renal carcinoma (he had a 9 hour surgery to remove some of the tumor that wrapped around his spinal cord) - he is early 60’s and never smoked (many kidney cancers are smoking related but also can be treated; IDK how unusual his cancer is, but it is bad, bad). Oncologist gives his life expectancy of 2.5 - 5 years (IDK how many people now survive stage IV cancer beyond 5 years, but the number use to be about 20%). They recently had to double his pain medication to control the pain. Their youngest is in college.
‘Man Does Not Know What Is To Come’ - Bible Ecclesiastes 9:12 (New American Bible Edition) “Man no more knows his own time than fish taken in fatal net, or birds trapped in the snare…” More than that bible reference, like the New Testament ‘The Parable of the Rich Fool’ - had a good harvest, was going to pull down his grain bins and build larger ones - only to have his life taken that very night (Luke 12: 16 - 21).
‘Frugal living’ - I think I would qualify. When we added a new mattress topper on our new mattress (quite a while ago), I needed to use sheet corner straps to keep fitted sheet tucked in (and also this cylinder device that you slide the edge of the fitted sheet to the roller edge of the mattress). Yesterday I decided we need to get new sheets with 18 inch deep fitted sheet - I got 650 thread count nice set at Tuesday Morning (still frugal on good value for purchase price, why pay more?) H even noticed the new sheets (he is an engineer - sometimes he doesn’t notice obvious things due to being lost in his thoughts…)
I have disliked our refrigerator for a long time. However it does seem to be doing better than it had been (one has to be careful on how food is in there - sometimes some food would get too cold on shelf and actually freezes in refrigerator, esp in the back). I have been watching the refrigerator ads. I guess at some point I will break down and replace.
I do think Covid-19 has had many thinking about sudden loss of life. A co-worker has had a number of family members die from C-19 (elderly and with co-morbidities, but probably would still be alive w/o the virus) and she said she was just thankful her children/grandchild are all healthy and w/o the virus. Amen to that.
@Hoggirl, I think I’ve done something similar to the “If I die” envelope, but I think I may actually put things in an envelope. Great idea.
My husband and I don’t “share” money, and we might even have trouble figuring out where our assets are.
I know - shame on me. At the start of the year I made it a goal to fix some of these things. I guess I better get going.
@Hoggirl and @1214mom, I’m going to create that envelope for ShawWife and the kids. I’m trying to think about what might be difficult. We currently own six properties, but we have an agreement to sell ShawWife’s studio and have just accepted an offer to sell our old house. That will leave four properties, one of which we co-own with ShawWife’s sister. ShawWife would probably sell one if I were to die.
We are actually thinking about selling one of the condos that we rent. It is going to need a new kitchen and bathroom at some point and has appreciated a lot. I was thinking that cap gains taxes will go up if Biden wins (which seems more likely than not). So, maybe pay the tax this year. We’ll already be paying big cap gains tax on the house/studio.
We have a drxxxxox account with the kids. We have pertinent info there in the event dh and I pass unexpectedly. We could have hard copies in our home safe but they all live across the country and, if the worst happened, this would make their lives a little easier. It has accounts names, account numbers, a copy of our trust, etc. I’ve heard google keep serves the same function but have not checked it out. I mean to, though, as we all have gmail (google) accounts but don’t really use dropbox all that often. Hopefully it won’t be needed for a very long time so best to minimize accounts.
An article from Bloomberg (author John Tozzi) was printed in our newspaper 7-26-2020 “Tough Choices to Make on Long-Term Care”. Essentially this couple had paid in premiums to Manulife Financial Corp subsidiary John Hancock. The H was deemed eligible for home care, but his physicians warned against it (guy had cancer treatments which compromised his immune system meaning he required “complete isolation except for his medical visits”). Couple asked John Hancock to waive H’s half of their $660 monthly premium since they would have taken the care were it not for the risks posed by the virus. They have reached an agreement, but it didn’t come easy.
Article says almost 7 million Americans were covered under long-term care policies at the end of 2018. The rising cost of care and years of low interest rates made the policies a money-loser long before COVID-19 struck.
The number of insurers that offer LTC policies shrank to about a dozen in 2018 from over 100 in 2004 according to NAIC (National Association of Insurance Commissioners).
John Hancock collected about $2.2 billion worth of premiums for LTC policies in 2018. It took steep losses on individual policies according to NAIC data, but its group insurance was more profitable.
This is not a surprise, as group insurance covers a vast number of people and often for short times (during employment, company group policy).
Ha ha, now John Hancock is 'working with the couple" according to email from company spokeswoman. The W said the resolution is satisfactory, though she wouldn’t share details.
Many insurance companies - for disability, LTC, etc type of claims - you have to ‘fight’ for coverage. My medical oncologist completed the paperwork for my disability coverage (during my very debilitating cancer treatments), and a large and very respected company said ‘no’ on my disability pay after their MD review (not a board certified medical oncologist and had never seen me/examined me) - when I told the claims person I guess I need to contact and attorney - well low and behold the claim was approved the next day.
H and I have LTC policies; a few years ago we decreased our coverage to keep premiums reasonable. We have had these policies since 2004. We feel good about ‘self insuring’ with beyond the policy limits - because it is insurance we hope to never have to use, but have it just in case.
It was really hard for my FIL to be able to get his LTC to pay. I don’t think they will end up getting much more than they paid in, considering how many years they paid premiums.
@kelsmom, I think the older policies were very liberal in terms of how much they covered, although perhaps the insurance companies decided to interpret their obligations self-servingly as it became clear that they’ thoroughly mis-priced the policies. When I looked at LTC policies a few years ago, it seemed like they were really inferior to self-insuring. There were some hybrid policies that looked better, but nothing was compelling at the time I looked. May be different today.
My mother had a very old policy. I seemed to have no trouble getting coverage once she was on Hospice. (But there was 20 day waiting period, which I incorrectly thought was waived due to paperwork in her folder for an offer not taken). Sadly for me but happily for her…she passed quickly as was her fervent wish. I opted to not to complete the paperwork since we’d only had one 2-hour nurse visit before she passed. Kudos to Hospice - they helped a lot too.
Policies I have seen have been too expensive for the coverage being offered.
^^^ this! The best advice my father told me was to put away 10% of your pay into you 401k the minute I started in my career. If you never “have it” you won’t miss it. I know if it’s in my checking account I’m probably going to spent ever last dollar.
Also the employer matching contributions can’t be beat at most companies. One of my friends worked for Visa (before they went public) and they would match 4 to 1 up to 5% of your salary. My friend never took advantage of it. Foolish! They were giving her free money and she declined. Even if she only put away a small amount like $2,000 a year they would have matched it with $8,000. No way she could have made those gains investing on her own.
At one point there were anti-discrimination rules for employee benefit plans. Discrimination was based on earnings. You needed the lower comp’d people to participate at a certain level to be able to have top earners participating. Not sure if those rules are still in place. We had no 401(k) match for associates (who were expected to participate on their own without a match) and a match for staff (who were not necessarily expected to participate without a match). Encouragement wasn’t necessarily all based on concern for employees.
WOW - I can’t imagine passing up a 4 to 1 employer match. I advise young people to put max into 401K… or if that is not possible, at least enough to take advantage of employer match.
Wow, 4 to 1 match! Wonder if it’s still the case?. Mine matches 1:1 up to 6%. I put away 20% since I started my real job. Now I just do whatever max allowed for the individual. I am grateful to work for a company with very generous pension. The idea that I would still get 50% of my salary for the rest of my life for doing nothing if I worked for another 12 years with my company…that’s nuts.
Whenever I get the chance, I advise young people just starting out to put at least as much as their company matches.
I also talk to them about the time value of money, and how if they put a fair amount in early, they can lighten up some when they’re buying houses, having kids, etc., and should still be OK.
Many people simply don’t understand how things like this work.