Starting the Conversation
finally!
Dear Dad & Mom,
We’ve almost done a full revolution around the sun, and I finally got around to starting the conversation around finances/retirement/estate planning/health care costs with y’all. Remember this letter??
In it, I mentioned broaching the estate planning subject in 2025: mission accomplished! Now for the follow through: there are eighteen questions on the TIAA cheat sheet, so we could comfortably discuss two questions per month and have three family meetings during the leftover months of 2026! This proposal is certainly ambitious since I have roughly two conversations per year with y’all, and I don’t remember ever having a family meeting, but we can still dream, can’t we?!?
The two questions for January will be:
How well do you think our family communicates about finances?
If you had a financial question—would you feel comfortable coming to me or someone else in our family?
And my, my, my aren’t these good ones to start with! Both questions have me reflecting on thoughts and conversations that I’ve had this year around the wife’s, baby’s, and my personal financial situation as we’ve navigated transitions and emergencies and how I’ve been more open with you two and big sister about ways that y’all can support. Even though some of those interactions have been uncomfortable, I think they’ve bought a good deal of clarity and actually upped the communication overall from my perspective. I’m curious to hear y’all’s response to this first query and the second one!
Here we are at the start of a new year, complete with its fair share of economic angst, yet despite these headwinds, I hope that we can make steady progress in these important conversations. Godspeed to us!
Peace,
Alan
PS: DANCE