OT: IRA RMD

It depends on how you parse the language doesn't it?

Should I have said most 401k holders only have one?

Sometimes I think you live to argue.

I think you are correct about people that don't know how to handle anything but cash or put it on a credit card. You 30 % is probably high for the ones that really know how to handle finances.

My wife has no idea about finances as far as how stock markets and such work. She is very good at handling the house hold money for things like groceries and cloths while the children were growing up and money was very tight.

I was lucky. I have a friend that is about 10 years older and he was a math teacher at a high school. Not that being a math teacher has much to do with finances. He is smart enough to find out from the people that do handle money and stocks things to do. He was once referred to as 'a person that would squeeze a nickel tuil the buffalo craps'.

One of the first things he put me on to was a local savings and loan company was going public. If you have an account there you could get in on the first sell of the stock. I took out a home equity loan for $

Found out that sometimes it is better to borrow money that to pay outright for something. Like the zero or may by up to 3 % interest on car loans. Just leave most of the money in the stock market and hope it does not crash. If it does, have enough reserve cash to carry you through.

What's your plan should you predecease her? Let your kids manage her money?

I'm in a similar situation. I've always handled our finances and we have no children. The odds are pretty good, though, that I'll outlive my husband.

Cindy Hamilton

And if you don't? A run away truck doesn't care about good genes.

Do you have a plan in place for your husband?

It may be a tossup as to who goes first me or the wife. She is a few years older. We do have 2 children over 40 to help out if I go first.

My son may have to manage her finances if i Pass away first. He majored in some kind of business in college. He did work at some kind of credit job that handled credit for the large companies like Lowes. Now he is working for Microsoft with the computers.

My mother was a book keeper and handled all the finances for her and dad. My dad was very smart working with his hands, but he did not know anything about finance. Mom passed away first and I, being an only child, had to handle all his finances. He did not know how to write a check. I had to write checks for him and mail them off. Or write a check and he would take it to a place to pay. Good thing everything was paid for so all the bills were just living things like power and telephone. I did get power of attorney so I could do the finances. While redoing the bank accounts I did get most things put in both of our names with me having the right of survivorship. Made things easy after he passed away.

I don't think I was ever able to convince him that if a bank had several branches in town they were all the same money. He kept wanting me to go to several branches of the same bank because mom did depending on which one she was near when she wanted to do something.

I'm in the same situation with wife and sons. All three sons have business degrees and two are lawyers. She does banking now so if she goes first I will have to learn it.

At least my wife has a checking account in her name where her SS money is deposited and she can handle the day to day bills as she used to do many years ago. I now pay the bills by computer which my does not know how to work the computer. She will still get paper bills so she can write out and mail in the bills. She will write a check every once and a while on out joint account for things. She can also use credit cards and knows to pay them off every month.

When I go, the kids just have to close up shop. Most everything is on line so I should write up something so they know where to look for things as there will still be some utility bills and such until the house is sold.

My wife and I both keep a frequently updated document, affectionally known as "The List". It contains all sorts of relevant information related to our individual credit cards, accounts, bills that we each pay on our own, etc.

There is also a "joint list" for items related to our joint accounts, the kid's accounts, etc.

I am more well versed in financial matters than her, but she can certainly hold her own. I am more automated and on-line than she is, but she's slowly moving in that direction.

I have a very good friend that works for the same company as I do and understands our retirement system, death benefits, etc. His name is on the list and he is aware that he may be one of the first people she calls if something happens to me. Since she is my POA and primary beneficiary, he can help her with the process side of things and she can then take the necessary steps.

I put our wills in a place in the house and in it is a couple of pages of information such as where the IRA, bank accounts, and stock accounts are and the passwords for them. A few other things like an old gun dad brought back from WW2 I want to go to my son. Where a box that has some old coins in and where the keys are for it.

One place not to put anything that is to be needed at the time of death is a safety deposit box. It becomes sort of sealed by the bank/court and you have to have a person from the court system to go with you and inventory everything in it. May take a while to get anything out of it like a will.

I don't know the laws of other states and they may be the same or different as far as the POA. Once someone dies the POA dies with the one that lets someone haveing POA over them. Such as my wife has POA over me. If I die, then she can not use that POA to do anything.

If I had a checking account in my name only and the wife has POA , she can write a check out of that account. As soon a I die she would not be able to write a check out of that account.

However most of the money and things are set up with a right of survivorship so when I die, most everything drops right over to her.

All our accounts are in both names and she handles it all except I do taxes. She is computer literate but prefers to pay by mail. We pay off credit cards as due and have zero debt. In my hands, I would consolidate things.

~ 6 years ago, we started putting our vehicle ownerships under both names - just one-less bother when one of us is dead or incapacitated. John T.

You are not wrong, but you should note that I said "His name is on the list and he is aware that he may be one of the first people she calls if something happens to me."

Death is not the only thing that can happen to me. If I end up in a coma, she calls my buddy, acting as my POA. If I die, she calls him as my primary beneficiary.

We have always done that and all accounts have our names and secondary beneficiaries, our sons.

Yes, a good reason for POA by someone that is trusted is so if one does end up in a coma or in some position where they can not make decissions for their self (like my dad had demensia) , or just does not understand finances. While it was not needed, a year ago my wife was given some pills by a doctor for bowl problems. That pill made her mind go and she spent 10 days in the hospital not knowing who she was. Thankfully she is ok now and back to her old self.

I did have a medical POA or whatever and was able to make decissions on what to do about her during that time.

So there are no retirement accounts for either of you? No IRA's, 401(k)'s, etc.?

No, we do have these separate accounts, my 401k and a few IRA's for each including a couple or Roth's. We make sure to list ourselves as primary beneficiaries and sons as secondary.

OK...cuz you said: "All our accounts are in both names". Just didn't sound right.