Review of: The M Word – The Money Talk Every Family Needs to Have About Wealth and Their Financial Future by Lori R. Sackler
This book is a thorough guide to understanding and dealing with the multitude of factors that affect our ability to talk with family about money. Sackler identifies transition points in life which require us to have some kind of money talk, along with topics we might want to cover: Continue reading
Family meetings are a great way for parents with young children to circle the wagons and communicate with their kids, but did you know that they are also valuable for conducting family business, passing family values, educating the next generation on family finances and ensuring the best possible wealth transfer?
Can you imagine sitting down with your children and grandchildren, or your parents and your children in a meeting?
Imagine the meetings that the Rockefeller and Gates and Johnson families must have! Continue reading
If you have family meetings between the various generations and family units every year, you may find that family members lose interest in those meetings over time.
We’ve had meetings for the past four years. Busy lives, new jobs, new careers, extended family vacations and babies have taken their toll on the time available to meet as well as the excitement level about the meetings. So, I took some time to think through how we could re-charge our meetings. Here is what I came up with. Continue reading
Teach each other using family meetings by holding them with your adult children and grand children.
A multi-generation family meeting can be a great forum to guide your adult children and to learn from them, as well as to teach the next generation (your grandkids).
If you set the stage correctly, holding a family meeting with your adult children can facilitate open discussion on relevant topics, educational sessions from any family member to the others and shared decision making; as well as potentially ease those difficult conversations we need to have from time to time.
Here are three steps to set the stage for your first meeting with your adult children: Continue reading
Family meetings can be a great way to build solid relationships, create a family legacy and train the next generation.
A couple of weeks ago I shared our path towards holding family meetings. As a result of that journey, I built a checklist to help others learn how to start meeting with their families.
FamilyMoneyValues.com has housed this checklist for awhile, but I wanted to pull it out today for those of you who only read my blog. Download my Free First Family Meeting Checklist.
Why meet?
After Mom died in 1996, Hubby and I had to deal with her estate. It was then that we started establishing our own wills, trusts and etc.
In the years following 9/11, I realized that life is so fragile – it really sank in that we could die suddenly, at any time. The boys had grown up by then and had moved out, but I started thinking about what would happen to them if we did die suddenly and together. That is when I started sharing information about our finances and estate plans with them.