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Fiona is a sharp attorney who retired after 45 years working at a non-profit. Both she and her husband had worked hard into their 70s and saved well. With over half her net worth in various CDs, she could not convince herself to invest more aggressively. Fortunately, she and her husband had always been frugal, so it looked as if they were on track. But the year after her husband retired, he was diagnosed with a rare disease which causes rapid mental decline, but no marked physical decline. That’s when we met Fiona. She recognized she now needed help that she hadn’t before. She felt very uncomfortable taking over Lyle’s finances, as they’d kept their finances separate for decades.

We worked with her to create a reliable investment strategy to provide a better-than-CD return without taking excess risk. Since this disease is very unpredictable, we planned for several different scenarios and were able to create a path for Fiona to maintain her dignity and independence, while providing for Lyle’s care needs.

As Lyle’s disease progressed, Fiona showed inspiring grit, living in their home as the sole caregiver for several years. Eventually, he needed more care than she could provide, and her health began to decline as a result. Lyle’s care would ultimately cost 3x their previous annual spending. This would have consumed their savings quickly without the course corrections we recommended.

Sarah and John are federal employees in their early 40’s. They are saving aggressively in their TSP accounts, have a few IRAs, and orphaned 401(k)s from previous jobs. They reluctantly admitted that they weren’t sure where all of these accounts were, or how much was in the accounts. They also have two young children and are planning for college, which explains why they don’t have time to track down these accounts. Not to mention every time they attempted to consolidate, the investment companies threw obstacles in their path! On top of this, John’s mom passed unexpectedly. She was a teacher and didn’t have an estate plan. While they were caught in the turmoil of grieving, they had to now deal with learning a whole new language that involved probate and sorting out a web of annuities, retirement accounts, and insurance policies that she had purchased throughout her 40-year career.

Working collaboratively with Sarah and John, we were able to organize and simplify their finances, help educate them throughout the estate settlement process, reduce the tax impact of that process, and create their own estate plan.