inheritance

What a Nice Problem to Have!
photo shows a pile of small American cash bills

Money isn’t just money. This is one the unspoken understandings that drives our work at 228 Main.

(Green paper folding money is actually pretty gross, when you think about it. We exchange germ-ridden linen for goods and services? It’s weird.)

For many people we know, money represents work. It’s sweat and time and livelihood.

For some, money means travel, through time and chapters of our lives.

It’s supporting children and parents and ourselves and our communities.

It moves around among us and makes new things.

However, money can be a top stressor for many Americans. We’d like to offer a little reframe: money can be a wonderful problem to have.

In recent months, fresh flows of cash have been springing up in many households as the pandemic kept us less mobile and less active. Others have discovered more flexibility after paying down debt across the last year. And those stimulus checks arrived whether we needed them or not!

We’ve been hearing from some of you about those big financial questions of life, too, as some are wondering about whether a financial legacy takes the form of an inheritance for later or gifts splashed around to children or loved ones now.

Generational wealth is a powerful tool and privilege. It also highlights the tensions we feel around money: what is the utility of money, in our lives? What can it get us and others? What can it do for us and other?

How do you best use your money? There isn’t one answer—and we certainly aren’t here to tell you your answer—but oh my, what a nice problem to have!

Clients, may your wealth bring you only the best of dilemmas. We’ll be here to try to help you along your way.

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Play the audio version of this post below:

What a Nice Problem to Have! – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

This text is available at https://www.228Main.com/.

For Those Close to Our Clients

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We believe there is an edge in playing the long game, and thinking long term. This applies to life and investing and planning, in our view.

In our work for clients, there is often a legacy aspect to it. Financially independent people tend to leave assets behind for loved ones or subsequent generations. This means that from time to time we find it necessary to work with a trustee or executor or beneficiaries or heirs of a client.

So those left behind face a lot of new things, and often need to try to gain a feel for what we are all about here at 228 Main – decide whether we are trustworthy – at the same time. Clients sometimes tell us they hope their children will listen to our counsel, and hope that we will be there to work with heirs.

Recently a client expressed these kinds of wishes, and the hope that her children would get engaged with us, and perhaps use their inheritance wisely.

This makes sense. We all want the best things to happen. Our work is not finished until we have done what we can to make the best things more likely.

Here’s an idea that can help you and us improve the odds of success in this legacy work. Provide us with the email addresses of your children, heirs, trustees, executors, and other interested parties. We will add them to our weekly email newsletter list. By reading the blogs and watching the videos, others can gain a sense for what we are about. Convenient, on their schedule, people have told us it is a great way to get acquainted.

We don’t have time to bug people on our list, and it is very simple to unsubscribe. Nobody will get unsolicited spam or phone calls as a result of being on the subscriber list.

So if you are a client wishing to acquaint others with our work, please get us names and email addresses so we can add them to the list. If you are receiving emails from us and don’t know why, this is it. Unsubscribe if you would like, you’ll get no hassle from us. We are busy trying to grow the buckets entrusted to our care.

Clients, if you would like to talk about this or anything else, please email us or call.