It's a rare manager I'd trust with that.
Although TBH, I've given a heads-up to the last three when I got serious about leaving. I've been blessed with managers I could trust with that kind of information.
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How do you manage your budget?
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It's a rare manager I'd trust with that.
Although TBH, I've given a heads-up to the last three when I got serious about leaving. I've been blessed with managers I could trust with that kind of information.
wishing you happy life long togetherness. Determining the financials up front and even trial running is a good thing. I read 50% of divorces are simply over money so ... good to plan up front!
See above, one never experiences commitment to the degree marriage requires ... of course being single in a relationship may keep reminding you to try harder. ; )
not trying to be a downer but a good business contract may be very useful should you share assets with your boyfriend. In case you part, having things spelled out upfront on how things split, who has dibs on what, good records (with oversight or signoff), etc can save a lot of grief (and money) and could keep things as intact as possible verses losing everything. This protects both you and him.
My cousin had a business partner where things weren't well defined, understand the partner weaseled things in the books and come time to part ways, my cousin spent a lot of time, money and emotion on the split. Lucky for him his wife kept him from simply giving up, comment is simply that good fences make good neighbors, even if they're boyfriend/girlfriend.
Good luck on your venture, it sounds like a good match from the read.
Well, yeah, of course we have that! ... Not just if one of us wants to quit the business, but if one of us dies. You never know. It's important to consider all of the permutations while everything is still roses.
I somehow overlooked this part. We've created a common account and shared credit card to facilitate bill paying, then put money into that from our separate accounts.
With my husband, I insisted that it's "all one pot" - that felt like the only way to run a marriage to me at the time. We had separate credit cards, but otherwise everything was together. With my current relationship, which is as solid as a relationship is likely to get IMO, it's a little different. Again, him having a son matters. Also, we're not starting out as kids with no resources to bring to the relationship - it feels different when you actually have substantial savings. So my choice to (hopefully temporarily) take a big cut in income and have us share expenses in a non-50-50 way feels pretty scary. In large part, it feels scary because we have to quantify something that we didn't have to worry about when we were both making about the same salary. My biggest concern about going into business together isn't that the business fails and leaves us with nothing to show for it - it's that the business fails, and our relationship is collateral damage. We talk through these scenarios a lot - I hope that if we've talked about how it would go ahead of time, we'll be more likely to handle things well in the moment.
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Really smart. Way ahead of what most "family" businesses ever do. Worth defining upfront and agreeing what the walkaway points* are for the business/ personal time and energy/mental health. Doesn't mean you have to stick rigidly to them if both parties agree but it is a non judgemental fallback if you don't.
* Remember that's upside as well as downside. No point being a business magnate if you're never prepared to sell up and retire unless you love the work more than everything else.
Same boat here. We're earlier in our lives, but have a significant split in income and (mostly student loan) debt. When we started joint budgeting she was surprisingly out of work as an adjunct faculty member for the summer. However, she has the much higher earning potential as she's working on a Ph.D. in comp sci, with a good bit of both industry and teaching experience of algo design and machine learning under her belt.
Good point. I think he's the sort to keep a hand in things as long as he possibly can. I'm much more comfortable with the idea of full retirement (although TBH I'm having so much fun right now .. who knows). We've talked about it. Nothing concrete. If our involvement is periodically dropping in to taste test, I'm okay with that.
It’s definitely not a crap shoot.
Home budgets are mostly about wrapping a framework around something hot emotions will ignore. I stopped bothering years ago, because there is no reason to codify resentments. Love is a crap shoot. Budgeting love is foolish, especially if money is part of a partner’s love language.
I tell my kids that “how you work” is usually far more important than “what you do”. I work from home, with a ton of flexibility, for Silicon Valley startups (speaking of ageism...). Is this peak work passion? No. But I like it and I have a unique approach that makes me valuable. Most importantly, it is repeatable. Is it peak life passion? Outside of just being independently wealthy, yes. After I write this, I’m headed out for a mountain bike ride.
Most businesses fail because the founder story fails to convert to scalable operations. The technologist is rarely the entrepreneur. Scale breaks everything.
“I’m excited, not miserable” is a damn good compass. Life isn’t about being buried with no bruises. There is a quote I’ve heard from special education that refers to “the dignity of risk”. Seems to me that is often what is most important.
Okay, crap shoot isn't quite accurate - but speaking as someone whose husband died young with no history of health issues, I feel qualified to say that you never know what's coming, and you're at the mercy of fate. We have influence, but we don't have control.
Hm. No budget whatsoever? I didn't have a budget when Eric was around - didn't need to. But we need a budget right now. We need to know how much we can spend without hitting savings. Over the last year and a half, having a budget and tracking what I spend has been important. I don't think budgets necessitate resentment; I know that overspending can cause big problems (that then also lead to resentment). But we are treading carefully around it, because building a budget means ceding some amount of control. I'm not sure what budgeting love means. I'm also not exactly sure what "money as a love language" means, but it seems like a tricky situation.
My dad said something like, "Do what you love. If you can make money doing it, even better." But I think there's a lot to be said for Mike Rowe's point that doing what you love is overrated - but doing something that you hate is another matter entirely. (Some people just hate working, period, and well, that's a problem. I guess they have to suffer if they're not born wealthy.) I don't think most people will find work that completely consumes them with passion. I don't think the world would function very well if we all found that work for ourselves, either.
This seems like a non sequitur - explain?
Just looked it up. I like this! Yes, my mother would wrap me in bubble tape if at all possible to keep me from harm, not noticing the detail of slow suffocation ;-) I guess it's easy for her to see the dangers of buying a business, while it's hard for her to really internalize how unhappy I have been, or the fact that it was not sustainable - it literally would not be possible for me to continue being employed because I wasn't able to get anything done. I feel like a bit of a prima donna about it - so many people have jobs they hate - but ... I am fortunate enough to have choices.
It's been a really interesting few months. Filled with stress and uncertainty, yes, but also filled with excitement and possibility. Just talked to my FA again. He's still on board and excited for me. Pretty good sign.
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I'll hazard a guess at "money as a love language" meaning an individual will give over everything they have for a loved one. The kind of thing my mum says when she says if they really needed it they could have it all when she talks about her pre-teen grandchildren (and exactly why people need to exercise restraint in such circumstances - imagine if she bought them iPhones etc without parents' permission!)
As for scale being the breaking point - it's just the reality of turning a small business into a big business. Imagine a local home contractor who is diligent, great at his job, never has to sell, works as much as he wants through personal referrals, charges a bit more but the quality of his work supports it. Now how does he turn his business into a contracting company without losing the things that made his personal work special? Hires and trains other great guys and gals, but then he has to manage recruitment, training, payroll on top of what he used to do so needs to hire back office. Soon he's spending all his time troubleshooting on jobs or as an HR manager and not doing the original stuff he was so good at.
Doesn't really matter what we apply it to - coffee shop, eBay trader, coder with an app,scaling is hard because it takes you away from what created the original success while you try to replicate it consistently
As for scale being the breaking point - it's just the reality of turning a small business into a big business. Imagine a local home contractor who is diligent, great at his job, never has to sell, works as much as he wants through personal referrals, charges a bit more but the quality of his work supports it. Now how does he turn his business into a contracting company without losing the things that made his personal work special? Hires and trains other great guys and gals, but then he has to manage recruitment, training, payroll on top of what he used to do so needs to hire back office. Soon he's spending all his time troubleshooting on jobs or as an HR manager and not doing the original stuff he was so good at.
Doesn't really matter what we apply it to - coffee shop, eBay trader, coder with an app,scaling is hard because it takes you away from what created the original success while you try to replicate it consistently
Priorities, oldest kid starts college this August. Ski days already dropped. He's also my main ski buddy so probably only 2-3 solo day trips per season for the next few years. Little sister is looking at App State so things might pick up when she heads out of the nest.
Been out of the discussion for a bit, but I am going to bring in something no one wants to talk about.
Guess what? You are all going to die.
My dad passed 21 Dec 19 and I became the executor. When people think its found money to be a paid executor, they are fools. You work for it. I heard in the past that if you really dont like someone, make them the executor and there is some truth to that. His has been fairly straight forward, but it is still a pain. Should be complete mid Mar.
To make your kids life easier, AND to know that as much of what you earned and already paid taxes on does not get grave robbed (yes fed doesnt kick in until big bucks, but the states have no problem dipping into normal peoples coffins), you need to make sure that your kids or heirs are either co owners, beneficiaries, or trustees.
In PA, if you die with all of your accounts over 10k having beneficiaries and property in a trust, you dont even need a will. The hardest part so far is working with some financial institutions. If there is no one named on a account, the bank doesnt have to tell you it is there even when presented a death cert. They will if you are sworn in as executor and have a short cert (extra paper you pay the state for that says you are a executor) However, if the account is less than 10K in PA, you dont need an executor, catch 22. You cant find out if you need to be an executor until you become an executor. If the acct is under 10k, the bank needs a copy of the paid funeral expenses to turn the funds over. They want the blood of your first born, but legally they get the copy, and thats it. It literally took 6 weeks and 3 letters to get 2500.00.
Check the death tax liabilities in your state. PA for ex is 4.5% of any holdings of the decedent. If you have a 100k and one kid as a beneficiary, the tax will be 4.5% of 50K. MA has no death tax, until you reach a certain point (1M pretty easy to hit with a home and 401K in MA). Then EVERYTHING is taxed at a pretty high rate per the other heir.
So, in a nutshell, put beneficiaries on your cash, put your real estate in a revocable trust, put enough in a joint acct with an heir to pay for the funeral, or prepay it.
EDIT, and talk to your kids about what you have. You dont need to give them amounts, but institution, type of acct (CD, savings, IRA ect) and if possible a contact # of the person you work with. If it is Jake, from Fidelity, who wears khakis, then put his name down.
Guess what? You are all going to die.
My dad passed 21 Dec 19 and I became the executor. When people think its found money to be a paid executor, they are fools. You work for it. I heard in the past that if you really dont like someone, make them the executor and there is some truth to that. His has been fairly straight forward, but it is still a pain. Should be complete mid Mar.
To make your kids life easier, AND to know that as much of what you earned and already paid taxes on does not get grave robbed (yes fed doesnt kick in until big bucks, but the states have no problem dipping into normal peoples coffins), you need to make sure that your kids or heirs are either co owners, beneficiaries, or trustees.
In PA, if you die with all of your accounts over 10k having beneficiaries and property in a trust, you dont even need a will. The hardest part so far is working with some financial institutions. If there is no one named on a account, the bank doesnt have to tell you it is there even when presented a death cert. They will if you are sworn in as executor and have a short cert (extra paper you pay the state for that says you are a executor) However, if the account is less than 10K in PA, you dont need an executor, catch 22. You cant find out if you need to be an executor until you become an executor. If the acct is under 10k, the bank needs a copy of the paid funeral expenses to turn the funds over. They want the blood of your first born, but legally they get the copy, and thats it. It literally took 6 weeks and 3 letters to get 2500.00.
Check the death tax liabilities in your state. PA for ex is 4.5% of any holdings of the decedent. If you have a 100k and one kid as a beneficiary, the tax will be 4.5% of 50K. MA has no death tax, until you reach a certain point (1M pretty easy to hit with a home and 401K in MA). Then EVERYTHING is taxed at a pretty high rate per the other heir.
So, in a nutshell, put beneficiaries on your cash, put your real estate in a revocable trust, put enough in a joint acct with an heir to pay for the funeral, or prepay it.
EDIT, and talk to your kids about what you have. You dont need to give them amounts, but institution, type of acct (CD, savings, IRA ect) and if possible a contact # of the person you work with. If it is Jake, from Fidelity, who wears khakis, then put his name down.
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Same thing happened to me. My sced changed so that I have some non sced Wednesdays so I invite the kids, but go anyway. Honestly, I have enjoyed skiing by myself more than I thought. It is kind of nice to know the only one who has to have a good time for you to have a good time is you. There will be some days when you can connect with them. I got the son out once (school), and the daughter (working) twice this year.
It took my wife about 4 years to deal with her mom's estate. She died unexpectedly. There are some financial institutions that don't make it remotely easy to move the money to where it should go, or botch the process completely. Combine that with the grieving process associated with unexpected tragedies... the process is pretty disgusting. I wonder how many orphaned accounts there are that banks suck up for profit.
In the same vein, you need to be sure your parents/loved ones have planned for their old age. When you apply for Medicaid, they look 5 years back to make sure you weren't giving away your assets inappropriately. Having access to all their accounts is obviously essential but hard to do without POA or being previously assigned as an account owner. I'm still finding I need to acquire access to little used accounts after years of managing my parents' finances.
Having DPOA and medical POA documents prepared before they are not competent is critical for those that will be helping them. My mom had POA for my dad and I had it for my mom, but she couldn't assign me POA for my dad. He has Alzheimers and wasn't able/willing to sign the documents assigning POA to me. It got messy. The alternative to get permission to care for someone without a POA is to apply for guardianship. That is ugly as you have to basically take the person to court and petition for guardianship. In a nutshell, that means taking (in my case) my dad to court to get legal permission to manage his affairs. After a lot of finagling, I was able to get POA for him rather than need to get guardianship. It was a tough path to follow to get the POA. I'm glad I didn't have to go court for guardianship, though. That would have been devastating for dad and myself.
Another challenge is the application process and dealing with the government agencies responsible for processing them and providing assistance. I am supposed to hear back from my parents' case manager within two days of contact, but I don't hear from them until I leave multiple messages and contact supervisors and ombudsmen. They are overworked and unfortunately not pro-active in contacting care givers when problems arise.
If you are in line to help someone with their lives in old age, get involved yesterday. For their well being and your sanity. Don't figure that you'll have time when the need arises. Planning ahead will go a long way to easing their transition.
I could have been paid to be an executor??? I was my mom's POA and the executor of her estate. I certainly charged my expenses to the estate (airplanes, etc.) but nothing else. The whole thing was a PITA.
Then my brother died intestate and 1100 miles away. I never found a safe deposit box, a safe, any papers (well, there were 200 boxes of papers stacked in his house, unopened from a move), a lawyer, and really any money. I decided I was happy he died intestate and washed my hands of the whole disaster. Everytime I got a bill, I just sent them a death certificate. Much easier. But I'm in the hole quite a bit.
I'm well aware of the potential for a horror show because when my dad died, he'd been secretive all my life about the money, even from my mom. It took me years to get a handle on things, then my brother insisted I turn over that work to an accountant for my mom and I lost control of things again, because the guy was a mess.
Because of those experiences, we've got all our assets and account numbers listed on a spreadsheet which we give to our daughter every year along with the name and phone number of our financial advisor. All the tax returns are in Turbo Tax and the accounting in Quicken, so she can just turn those on and know what's happening with a minimum of fuss. Every account has beneficiaries listed. We've tried to make it as easy as possible.
Just a note. If you're hyper private and tell your next of kin zip, they are going to find out a lot that they never would have needed to know if you'd just given them the list of accounts. I found out a lot about my brother. Not stuff he would have wanted me to know, either, but I was tearing things apart trying to find a will, a key, something.
Then my brother died intestate and 1100 miles away. I never found a safe deposit box, a safe, any papers (well, there were 200 boxes of papers stacked in his house, unopened from a move), a lawyer, and really any money. I decided I was happy he died intestate and washed my hands of the whole disaster. Everytime I got a bill, I just sent them a death certificate. Much easier. But I'm in the hole quite a bit.
I'm well aware of the potential for a horror show because when my dad died, he'd been secretive all my life about the money, even from my mom. It took me years to get a handle on things, then my brother insisted I turn over that work to an accountant for my mom and I lost control of things again, because the guy was a mess.
Because of those experiences, we've got all our assets and account numbers listed on a spreadsheet which we give to our daughter every year along with the name and phone number of our financial advisor. All the tax returns are in Turbo Tax and the accounting in Quicken, so she can just turn those on and know what's happening with a minimum of fuss. Every account has beneficiaries listed. We've tried to make it as easy as possible.
Just a note. If you're hyper private and tell your next of kin zip, they are going to find out a lot that they never would have needed to know if you'd just given them the list of accounts. I found out a lot about my brother. Not stuff he would have wanted me to know, either, but I was tearing things apart trying to find a will, a key, something.
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QFT (quoted for truth). Everyone will die, and yet we use expressions like "If I die ..." Yeah, sure.
My FIL asked my husband to be his executor, and having seen my FIL deal with a family member's complicated estate, and knowing that his father's was just as complicated, my husband refused. Course, joke's on both of them (dark humor alert), since my husband died before his father anyway.
100%.
As I understand it, it's something that can be explicitly stated in the will. I've seen it as an hourly rate. I suspect it's more commonly included when the person has a lot of resources / has had an attorney draft the will.
Also a good point. When my husband died, I was tearing everything apart. As far as I know, there was nothing secret or difficult, but it still took a while to piece together all of the details - it was especially helpful when I got annual tax documents from various institutions. I suppose a more secretive person might register a PO Box or something crazy. If there WAS anything secret, he did a great job of hiding it from me, for which I am grateful.
I was also fortunate that one of my husband's closest friends is a financial advisor. He cut through a lot of the crap. There was a lot of "Sorry, we need to get a fax for that" (fax???), so we kept them on the phone while I emailed my FA and he faxed the document to them. RIDICULOUS, especially when a lot of these institutions have secure upload portals.
Oh, another important note: Most stocks aren't on paper anymore, but some are, and I recommend NOT deciding in a fit of cleansing to shred those really old stock certificates because "probably they are the same as those stocks that I already transferred over." Because they are not, and you have grief brain, so you're not thinking it through. /facepalm
All of this reminds me that I still haven't written up a will, any will. Letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, as even a hand written piece of paper would be more helpful than what I have now, which is nothing (except beneficiaries for some of my accounts) - my boyfriend is living in my house, which could be problematic if I die (when ...)
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I bought the Quicken Will Maker when they had their annual sale.
That's kind of the opposite level of commitment, LOL. I'm a little confused because it's available from nolo.com , but I guess it's co-branded with Quicken or something? Still ... might be worth it just to *get it done*.
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