Episode Summary
Today’s episode features a special guest who brings a wealth of experience both professionally and personally. Kathryn Peyton, a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ with Abacus Wealth Partners since 2016, joins us to share her invaluable insights on managing the role of an executor. We’ll dive into Kathryn’s personal journey, where she combines her professional expertise with real-life experiences, such as caring for her aging mother. Kathryn will discuss the significance of car rides and open conversations with elder family members, the financial and emotional investment of being an executor, and insights on how to prepare for and manage this crucial role. Join us to explore how to navigate the complex yet rewarding responsibilities of being an executor with our esteemed guest, Kathryn Peyton.
What You’ll Learn in this Episode
- The role of a geriatric care manager and the benefit it can have to your elder and you
- A few ideas on how to balance personal and caregiving roles
- How to foster open and meaningful conversations with your elders
- How to create space and opportunities for elders so you can learn more about them and their wishes
- The importance of having open communication when it comes to end-of-life desires and planning
- A few tips on how to alleviate stress on the elder and on you as the executor
- A few things you should keep in mind if you are named someone’s executor
- The importance of having accounts designated as “pay on death”
- The time commitment as an executor
- What you can do to make your work as an executor streamlined before the person’s passing
Resources Mentioned on the Show
Stay Connected
- Find Kathryn on LinkedIn and learn more about her by reading her bio.
- Connect with Mary Beth on Twitter, Instagram, and on LinkedIn
- Connect with Neela on Twitter, Instagram, and on LinkedIn
- Join the Abacus community by connecting with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and on LinkedIn
Transcript of the Episode
Neela [00:00:14]:
Hey there. Welcome to the If Money Were Easy podcast, the show where we teach you how to expand what’s possible with your money. We’re your hosts, Neela Hummel
Mary Beth [00:00:23]:
and Mary Beth Storjohann,
Neela [00:00:25]:
certified financial planners & Co CEOs of Abacus Wealth Partners. Today on the show we’re going to be talking about a journey through a parent’s old age.
Mary Beth [00:00:36]:
We are incredibly grateful to have Kathryn Payton joining us today as a guest. Kathryn is a CFP Certified Financial Planner and has worked with Abacus in the Sebastopol office since 2016. She is a former educator and is currently heading up Abacus’s training program for new advisors and paraplanners. She has an MBA in finance from UC Berkeley. She has worked in banking and corporate finance before becoming a public school teacher. She combined her interest in education and business by teaching business and economics in an International Baccalaureate high school in Virginia. She was the Virginia Outstanding Economics Educator of the year in 2011. For the last 10 years, Kathryn has been squarely in the sandwich generation, helping her children achieve financial independence while tending to her mother’s financial and lifestyle needs until her death last year. Kathryn, you are amazing. Welcome to the show.
Kathryn [00:01:28]:
Well, hi. Thank you for having me.
Neela [00:01:30]:
So we’re excited to have you here. First of all, go Bears. Also,
Kathryn [00:01:35]:
yes, definitely
Neela [00:01:36]:
proud Berkeley team here. So you have gone through quite a journey before your mom passed. Can you intro us to tell us a little bit about your story with your mom?
Kathryn [00:01:46]:
Sure, I’d be happy to. And for long term readers of the Abacus blog, you’ve met my mother a couple of times along the way because I’ve written about her, because I have felt that leading my mom through all this or helping my mother through this whole process did definitely enrich my practice as a financial planner because I just had so much more real world insight into what some of this stuff looks like at the end of life.
Neela [00:02:10]:
Right.
Kathryn [00:02:10]:
So my mom was in a retirement community in Virginia and I started really working with her on helping her with sort of end of life planning around the time she turned 85. She had been very independent up to that point. She’d gotten everything done that she needed to get done, but she started to feel less able to manage all that stuff around that time. And one of the things I want to emphasize to anybody who’s in this kind of situation is it’s so important to be open about these topics, to find a way in to talk to your parents about these things. And I was very lucky. My mother’s extremely pragmatic and just wanted to get things done. She didn’t have a lot of angst or worry around talking about these issues that I know a lot of parents do. So it’s super important to get that relationship going and to really be able to talk about these kind of questions, because certainly in my mother’s case, she had very defined opinions about what she wanted.
Mary Beth [00:03:10]:
Did she come to you requesting help? Was she sharing openly what was going on, or was it something that you more noticed over time?
Kathryn [00:03:16]:
It was a little bit more of a process. I had lived in Virginia, as you said, for a long time, and I was at this point living in California, but I was seeing her fairly frequently. I would fly back three or four times a year and spend at least a week with her. And I just noticed at one point that she all of a sudden had turned a corner and just really seemed to have a lot more anxiety about managing her medications and her schedule and getting to doctor’s appointments. She’d given up her car a year or two before that, and I think that was a big transition for her that she just felt a lot less agency over her schedule after that. So we did a couple of things along the way that really helped that I’ll mention now and then. We can talk more about the end of life stuff. But one of the things that I am such an advocate for is something called a geriatric care manager. Those are people, they’re usually registered nurses, and they are people who’ve chosen to switch out of day to day nursing care and to work with people that need help managing their healthcare and their medications and all that sort of stuff. And so somebody who has the skill set to really help my mom think through her whole health situation, which just had become so dominant in her life. I mean, she never even went on any medication until she was 80. And all of a sudden, by the time she was 86, it was virtually all she was doing was going to doctor’s appointments and taking care of herself that way. And so having this geriatric care manager was totally invaluable and allowed my mom to stay in her independent living situation probably for five or six years before she had to go to assisted living that she might have had to go earlier if she hadn’t had that extra support.
Mary Beth [00:05:03]:
So tell me a little bit more about the geriatric care manager I know you had the benefit of. There was somebody located at the facility your mom was living at that you could hire.
Kathryn [00:05:10]:
Well, the facility where my mom lived had established a relationship with an outside Firm. It was like an agency.
Mary Beth [00:05:16]:
That was my question. Is it agencies? Are these contractors? How does one go about finding a geriatric care manager? Just type that into Google?
Kathryn [00:05:22]:
Just ask the Google geriatric care manager in your area and then, you know, you want to interview them, of course, to find out are they in sync with your parents, do they get along with them, that sort of thing. We were so lucky. We had the same woman for the entire time and she became almost a member of the family. She was just fabulous.
Neela [00:05:43]:
And so particularly for you, because you were in California, mom was in Virginia, your mom probably could have used you, but since you weren’t there, it was like.
Kathryn [00:05:53]:
I sorta felt ike I was replacing myself because a lot of what I had done for my mom when I was still in Virginia was just run over there when she couldn’t figure out her Internet or, you know, things like that. And also help her get her to doctor’s appointments and make sure that her schedule stayed working properly. And since I wasn’t there to do that anymore, I have two siblings who were in the Virginia area, but one still had kids at home and was extremely busy. And my sister was working full time and she was commuting back and forth to New York, so it wasn’t an option for them to step in. So we needed somebody that would just be that extra sort of real brain in the process that can help her with these kinds of decisions.
Mary Beth [00:06:32]:
And then what was the communication like between you and the geriatric care manager? So, I mean, she worked with your mom to facilitate, but then how often were you in contact and how were you getting updates? How did that work?
Kathryn [00:06:41]:
In the beginning, I would say it was fairly formal. Like she would send us reports. Every time she would meet with my mother, she would just email me and say, this is what we did today. And that sort of thing. Over time, I got to know her and so did my siblings. And so it became a much more loose and fluid situation. Like when I would go to visit my mom, I would always make sure that she was around at some point so the two of us could interact and talk face to face. And she was great about facilitating that.
Neela [00:07:08]:
And so what are some of the things that she really helped with? You said doctor appointments, medication, doctor’s appointments.
Kathryn [00:07:15]:
Going to the pharmacist to pick up stuff for my mom. My mom was on Tricare, which is a military medigap plan. So she was able to order a lot of her medications through the military system, which is great because it saves a lot of money. But it’s another thing that my mom had just gotten to the point where she wasn’t comfortable manage that process. And so the geriatric care manager took care of all that. And my mother was in a retirement community that works with retired military and government officials, so a lot of her clients had these same issues. So that was another thing that was great about her is that she was very familiar with the niche that my mom happened to be in in terms of healthcare.
Mary Beth [00:07:59]:
Tell us a little bit about the. The emotional and the physical impacts of having the geriatric care manager on your mom, like the state that she was in and you were in for your mental load.
Kathryn [00:08:09]:
Yeah, it was so great for both of it. It was such a lift to both of us, but particularly to my mother, because she really came to love this woman a lot and she really relied on her. She felt very comfortable. I’m sorry, for the geriatric care manager because, you know, she felt really comfortable just pinging her all the time with anything that she needed. So it was exactly what she needed at the time. And it really did keep her in her apartment on her own, which meant everything to my mom. She really didn’t want to go to assisted living, and so she had been a volunteer in the assisted living as a resident in that community for a long time. So she knew what it was like and she knew the ups and downs of it, and she just didn’t want to do it until she absolutely had to. She did decide late in her life that she needed to do that, and so we moved her and the geriatric care manager moved with her. I think once she was in assisted living, she didn’t need her as much, but she was still around to be helpful.
Neela [00:09:08]:
From a relationship standpoint, it sounds beautiful because it sounds like you were able to be a daughter versus a caregiver totally. And then she was able to perhaps ask this person things that she might not have felt comfortable asking you for. And so it seems like it almost worked better on both sides.
Kathryn [00:09:26]:
Absolutely. And it was such a lift for my mom because she had somebody close by and she knew that my siblings were super busy, and so, you know, she would have a lot of guilt around her trying to get them to help her. So this was somebody that was right close by, that was at her retirement community several days a week, whether my mother needed her or not. So she never had that feeling that she was making things inconvenient for somebody, which was a big deal to my mom. She did not want to be a burden.
Mary Beth [00:09:51]:
I imagine there’s the companionship element to that as well, right of having that constant… in terms of enhanced quality of life.
Kathryn [00:09:56]:
In our case it was. I don’t know if that always happens. If I were a geriatric care manager, I might want to have a little bit more distance, a few more boundaries. And she, she was consummately professional the entire time, but she was just very loving and caring to my mom.
Neela [00:10:14]:
And from like a brass tack standpoint, if somebody’s looking to hire their own geriatric care manager, are the relationships flexible? Are they generally done on an hourly basis? How does an engagement work if you want to hire someone?
Kathryn [00:10:25]:
It is definitely hourly. They bill for their time just like any other professional would do. It’s not cheap. I will say that upfront. But as I wrote in my blog, when I was talking about this on the Abacus blog, it was a lot cheaper than moving her to assisted living.
Neela [00:10:43]:
Right.
Kathryn [00:10:43]:
Which was really the trade off. So in terms of peace of mind and also delaying that, it was worth the sacrifice. And I was lucky that between my siblings and me and the money that my mother still had from after my dad passed away, she was able to afford it. We did sort of all work together on that, but it really was worth it.
Mary Beth [00:11:05]:
Talk to us a bit. So your experience as a financial planner and then moving into this phase with your mother, did you facilitate a lot of this in terms of finding the geriatric care manager and then kind of the relationship and navigating that? What was that like as a planner and then live out these financial decisions and moments that we talked to clients about?
Kathryn [00:11:22]:
Yes, it was really a learning lab for me, talking to my elderly clients about how to talk to their children about these things. And then for my more middle aged clients, how to talk to their parents about all these things. I mean, most of our clients have these issues. They have people in their life that are older or they are older and they have people in their life that need to understand things. So it was great practice for being an advisor and I think definitely gave me a lot of depth to the advice that I could offer because I was living this whole thing. The main reason it was me doing all this was because she had designated me as her executor. She basically drove that process that she decided I was going to be the executor. And so I was the one she was going to talk to about this kind of stuff.And my siblings and I were in constant communication about that. Thank goodness. Through this entire process, my siblings and I have had a great relationship and we’ve all supported her and her needs in the best ways we could at the time. But she kind of drove the process. But I started working with her. I first started taking over her financial stuff. I first started learning about all the things that I needed to know as her executor in her mid-80s. And then she passed away when she was 90, almost 92.
Mary Beth [00:12:35]:
92.
Neela [00:12:35]:
I think it’s really interesting. You know, one of the things I’m gathering from what you’re saying, Kathryn, is oftentimes we think about things almost in a binary, like somebody doesn’t need help and then they need like so much help that they need to be in a facility. And it’s almost like you’re able to navigate this middle way based on your mom’s unique needs and where she was and you know, what she had going on.
Kathryn [00:12:55]:
This whole thing really brought that whole idea that there is this time period between the time when you’re completely independent and when the time when you’re infirm. That there is a time period that really makes people very nervous. When you’re older, you feel like life is moving too fast and you aren’t as in control and you’re probably not driving and so you have to ask people for help all the time. It’s a real life phase that I think is under discussed actually.
Mary Beth [00:13:25]:
The vulnerability in it, from those that are aging.
Kathryn [00:13:27]:
Totally and for children watching their parents go through that.
Neela [00:13:31]:
Right.
Kathryn [00:13:32]:
It’s, it’s, it’s a vulnerable time for everybody, but it’s, it’s a really special time to make sure that you get everything in your life and your parents life together so that you’re ready when they do hit that point when they’re just going to need so much care and they won’t be able to take care of themselves. So my mom did a lot of things that were really smart. She picked a good executor and made it clear that’s what she wanted. She made sure that she had a will and that she had a good estate attorney. And she did all of that through her connections from her retirement community. So that retirement community was invaluable for helping with stuff like this. She made her end of life decisions very clear. She literally had a program for what she wanted her memorial service to have in it and which hymns we were going to sing and all that sort of stuff. She was a planner too, for sure. She kept her estate very simple financially. My dad died many, many years before my mother died. He died when he was 64. So my mom was alone for a really long time. And she kept everything very simple. She sold her house in North Carolina and moved up to Virginia to be closer to her kids. She really kept everything in a manageable way. She chose to stop driving, she chose to continue to pay, her long term care policy. She just did all the right stuff.
Neela [00:14:50]:
I’m just shocked, Kathryn, knowing you, how. Oh my God, does this run in the family? I mean, this level of. I love the.
Mary Beth [00:14:57]:
Kathryn like, she chose a great executor. I was like, that’s a yes, yes.
Neela [00:15:00]:
Literally a professional. Well, she chose well.
Kathryn [00:15:04]:
Choosing an executor is a tough choice because the executor has to do a lot of things. They have to be able to manage all the assets, they have to know how to protect everything. And that gets even harder now with all of our cyber issues. So they have to be tech savvy, not something that you would normally consider for having an executor. They have to be super detail oriented. So it’s important that when you pick somebody that it has to be somebody that can manage all that stuff and then manage the whole probate process.
Mary Beth [00:15:34]:
So tell us what that was like for you as executor. One, knowing that she appointed you and then two, having to take the steps. It’s not just a 30 day process on the other side. Right. Or it’s a long process to close an estate as well. So talk to us what that was like.
Kathryn [00:15:48]:
Yeah, that took over a year. And one of the reasons for that is unfortunately we did wind up going through probate. So as a financial planner, I thought I had every duck in my row that I had got all of her accounts, we had transfer on death language attached to them. All that sort of stuff was done. And she and I had gone to the CFO of her retirement community to make sure all that was done. Well, what I didn’t know is that process never got finalized. That was my fault. I should have checked. I didn’t. I thought between the CFO and my mother, they were going to get it done. I’d been there, I had visited, we’d had the meeting, thought it was done and it wasn’t. Oh, so she had a significant amount of money left from her investment. When you come into one of these communities, you pay in and then when you, when you pass away, you get a significant amount of money back. And so all that money went through her will, not through any kind of transfer language. So we had to probate it because of that
Neela [00:16:49]:
So everything else was buttoned up except one piece.
Kathryn [00:16:52]:
Everything else was buttoned up, except for one bank who by the time she died, said they did not have pay on death language on her accounts, even though they had had it years before. So that was another thing. And this last week, when I knew she was going to pass away, I should have called every bank to make sure all that was done.
Neela [00:17:10]:
Double, triple, quadruple check
Kathryn [00:17:11]:
I thought we had done all that.
Mary Beth [00:17:12]:
Yeah, right. Yeah. Well, even in the last week, though, I feel like there’s so much more emotion happening, you know, and that’s. I think that’s. That’s the conflict of being family and executor. There’s so much that you could do in those last moments, but you’re also, You’re. You’re in the. In the feels, as they say these days.
Kathryn [00:17:27]:
Yes, you’re in all the feels. And she was in a hospital. And so we were managing all that. And yeah, there were some complexities to the process, but I think in general, because I had a long time to work with her on all this, we were pretty good. I had managed. I had gotten access to all of her financial accounts online. So I knew where everything was. I knew how everything was invested. I had personal relationships with her bankers and her investment people. So all that side of things was good. One piece of information that I didn’t know enough about and have learned about was not only understanding what your parents investment assets and financial assets are, but also understanding their income streams. So in my mother’s case, she got Social Security, of course, and then she also had a couple of annuities that my father had set up many, many years ago. And it turned out that that was a little bit more difficult to manage through the probate process than it should have been, only because one of the annuity people. I should have checked this. I didn’t. Had a very, very old address for her. So when they sent her tax reporting information that I needed in order to complete her final tax return, it went God knows where. I have no idea where they sent it. And they couldn’t disclose to me what address they had on file. They would just tell me, no, it’s not that. No, it’s not that. I have no idea where they sent it. But anyway, it took me literally about six months to get them to produce a 1099. It was crazy. Just dealing with them was super difficult. And, you know, you would get somebody on the phone who had no idea what they were talking about, and they would say, yes, we’re going to send it to you. And then you would wait a month and they wouldn’t and you would call back and you would get a different person and they would say the same thing, but it just. It just wasn’t happening. It was really a difficult process. So that’s something if, in retrospect, I should have gotten not only online with her financial accounts, but also with those income sources to make sure that I knew like, that I had checked all their profile information and all that sort of stuff for her.
Neela [00:19:37]:
So we should clarify for our listeners that an executor is a role that kicks in after somebody passes away. It is a role related to the will. So as you were helping your mom before she passed away, leading into that executor role, were you her power of attorney or were you helping her in the background so that you could help line things up as best as possible?
Kathryn [00:19:57]:
I did have her power of attorney. I didn’t really need to use that until she was in her 90s. And then she really just didn’t want to have anything to do with her financial stuff. Up to then. I could have her on the phone with me whenever I was talking to anybody. But at that point she was like, I’m not doing this. So then I did have to use her power of attorney.
Neela [00:20:16]:
I mean, give your mom a lot of credit in terms of picking an excellent executor, of course, but also she was really ahead of the ball. You were communicating, you were communicating with your siblings and that there was a lot of pre work that made it go as smoothly as possible. Could we go back and change, you know, one or two things? You bet. But having a lot of the pre work, putting, you know, the transfer on death designation on all these accounts, making sure you know what’s coming in, where it’s coming from, and you were able to do some of that, which made your role as an executor probably much easier than it could have been.
Kathryn [00:20:47]:
Yes, absolutely. The last piece, I would say, is another thing to be on top of as a someone who’s going to be the executor is their healthcare insurance, all that kind of stuff. It’s fairly easy if you’re sort of on top of it, but make sure you know how that works.
Mary Beth [00:21:04]:
So in thinking through, you spoke about how your mom kind of started on this process in her 80s and you hired the geriatric care manager, which, you know, allowed you to really stay in this role of daughter for a bit longer and then moving into helping her with financials. What would you say the time commitment was, you know, from you in each phase and also emotional load or how you navigated that with what you’re going through in your life at that point in time. There’s sandwich generations. Right. Like you talked about. Your sister had kids at home. How did you navigate that and balance it all? That’s the real life question as well.
Kathryn [00:21:37]:
Yeah. In terms of time commitment, I would say until the last year or two of her life, it was probably, I don’t know, maybe 10 hours a year. I would make sure, as I said, I was flying back there fairly frequently, and I would make sure that I didn’t always bug her about all this kind of stuff, but that I did every year or so, go through some of these things and just talk her through where we were on all those kind of stuff. And that’s when she told me things like where she had all of her instructions when she passed away, all this kind of stuff. She. She was pretty good about when I did ask her about these things, actually openly talking about them. And so that was important. But it was also very important not to hound her about these issues and to make sure we did a lot of other things beside that. So one of the things we did a lot, which I just loved, is I took her down to eastern North Carolina, where she was from, and I would rent, like, this big Cadillac, and we just drive and see all of her old relatives. That was really fun. So I think it’s super important to keep the fun in the relationship and not make this so heavy.
Mary Beth [00:22:42]:
I love that.
Kathryn [00:22:42]:
So that was part of it. And then the last two years, of course, it was a lot of time. And this last year, since she passed away last May, has been a lot of time. I don’t even know how many hours, but it’s been a lot. So you can’t be an executor if you don’t have some time that you can spend on this stuff.
Mary Beth [00:22:57]:
Yeah.
Neela [00:22:57]:
Just hearing that story of you taking a drive in a fun car makes me think of something that you wrote about in the blog about the little moments and the little things that matter. And that as we’re going through these, like, really heavy topics of what happens when I pass away and managing the money, like a lot of very sterile topics. How did you really preserve those little special moments for your mom towards the end?
Kathryn [00:23:21]:
Well, I can’t say enough about spending time in a car with your elders. You know how it is with your kids. Like, if you’re listening and they’re in the backseat, you learn all this stuff about them that you never knew because they just forget that you’re there. It’s kind of the same thing with your parents in a car because you’re not staring at each other across a table. You’re both kind of looking out the window or whatever. So it’s just a sort of a, easier moment to talk about these things. Like, I found out that way. I never knew that my mother had been engaged to another guy before she met my dad.
Neela [00:23:52]:
Oh, my gosh. That’s when all the tea gets spilled.
Kathryn [00:23:56]:
All the tea comes out. Yes, exactly. So I would say something important is to just make sure in these years that you do build in time for stress free things that they enjoy.
Neela [00:24:09]:
Yeah.
Kathryn [00:24:09]:
My mother loved nothing more than going and seeing these people. And she felt sad that she was so far away from them. So that was the key to getting to my mother’s heart, is to take her to see these people.
Mary Beth [00:24:20]:
I love that. So powerful, the time in the car. I know Neela and I are in that stage where you listen to the kids in the backseat, but I mean, road trips are my favorite just for that reason. The conversations, the uninterrupted time.
Kathryn [00:24:32]:
They are really valuable. Yeah. You’ve got time and you’re not on your phone and you’re not distracted and you’ve got to have something to talk about because you ran out of something on the radio miles behind you. So it’s a good idea. It doesn’t have to be a car, but I do think that’s one example of a stress free environment where they may feel more free to talk.
Mary Beth [00:24:51]:
I think there’s something so powerful and sweet and tender in that allowing space, especially for our elder family members, just elderly in general, to share their stories.
Kathryn [00:25:01]:
Right.
Mary Beth [00:25:01]:
I mean, being able to provide that space. My grandmother’s 90, 94. How old is she? 96. What do I keep saying 90. She’s in her late 90s.
Neela [00:25:09]:
She’s getting older, she’s getting older, she’s getting old.
Mary Beth [00:25:11]:
But that, the stories, the stories, and allowing that space for sharing and hearing. You know, she worked in factories making bras, like adding the little, little metal pieces, clasps to bras growing up. And you learn, though, you just learn these things. And I always just really loved the power of stories and hearing where people come from and those little fun pieces you get, you know, allowing space for that in our community, but also like in families, those, those pieces you could then pass down to your kids. That’s how you get that. And then you can share those with others.
Kathryn [00:25:37]:
And a lot of times they won’t tell you, like if you ask them. Tell me some stories of like, oh, I don’t really remember. They’re reluctant to voice some of this stuff sometimes for, for lots of different reasons. Maybe they think they’re going to bore you or maybe they’re just, you know, they don’t want to talk about themselves. They’re modest. But that’s why I think having extended periods of time really helps because you have to talk about something so you can get them talking about things. Asking leading questions can also be really helpful, I think. But I think the main thing is, yeah, just spending time. I mean, my mother just loved for people to come and sit on her couch and just hang out and that’s what they did in North Carolina, where she grew up. Like, people would visit each other on weekends and they would just like sit around, around for hours talking about all their past and their families and their health and all that stuff. Just on and on and on. My mom loved that. And I think that generation really grew up that way.
Mary Beth [00:26:35]:
Yeah. I mean, no technology. They just spent time together.
Kathryn [00:26:38]:
They just did, right?
Mary Beth [00:26:39]:
Yeah. And it’s, it’s so powerful. That is one of the things I think they, they miss the most from what I’ve seen. I always say my family is a special way with the older, older people. That’s who we spend our time with. All my family’s worked in the senior living communities. I’m constantly around, but I think that’s like the, the being able to just casually sit around tables, just telling stories and that connection.
Neela [00:26:56]:
And just slowing down. Yeah, slowing down, talking.
Kathryn [00:26:58]:
That’s the other thing. Slow down. Just be there.
Neela [00:27:02]:
There are a few things more rewarding than a hot cup of coffee on a nice porch with some good friends.
Kathryn [00:27:07]:
Yes, yes, for sure, for sure.
Mary Beth [00:27:10]:
Well, did we miss anything? Before we transition to the wrap up questions?
Kathryn [00:27:13]:
I think we’ve hit the main topics. We could talk about this all day. For sure.
Mary Beth [00:27:19]:
We could.
Neela [00:27:19]:
We’ll stop recording just because we’re nerds and we’re like, nobody wants to listen to an eight hour podcast.
Mary Beth [00:27:25]:
But I have more questions. I have follow up. But we won’t dive into the all the personal. Okay, so let’s go to our closing questions.
Kathryn [00:27:31]:
Sure.
Mary Beth [00:27:32]:
What is the best financial advice you have ever received?
Kathryn [00:27:36]:
Well, I’m going to stay on theme and I’m going to tell you something my mother did when I was in college. I was a liberal arts major. I said I was going to be a poly sci major and she said that’s fine, but learn how to type and take accounting and she was so right on both of those things. If you can type and if you know some basic bookkeeping, you can get a job anywhere in the world, right?
Mary Beth [00:28:00]:
Yeah.
Neela [00:28:00]:
And probably super helpful just for your own personal world.
Kathryn [00:28:02]:
Total versatility and set me on my path towards being a finance person and eventually being a financial planner.
Neela [00:28:09]:
Oh, your mom sounds like such a type.
Mary Beth [00:28:12]:
I know. So she was amazing.
Neela [00:28:14]:
Amazing. Okay, on the corollary that. What is your favorite money mistake that you’ve made and why?
Kathryn [00:28:22]:
This is probably. Probably this. People bring this up to you a lot, I would guess, when you ask this question. But there was one point when I was managing our family’s investments, my husband’s IRA, that we had rolled over from a previous employer. And it was like early 2000s and the dot com bust, and I freaked out and I took the money out of the market, and then I sat there for like eight years before I put it back in. I mean, the classic money mistake of all time. Why am I glad that I did that? Because for a lot of reasons, I’m really not glad that I did that. But why am I glad is because it gives me so much empathy and perspective for my clients who’ve done the same thing.bSo it has been a good way to sort of share. We’re all human. We all do dumb things.
Mary Beth [00:29:08]:
Yep. The connection. Okay, fill in the blank. If money were easy…
Kathryn [00:29:15]:
I’m gonna go off script and go a little political for a minute. If money were easy, we would not rely on our employers to choose investments to save money for our retirement. I mean, that’s insane if you just think about it for a minute. What if you work for some small company and the person that’s doing the HR knows nothing about investing? It’s just sheer luck if you wind up in a retirement plan that is well designed. I can’t believe we do that.
Neela [00:29:42]:
That is a great one. Nobody’s ever said that.
Mary Beth [00:29:44]:
But nobody ever said that is so insightful and accurate.
Neela [00:29:49]:
Yeah. Most people in interacting is like, how do I make this setting up this retirement plan thing go away?
Mary Beth [00:29:55]:
Go away. Make it easy
Neela [00:29:55]:
How do I, like, make it done?
Kathryn [00:29:57]:
Yes.
Mary Beth [00:29:58]:
I mean, they don’t actually know the questions to ask either. Right? If they don’t have the background.
Kathryn [00:30:01]:
I mean, you don’t know that. And everybody hates to go to HR. And when you go to HR, they give you, like, in the old days, they would give you 500 pages of stuff to wade through. Now they just send you endless numbers of documents or tell you to go look at this place on the cloud. A lot of times it’s not very helpful and they don’t really understand the plan either in many times. So it’s a real moral hazard in the way we do investing in this country.
Neela [00:30:25]:
It is brilliant. Agreed.
Mary Beth [00:30:27]:
I love Catherine’s politics. I follow her on social media.
Neela [00:30:29]:
I know, I love it. Just like preach, girl, preach as an aside.
Mary Beth [00:30:33]:
But yeah, speaking of Kathryn’s politics, where can we find you online, Kathryn?
Kathryn [00:30:37]:
You can find me on LinkedIn. And I’m also available on the Abacus website, of course.
Mary Beth [00:30:42]:
Of course, and we’ll link to all of this for Kathryn on the show notes. Thank you so much for joining us. This was so great.
Neela [00:30:47]:
Kathryn, thank you so much. So helpful.
Kathryn [00:30:50]:
All right, thanks guys.
Mary Beth [00:30:51]:
Thank you. Thanks for tuning in to today’s episode of If Money Were Easy. If this is the year that you want to expand what’s possible with your money and you can use some professional guidance along the way, head over to abacuswealth.com/get started and schedule your free consultation.
Mary Beth [00:31:32]:
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