Family Planning – not what you are probably thinking?

0:00 Welcome to Something More with Chris Boyd. Chris Boyd is a certified financial planner, practitioner, and senior vice president and financial advisor at Wealth Enhancement Group, one of the nation's largest registered investment advisors. We call it Something More because we'd like to talk not only about those important dollar and cents issues, but also the quality of life issues that make the money matters matter. Here he is, your fulfillment facilitator, your partner in prosperity, advising clients on Cape Cod and across the country. Here's your host, Jay Christopher Boyd. Welcome everybody. This is Something More with Chris Boyd. I'm Chris Boyd here with Jeff Perry. We are the AMR team at Wealth Enhancement Group and glad to have you joining us.

0:42 We've got a good topic today. A little surprising to me, Jeff, that we're talking about family planning. I know. Well, it's important. It's important to plan for your family. But I don't think this is what people are thinking. When I think of that, I think in terms of something like birth control or something. That's not what we're talking about. Oh, it's been in the news quite a bit. The recent campaigns and the social issues that are out there, people see family planning and think, what are they going to talk about? What side are they on? We're talking about financial planning for your family, estate planning, all the kind of planning that goes into thinking about maybe intergenerational wealth and the related issues.

1:30 Is that what I'm talking about? Okay. We can talk about that. That's fine. All right. I think we're both probably past that. We have families. We love our families. I'm worried about these issues. No, not so much. It's interesting. This topic's been on our radar for a while. Lisa and I, we just did some amendments to our estate plan. I thought about this issue. You're getting older. You start to think more about your estate plan, which is part of it, and your financial plan, which we've always kind of thought about. But you think about it as you get older, like when I pass and my executor or trustee, how is all this going to happen?

2:21 I guess the general prudent advice out there, and we can dig into the details, is you should tell your family about what your finances are generally and the outline of your estate plan. We'll dig into this. Yeah, let's talk about that. Do you agree with that generally? I think generally it is a good practice. I understand there are instances where families have different concerns about family members' ability to handle money and whether they really want them to. Well, I think sometimes one of the challenges, Jeff, is if someone, maybe a degree of wealth.

3:07 I've talked with business owners who would be like, I'm not going to give it all to the kids. I don't want them to know they are getting that much. Kind of take away their motivation. I don't want them to, yeah, exactly. I don't want them to stall out and think, I don't have to worry about it. I'll ride the wave until... That kind of notion, right? Sometimes I think that's part of why people are closer to the vest. Other times it may be that they feel like, oh, I wish there was more and I'm a little bit conscious of my wealth isn't as much as I'd like it to be, that kind of thing.

3:52 They feel like, that was not that much to talk about anyway. I think these are sometimes inhibitors, right? But big picture, I think it is a good practice to talk about, what are you planning? In that case where someone has substantial money, that business owner, in the case I was scenario, I was imagining, recalling. Well, it's still good to be clear what your expectations are because what if they're thinking they're coming into big money and they're not? You know, better for them to know that you've got your plan, whatever it is.

4:35 I think sometimes too, in the case of like that, where there's philanthropy involved, that's a value expression as well. I think that's something you want to engage your family in and talk about the notion that as part of our value system, we believe in helping our community and here's how we're going to do it or whatever it might be, right? To whom much is given, much is expected, that kind of notion. But that can be, when we talk about legacy, Jeff, we often think about it and talk about it in terms of financial terms, what we're, how we're leaving wealth to one or another, you know, individual.

5:23 When legacy can be other things too, it's values, it's stories, it's other things. So off track a little bit, but I think talking about these issues is important because it can help families to have a greater awareness of what's intended. And sometimes it can also be part of that process of clearly delineating value systems and things like that. When it comes to talking about what's intended, I think that's really important to have some clarity of here's what we have in mind for our plan.

6:05 Like let's talk about the state plan for a minute. You know, sometimes families, and I think we've talked about this on the show before, sometimes families just pick the oldest. Oh, they're going to be the one to settle my affairs. It's not always the right person, but sometimes that's, and if that's what you're doing and why, and there's somebody else who's involved in your day-to-day and they're living right nearby, well, I think it's important to talk to them about it and say, well, Johnny's the oldest or whatever. It's almost like a pick that will not create strife because it's the expected pick, right?

6:46 Maybe so. It may not be the best choice and it might be worth talking about why that would or wouldn't be, but I think it also could help to alleviate tensions if parents elaborate on what they had in mind and why. A lot of times what happens when a passing of a parent is old tensions bubble up within the family. Absolutely. And mom always did, dad always did, this kind of thing. You always were the whatever, right?

7:26 And by having some of these conversations with the family, you can elaborate on your thinking and have it as an opportunity not to convey any kind of confusion around, hey, but I still love each of you, that kind of thing. But let's talk about roles and who should do what kind of consideration. Yep. So, this is really individual. We're talking about families generically. Sometimes it's one child, sometimes it's 10 children, sometimes it's businesses involved.

8:10 And so, let's just start with the conversation about a simple plan where it's a married couple. They have means, so they have assets and they own a house and they have investments and IRAs, but there's nothing odd. I think we'll get into some of the oddities in a few minutes. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah. But there's no unique circumstances. It's a standard two kids. Yeah, let's keep it simple. Yep. And so, they're creating, they have their financial plan and they have their estate plan. We'll start with the estate plan. And they're picking one to be the executor of their will or trustee of their successor trustee. And they're picking a healthcare proxy and power of attorney.

8:52 So, they have these three kind of decisions to make. So, some of those are financial and some are healthcare. That's correct. So, the first one they're picking is the executor or personal representative or trustee who's going to handle the distribution of their assets when they both pass. Right. So, that might be thought of like who's good at accounting, who's good at finances. Details. Maybe who's got some experience with handling money. You might think along those lines. Do you agree? I definitely agree. And sometimes they default to the older. And sometimes I've seen, including very recently, which has not turned out very well for this particular sibling mix, where both were named.

9:43 Oh, yeah. That's tough. That's right. So, co-executives or co-trustees. And depending on the language of, let's call it a trust or a will, but depending on the language of the document, it's likely that they both have to agree. And so, I think that's the worst idea of anything we're going to talk about. I agree with you. As much as I get to thinking is that, oh, that'll be more collaborative. They'll both have the chance to agree on things. They can work together. Behind that kind of mindset. It's not heavy handed, but it does raise the potential, a greater potential for a contest of wills.

10:27 No pun intended. But with the notion that people might butt heads a little bit of, no, it should be this and no, it should be that. Okay. So, pick one, generally. Pick one or go outside to a non -child. You don't want it to be a family tension issue. Maybe a professional lawyer or whoever might be could be a good choice in this case. So, you talked about it in terms of passing one's death, right? But the trust or the power of attorney plays that role while you're alive.

11:13 If you become incapacitated. Incapacitated kind of situation. And that could be relevant as well. Who's going to pay my bills? Who's going to be keeping everything, the ship running, so to speak. And this brings into the notion of not only the financial acumen, but also proximity. Who's going to be tuned in to my issues locally, maybe. Could also be relevant. Yep. Absolutely. It is relevant.

11:54 And it's usually the same person, I think, who is the executive person or representative and power of attorney. We're not talking about the healthcare proxy. But I think there's usually, if you have in our simple scenario, if you have two siblings, usually one of them is more organized. One of them is better with money. One of them is closer. Hopefully all those things are the same. Yeah. They may not all be the same, right? That's right. So it's important. And it's really important to... This seems obvious, but I'm sure you've come across it before. We're talking about communicating with your family is after you and your spouse decide who these people should be, is you should talk to that person.

12:37 You should give them a copy of the documents. You should explain, you should say... What's expected of them and are they willing to do that? Right. And so I'll just share something personal, which is in line with this. We just amended some documents. We changed a successor trustee on our trust. And so giving this new successor trustee copies of the documents, explaining what our intent is in certain areas that they're not ambiguous, but just adding some color, some detail and giving the successor trustee your name, for example, and the name of an attorney that they should go to for guidance.

13:22 The name of all the beneficiaries is in the trust, but how about contact information of the beneficiaries? That's not typically in the documents. It may say Johnny Jones of Boston, Massachusetts, but do you have a phone number and an email for him or her? And so reviewing from 10,000 feet, not every particular line, but reviewing your wishes and why you're doing things and what your intent is with your person that's going to carry out your wishes, either when you're incapacitated or you passed, I think is super important. I think that's a good point. So you lay it out in front of them.

14:06 Along those lines, do you want to transition to the healthcare considerations? I mean, I think that's just as important for some of that conversation. We talked a little bit about this not long ago when talking about a television show that we were watching. The Pit. Yeah. Did you end up watching any of that? We are current because the only release on a week. It's a good show. And in episodes two and three, it carried over maybe even to four, just for the listeners who weren't tuned into that podcast. There is a person that has an older man and I guess he's a parent, right?

14:50 Yeah. And near death. Two siblings, a male and a female. The female is more assertive, we'll say. And they don't agree on the end of life and how it should happen. And this whole two persons versus one. Right. There's another example of that. The healthcare proxy, I think it creates the potential for problems. We won't go into the particulars of that show again, but the concept of a healthcare proxy is who's going to make decisions for me if I'm not able to. Right. And some jurisdictions prefer an agent to the healthcare proxy.

15:34 Other jurisdictions prefer written directives. But both are that notion of what's intended. What do I want to see happen? And different people have different perspectives on this. Sometimes it's like, pull out all the stops, man. As my friend said, when you're dead, you're dead. Got to give them a chance, right? Yeah. So that's one. And then the other is, well, if I'm at a certain age, maybe I think I've had a good life. I don't necessarily want to be on machines and prolonged indefinitely. And maybe if there's certain cognitive decline, you might not want to be having life extended just indefinitely, you know, that kind of thing.

16:25 And so there may be some thoughts around what do I want, that, and will someone adhere to your wishes? Will they know what you want and follow those wishes, which was a part of that episode. Right. And so, you know, just going off the episode, but this is real life type of stuff. If you put in your healthcare proxy, your wishes, and, you know, say you don't want extraordinary means used, you know, you don't want to pull out all the stops, so to speak, which is one of the choices that people use commonly.

17:07 I think it's a lot more powerful that if you have that discussion following, you know, you've made this document, you've gone through that whole process and you give a copy to your healthcare proxy, hopefully it's one person and not two. An alternate is fine in case person number one's not available. Right. But, and you actually have the conversation with them that I prepared this document. This is my wishes. I think that goes, it just magnifies the document because without it, you know, in healthcare proxy has this document and they're reading it, but in there in this emotional moment and they're not really fully prepared to just, you know, be the judge, if you will, and just go by the letter of the four corners of the document, they have so many other emotions and wondering if you really meant that, did you understand it?

17:59 But if you had told this person, this is my situation, this is my health, this is my decision. I want you to honor it. I think it would just be so much more powerful to the healthcare proxy and so much more, I don't know how to say it, but it's a more of a gift to the healthcare proxy that you've had that conversation and you're relieving some of that burden from having to make that decision. Yeah. Yeah. You can see how this could lead to family tensions, can't you? How some of these challenging decisions and, you know, trying to fulfill someone's wishes could be challenging, you know?

18:44 So this goes back to, you know, what we started with, the conversations about this, the planning that goes into this. And, you know, as you were describing that and saying, it's important to talk to the person who's going to take on that role. But let's say in that imaginary family of four, mom, dad, son, daughter, it's actually important for mom and or dad to talk to not only the person who's going to be making the decisions, but also the person who's not so that they also know those intentions because they might be more inclined to be accommodating to them if they understand what's desired.

19:39 That's a great point. And, you know, ideally that conversation happens with all four of those people in the room at the same time, right? So there's no like, well, I don't know what you really said to the other sibling. Yeah. You might've pressured, you know, no sense of like, oh, you were pressuring them or something like that. Right. I'm in favor of all these family communications. I think they're important. I think it gets, I think we're talking about the easy stuff so far. It's not easy, but the easier stuff. I guess, how far do you go though? I mean, that's where we get into the, you know, and the real special circumstances.

20:22 So say you have, just keep with our example, let's say during the life of this family, the son in this case had some struggles along the way. So mom and dad helped him out. You know, maybe he was unemployed for a while, maybe he got a divorce and there were times when he needed some extra funds and, you know, whether or not the sister knows this happened, right? Right. Yeah. How, how do you handle that in a way that's fair? Equal is not always fair or fair. We, we, we often like make reference to that. It can be that fair is equal, but it's not always that fair is equal.

21:08 Let's say in our hypothetical, you know, the daughter is highly successful professional, financially secure. Um, and well off, whereas, uh, Sonny's been struggling. He's been bouncing around. Yeah. You know, so what's, what's fair in that scenario? Um, equal might be fair, but there might be a sense of, well, I think, um, Sonny needs a little bit more help, you know, that kind of thing, you know, so that, but maybe we'll keep it in a trust and not necessarily give that money to Sonny to, because he's not as good with money or whatever it might be.

21:54 Right. So there's no right or wrong answer for mom and dad here. It's, it's, it's their money, their assets. They get to decide, but the tough part is what do you communicate? Because if you, you gotta make sure you're saying something to daughter in that scenario that says, you know, I love you. Right. You know, but look, look how well you've done. We have total confidence. You're fine. You know what I mean? If they hear that, that's one thing and they say, okay, therefore I'm doing something different than what might seem fair, uh, equal. Um, or if they just find out at the reading of the will, what the hell, you know, they might feel like they've been slighted somehow.

22:41 The daughter could very well feel less than, right? Yeah. And more inclined to want to contest things. Sure. To, you know, to say, wait a second, that's not right. You know, that kind of thing. But if there's been some discussion and some disclosure, it may be different. So some of these conversations are very difficult. We're, we're encouraging these conversations, but we've also, we also know that sometimes people are not going to have these conversations because of, because they just can't get there. You know, they just can't emotionally get there or handle that conversation. Don't you think in New England, we, we tend to have a little bit of a different culture sometimes about money and disconnect and openness about much private, much more private, conservative.

23:31 Yes. It's none of your business, you know, kind of a mindset, you know, and, uh, that's, I think that's a very common, uh, modus operandi, right. That, um, you know, it's just, I don't share that kind of thing with my kids, none of their business. I don't want them knowing. That's another thing to talk about. Sometimes people get worried that the next generation is going to try to control things, take over, or perhaps, uh, you know, put them away, you know, in a nursing home and take over their money. And, you know, some of those fears that can evolve, right.

24:15 Absolutely. How do you deal with that? Well, you can deal with it by not naming your family as your trustee or power of attorney. Maybe you have a trusted friend or someone who's not a beneficiary. There are, there are, there is merit to having a non-beneficiary being the executor or trustee or power of attorney. They usually do get some compensation for that. Yep. Reasonable compensation is usually, you know, in the documents and you can outline that greater if you want. That can solve that anxiety of like, oh, they're going to just want to grab my money and put me away. You know, that kind of thing. Well, if they're not interested, if they don't benefit, why would they do that?

24:57 Right. If it's, you know, that kind of thing. And that non-family member can stand in if there's disputes and, you know, be firm and without any emotion. Making business decisions are easier than making family decisions sometimes, right? Yeah. Let's talk just related to this. Families that don't have kids. Yep. And now one spouse is left alone. And this has not been uncommon that. No. The, you know, the family's gone.

25:38 Maybe the siblings are older or have died off. Pre-deceased. Sure. And then there's like, who am I going to talk to? Who's going to be that person that could step in? Well, maybe there's nieces and nephews. But how committed are they? Yeah. You know, I think that's a common and challenging. It's not an easy, I totally can concede. It is not an easy option to how do I handle this? Who do I turn to? There are professionals, as you were saying. But even there, like, are they going to care about my health care proxy?

26:19 Probably not the health care proxy. They might do a decent job managing your assets and paying your bills. And that can be very prudent, especially if you're getting older and you start, you know, you find yourself forgetting to pay something or you're not sure. Yeah. Don't you want somebody watching over them, right? I'd rather have a professional. It's going to cost money, of course. But I'd rather have a professional doing that than asking a neighbor or, you know, just some random friend or, quite frankly, a niece or nephew that I've seen three times in my life. Right. Yeah. I think there's more opportunities for fraud and mismanagement there than paying a couple percent or whatever the fee would be to a professional.

27:01 But the health care proxy is definitely one that you don't see professional health care proxies out there. No. For good reason. Right. I mean, that shouldn't be a business. No, I think it's challenging for sure. So in any case, there's not an easy answer on that. Then you're trying to think in terms of friends, and probably as who could be that. And the older you get, the more difficult that becomes, I think. That's right. Identify who will serve that function. Similarly, Jeff, maybe, I don't know if this is stuff you wanted to talk about, but maybe, you know, going down a rabbit hole.

27:44 But sometimes families have not only the issue with someone who's either not good with money, failure to launch, whatever that kind of mindset is, or addictions or things that could complicate their, you know, their family's, you know, willingness or confidence that it makes sense to put them in charge of these resources that they might have available. And a trust is a good solution for that circumstance. But there are increasingly other circumstances, what if my kid has autism or, you know, or something where they're on stage or special needs, maybe schizophrenia, and they're, you know, limited in their ability to hold down a job or fill in the blank, right?

28:37 There's you can picture different ailments or health considerations that have limitations on one's abilities, whether they're, you know, medical, or mental health, you know, kinds of whatever it might be. There's a variety of circumstances, or, you know, Down syndrome, as an example, someone can live a long life, but may have some degree of autonomy, but, you know, also may be benefiting from state benefits. And, you know, what does one do, they can't certainly necessarily fill the role of healthcare proxy in some of these instances, right?

29:23 They may not be the person to be a trustee. In fact, it may be that we need to make plans for some of these people that outlives us, right? As a parent, we think that way, right? So just, I mean, there's all kinds of range of circumstances. I kind of threw into one big jumble there, but let's talk about that for a minute or two too, because that is a whole other area of complexity in this family planning discussion that we're talking about here. What do you, what do you, what do you want to add to that part of the discussion? I'll put those scenarios in two different buckets, just to start.

30:04 Bucket one is for individuals who, your beneficiaries, who should not receive a large summer money or be managing it, right? For whatever reason, you know, you mentioned some good ones, but it's not to their benefit. It might be to their benefit for one weekend, right? They'd have like a weekend, but so... No, not real. But even that, right? Hazardous, right? Right. And then the other bucket is for people who just don't have the ability to manage their own money or that they might be subject to losing benefits or be taking advantage of financial advice, you know, a career or something. But without doing a whole episode on it, this is where a good trust attorney really comes into play because whatever the example is, whatever the concern is, whether it's, you want to support a loved one who has a cognitive disability over the next 40 or 50 years, or you just don't want your beneficiary to get a lump sum of money, you know, even if they're working, it's just not going to be healthy for them to do that.

31:11 There's different trust provisions for each that can really accommodate your needs. And when there are some circumstances like state benefits involved, there's particular kinds of trusts that can be utilized to have discretionary resources to be available without disrupting state benefits that's worth, you know, again, like you said, good, the right kind of attorney. But I think this also brings us back to the financial planning components of this. And thinking in terms of, in that case, we're not just planning for a couple to not outlive their resources, as an example, or an individual.

31:52 But now we're thinking about maybe multi-generational, like not running out of resources and doing some planning that can forecast how does that work? How do we make sure that we don't have an issue over, you know, two generations of lifetime, if you will. And sometimes that can involve just planning around how we manage the wealth. And other times we can have, you know, thoughts around insurance planning, making sure we create more wealth with an insurance policy or something along those lines.

32:36 Anyway, there's the whole financial planning element. We spent a lot of time talking about the estate planning considerations of these kinds of discussions and conversations. I think we also need to talk a little about the financial implications. And, you know, this goes back to that question of how much do you want to reveal to your family about what you have, where you have it? How's it positioned? What kind of expenses are you incurring? Do you have money in a safety deposit box or, you know, valuables in a safety deposit box?

33:18 Do they have access to that? Do you have, you know, the little packet in the upper left-hand drawer where, you know, it's like when I die folder or whatever. Yeah. You know, do they know where to find that? I had a conversation with my mom just the other day where she was like, hey, when I die, here's what I want my mask to be. You know, it's got a game plan. Very common. I've got some music I'd like. My mother did the same thing. She picked up songs. Absolutely. So, you know, that can range just like the state plan.

33:59 That could range from, you know, there's an envelope here to, you know, I'd also like to see people say, here's my attorney. Here's my financial advisor. You know what? It's unique to everyone. But here are the people to contact to help you. Right. Yeah. I want them to help you. And if you have a question, I want you to ask this person. This is my accountant. This is going to need to do my taxes. All the things that you are worried about. Right. Yeah. Worry about this. Let them know, let your trustee, your executor or whatever term we're using here, know these things. So and tell them as much as you're comfortable with. I, you know, this line, this line is movable for people, but you can at least tell them who your financial advisor is, your attorney and your accountant, and perhaps have a meeting.

34:49 In our example with your financial advisor and go over some of your maybe it's a setting that you can share some things that you haven't shared and some thoughts and desires that you haven't been able to share around the kitchen table. Maybe you can do it in the structure of a meeting with your financial advisor or attorney. Yeah, that's good. Good planning. I, I have a client who has a long letter that he updates periodically. Right. And from time to time, he'll share it with me as to, you know, yours. And it's all about, you know, like talk to the attorney. Here's the name and the phone number. Talk to us. There's the phone number.

35:32 You know, I often think about other circumstances where what if something happened to one spouse and it would be great if they could share, you know, here's who I talked to about the taxes. Here's who I talked to about the mechanic, you know, for the car, you know, here's the guy who cleans the gutters, you know, whatever. Right. You know, some of those, some of those kind of mundane things that, well, if you need a handyman, here's who I'd call, you know, because I think a lot of times survivors take on stuff they're not familiar with just in the chores and the stuff that we, we all split as in a household, you know, you do this and I'll do that.

36:21 But what do I do? You know, who do I call? Yeah, that kind of thing. And it's more complicated today. Probably like most people, most people are using online bill paying or you get your bills actually online, you know, rather the old days you get everything in the mail. So you just kind of wait it out. Right. Yeah. They didn't know. Right. Yeah. Cause we'd get some, but if you don't have access to that email and things are happening automatically, you might see it on a bank statement. Again, if you have a bank statement joint or in a trust or something, but if it's individual, you know, what do you do then?

37:06 Right. Well, I had a neighbor who was married, her husband died and she didn't have any children back to that example. And he handled everything. So she did not have access to his email and everything. He did everything online. So she would, she didn't even really know the banks. Right. Yeah. So, you know, it's challenging. How'd you get, how'd you resolve that? Fortunately she had tax returns. Well she also had you helping her out. Right. And ultimately we found a nephew that was available to help and interested, you know, qualified person. So, but I'm just using that example.

37:47 If you're not engaged, if you have the spouse that's not engaged and everything's online or almost everything online, you know, it's more valuable than a phone number is what's the password, you know, to, to at least where I can start. Right. Yeah. So I've told you the, the, the thing I always worry about with these is, you know, suddenly there's a things flown thrown across the room, you know, you mean the family meeting at the family, the family meeting turns a hostile or something, you know, no, you know, just emotions can, can run deep on these things.

38:28 And so that's one of those things that I think parents have to be prepared to elaborate one. This is what I want. Right. It's they've made a decision and it's their intention. But I think it's also important that they convey some of the emotion. I, you know, they have to be in a position where they're able to convey to their children, their adult children, their, their, their pride, their love, their, you know, uh, all the things that they may need to hear a little bit to, uh, accept some of these things that otherwise might cause them to feel tension and stress.

39:12 Yeah. Um, it's really a gift to have these meetings. And if you can't have the meeting to have that letter that you talked about, you know, that's really detailed and unique, um, in some ways, maybe both, but the key is to have some type of communication and not just leave everybody guessing what your wishes are, what your finances are, what your plan was. I think it's a gift to your family to do those difficult things. Right. One of the best things you might do in this process is not only engage your family in the process, but engage your financial and, uh, attorney and accountant kind of professionals in the process so that, um, introductions, you know, let your family know who you deal with and they know who they can talk to, you know, that everyone is introduced and has familiarity.

40:10 Maybe there's also elements of, uh, helping in that process of walking through some of these things. And maybe that works out to, uh, uh, like, you know, maybe you explain to your financial advisor, I'd like you to walk them through a little bit about our plan. Uh, so they know, you know, that kind of thing, you may want that done. And I think in that context, uh, maybe some clarity around what kind of circumstance do we want to discuss? Um, not only just the current, Hey, this is where we're at, but the eventualities of the what-ifs if I die first, if they die first, what do we expect to happen?

40:51 What's going to be the process? If something happens that there's a prolonged illness, how do we envision that being played out and so forth? You know, a little bit of the, the game plan of what we want to cover, but sometimes a little bit of help in that process can be a buffer and also help. Yeah. The structure of that can be a lot more effective than trying to get everyone around the kitchen table, you know, with the ball game on in the back and everybody's emotions on their sleeves and the dogs barking at the door. And, you know, the structure of a meeting in a professional setting with a, with a plan of what is to be articulated and what's not.

41:33 Yeah. Somewhat of an agenda maybe. And the introductions have value. You know, if you're a sibling or a child or beneficiary, um, it's going to be a lot easier to call you or call the attorney if you've met them and you have some understanding of what's going on than just randomly trying to find out who was the financial advisor. Where are the assets? Who is the attorney? Right. Right. So with that, um, we cover a lot, hopefully of some value to you to get started with your thinking about these issues. Uh, definitely needs some thought before you start to execute, uh, but give consideration, speak to an attorney about your estate plan, uh, work with your financial advisor.

42:19 And if you don't have someone in that role, uh, we're happy to speak with you to see if we can be a resource in thinking about not only these issues, but also, uh, the overall planning around your financial plan and your portfolio design. Thanks everyone for joining us until next time. Keep striving for something more. Thank you for listening to something more with Chris Boyd. Call us for help, whether it's for financial planning or portfolio management insurance concerns, or those quality of life issues that make the money matters matter. Whatever's on your mind, visit us at something more with chrisboyd.com or call us toll free at 866-771-8901 or send us your questions to amr-info at wealthenhancement.com.

43:09 You're listening to something more with Chris Boyd financial talk show wealth enhancement, advisory services, and Jay Christopher Boyd provide investment advice on an individual basis to clients. Only proper advice depends on a complete analysis of all facts and circumstances. The information given on this program is general financial comments and cannot be relied upon as pertaining to your specific situation. Wealth Enhancement Group cannot guarantee that using the information from this show will generate profits or ensure freedom from loss. Listeners should consult their own financial advisors or conduct their own due diligence before making any financial decisions.