Episode 8: Life happens: Plan for the unexpected

Oscarlyn Elder

A map has more than one road that takes you from point A to point B. Sometimes construction or an accident ahead means you need to take a detour to get to your destination. The unexpected happens to everyone. We’ve previously talked about this subject in episode six, titled “Create and Nurture Your Financial Plan.”

I’m Oscarlyn Elder, co-chief investment officer for Truist Wealth. And this is “I’ve Been Meaning To Do That,” a podcast from Truist Wealth, a purpose-driven financial services company. Thank you for joining us. This episode is the first of our “Life Happens” series, and these periodic episodes will focus on what you can do to help make sure your life’s surprises don’t take you too far off course from your destination—or we’ll help you think about how to choose a new one.

My guests for this episode will provide an overview of the typical unexpected events that can have major financial implications for your journey. They’ll also give you some action items to help you better prepare for when you need to take a detour. Before we begin, if you want to take notes on this or any other episode, use our downloadable, printable worksheet. You can find it at Truist.com/DoThat.

Both of my guests for this episode are from Truist Wealth, and they help their clients prepare and navigate through “life happens” events. First, let’s say hello to Robin Thomas, a wealth advisor based in Columbia, Maryland.

Robin Thomas

Hello, Oscarlyn. I’m excited to be here.

Oscarlyn Elder

I’m so glad to have you on the podcast, Robin. Our next guest is Jacqueline Parks, a regional director of advice and planning. Hi, Jacqueline. Welcome.

Jacqueline Parks

Hi. It’s great to be here.

Oscarlyn Elder

Thank you both so much for joining me today. I’d like to take a moment because purpose is so important to us at Truist and we know that it’s important to our clients in achieving their financial goals.

 And Jacqueline, will you share with me how you think about your purpose?

Jacqueline Parks

Yes, of course. So my purpose has evolved in the last year or so since I’ve moved into leadership. It was originally very client focused, and now I’ve expanded that to include the teammates that I’m working with as well. So my purpose is to inspire each individual to fulfill their meaningful goals.

Oscarlyn Elder

That’s beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. Robin, how about you?

Robin Thomas

Sure. My purpose is to connect people with other individuals and resources that they need to be able to find solutions that improve their lives. And I feel so fortunate that I get to do this not only in my personal life, but also in my community, and then every day in the work I do with my clients.

Oscarlyn Elder

So for both of you, purpose is really about enabling and equipping other people. It’s very relational-oriented and very uplifting. Thank you both for being vulnerable and sharing. And now let’s move on and talk about some of those “life happens” moments.

So when people plan how they’ll meet their wealth goals, they often focus on the best-case scenario. I know we’ve all seen that. That’s where if everything goes as planned, they’ll live out all their aspirations. But life often has other plans for us. Robin, in working with your clients, what are some of the most common unplanned events that we need to think about?

Robin Thomas

There’s several, Oscarlyn, that we see. The most common would be the death of a spouse, certainly, especially if that spouse has been the caretaker for the other. Often divorce, disability, or an inability to work for some reason. It could be the illness or an accident that occurs for one of our clients or maybe a member of their family, and then they can’t participate in their normal activities. The bills that can be associated with an event like that can certainly throw off a plan, as well as job loss or the unexpected need to take care of a family member. That can happen from a dependent who has lost their job or maybe has a dependency issue.

Oscarlyn Elder

Those are all things that I know we see on a fairly regular basis. Jacqueline, we tend to focus—I think, human nature, often we’re focusing on some of the negative surprises that can happen. But life isn’t all negative. Unplanned events are not all negative. What are some of the positive unexpected events that you’ve seen with clients?

Jacqueline Parks

Oscarlyn, you’re right, not everything that happens unexpectedly is a negative thing. Actually, I have a really positive outlook on life, and I’m always looking for the positive. So I love this question. I think something like a job promotion or a significant increase to your annual income.

You could also have a child who receives a large scholarship for college that you weren’t planning on. Or perhaps a significant inheritance. You know, certainly the death of a parent would be a really sad thing, but if there’s a significant inheritance, life insurance, something like that that increases your personal wealth, there’s positive there as well.

Oscarlyn Elder

So we’ve talked about a long list. We’ve had some negatives and some positive events that can happen. Jacqueline, as you think about the list in total, what are the three most important ones that you would say to put at the top of the list when we want to prepare for the unexpected? And, you know, we prepare for the unexpected because we really want to minimize the disruption that can occur to our lives, right?

We want to minimize the risk often to our families. So what are the three that you would have folks focus on?

Jacqueline Parks

We didn’t really talk about our backgrounds, but my background is in estate planning. And so the first thing that comes to mind, the thing that I help virtually all of my clients with, is planning for the death or incapacity of themselves or for their spouse. Although we don’t know the timing of when these things are going to happen, we know that none of us is going to live forever, and it is something that we need to be planning for.

And incapacity isn’t something that everyone experiences, but we know that statistically, the longer you live, the more likely you are to suffer a period of incapacity prior to your death. In addition to that, I think planning for a sudden change to your income—whether that’s a loss of a source of income or an increase in medical expenses or an increase in taxes—a change to your income or your expenses, a change to your budget, is something that can be planned for.

And then the third thing I would say is planning for a significant increase in wealth. Again, this could be through an inheritance, it could be through a sale of a business or something like that. Managing wealth involves working with a lot of professionals that perhaps you didn’t even know existed before. It’s learning a new language around taxes, portfolios, planning strategies that may be new to you.

So taking the time ahead of the event to plan for it can put you in a better position when that event actually happens.

Oscarlyn Elder

That’s great information. And let me ask further from you and from Robin, as we think about the list—and you’ve highlighted three in particular that you think folks should be contemplating as they develop their wealth plan—how do folks think about prioritization in general? Are there trends or areas that you think folks should think about maybe relative to their age or their occupation, or just kind of at a high level, what strikes you around prioritization and how we should think about that?

Jacqueline Parks

When it comes to prioritizing these things, we start with where the risks are going to be the biggest if you don’t plan for it, right? Specifically around a death. I worked with a family recently that had sold their business, so there were some tax strategies and things that we needed to implement that could help them financially. But in our conversation, we learned that they didn’t even have basic wills. They didn’t have powers of attorney. And while these aren’t exciting things to implement, they are so fundamental and so basic. Because if there were an incapacity or a death of one of these individuals, the absence of these documents would make their administration of the wealth a lot more difficult.

And so it was really important to get those foundational elements in place early on. And then we could move on to the more advanced strategies and the more interesting structures and the more fun things around transferring wealth.

Oscarlyn Elder

Robin, as you think about prioritization—if, for a moment, if you think about specifically maybe someone who’s in their 20s or 30s, so maybe someone who is starting out, has started to accumulate wealth, working on their financial wealth plan, how do you think about how they may prioritize understanding and thinking about their unplanned events?

Robin Thomas

It’s really interesting to think about the difference between generations. I think that the basic planning is similar. The same issues could occur that Jacqueline mentioned, right? And we still need to plan around those. That said, I think that they’re looking at the future and thinking about what their future goals may be, and I think 28-year-olds, or younger people, tend to be more in the moment, right? So to be able to work with them as their advisor and help them to think about where they want to be 10, 20, 30 years down the road, it’s probably hard for them to visualize, but important for them to think about. And at the same time, make sure that they’re putting the pieces in place to be able to get there, right? Introducing them to the right professionals, making sure that they are aware of things they don’t know exist.

Oscarlyn Elder

And I think from an unplanned event perspective for folks who are in that 20-ish range—and actually for all of us, it really isn’t confined to a decade—but building your wealth so that if you do have a sudden loss of income, if there is something that happens, you’ve got the flexibility to take a few months and figure it out.

Robin, what would you add to that?

Robin Thomas

I would also add that 20-somethings don’t tend to think about what could happen or what could go wrong. Unfortunately, their mindset is not in that planning for the worst case scenario like many of us who are a little bit older. We may think more about the risks than they do.

Which is great, right? They’re going for it. But I think it’s our job as good advisors to make sure that they do think about the unexpected as they’re creating their plans.

Oscarlyn Elder

And certainly we know that family also plays that role often, right? That within a family structure, you may have grandparents or honorable grandparents, if you will—you know, folks in your life that you look up to regardless of age, you know, who maybe have been on the journey longer than you, that can help reinforce the importance of planning for the unexpected as well.

All right, we’ve touched on some of the unexpected events that might come into your life. But this isn’t an exhaustive list. Sometimes there are developments that can catch everyone by surprise, and there are risks particular to your situation. We’ll talk about how to uncover risk distinct to your situation next.

So we’ve briefly discussed some of the major unplanned events that happen to many people. Jacqueline, how do you know which ones you’re most at risk for, along with any others that might be less obvious?

Jacqueline Parks

In order to identify which elements you are most at risk for, it’s critical that you are working with an advisor who has good listening skills and is asking you the questions to help identify where those risks are. Your advisor has been working with a lot of other clients and has been trained to identify these issues. And so as much as possible, if you can be open and honest and complete as you’re having this dialogue with your advisor, they’re going to help you to identify where those biggest risks are lying.

Oscarlyn Elder

That’s a great point, and having someone who is both observer, right—able to hear and take in and take notes who isn’t emotionally, directly connected to the situation but can put the pieces of the puzzle together for you—can be really helpful in identifying that unplanned risk or that risk that’s hanging out there.

Robin, how about you? What would you add to this?

Robin Thomas

I would add that you want to work with an advisor that you believe is listening to what you say and almost what you don’t say so that you can talk about things that are very personal. We often have clients talk to us about circumstances they haven’t shared with other family members or they wouldn’t be comfortable to share with their friends. But as an advisor, we need to understand and know all of those details so that we can put them on the best path and help to protect them from the unexpected.

Oscarlyn Elder

Yeah. Do either of you have examples in your interaction with clients around information that was really important for you to know that helped your client prepare for a “life happens” situation? So, information that was really critical to creating the outcome, getting to the destination that your client wanted to get to. Any examples of that?

Jacqueline Parks

Yeah, I can share a story about a client who came to us and during our meeting, the client revealed that they had a child from a prior relationship that their other children didn’t know about, and this individual wanted to allow for or prepare for this unknown child to receive an inheritance.

But, I think, you know, they kind of had in their mind the classic movie scene where the family is sitting around and the attorney is reading the will and this big, revealing moment where the family is shocked to find out someone else is inheriting. And, you know, that was making this person uncomfortable. They didn’t want that situation. But by disclosing it to us, we were able to prepare current lifetime documents that would separately provide an inheritance to this individual that was secret and apart from the rest of the will and what the rest of the family would know about when this person passed away, so they could accomplish their goal of benefiting this child without disrupting the family harmony after their passing.

Oscarlyn Elder

Thank you for sharing that. Robin, how about you?

Robin Thomas

So I worked with a client with a similar fear about the reading of the will. They had multiple children and had had a situation with one where they needed to support that child financially in a greater way than the other children during their lifetime. And they were struggling with the fairness of that.

So while they had provided this child with all this extra money, should they, upon their passing, then leave less to that child? Or, you know, what would that look like? How would that child feel? Would that leave ill will? And at the same time, they wanted to be fair to their other children. So they had to come up with a solution within their documents that everybody would be comfortable with, that they could live with during their lifetime, knowing that that was going to be the result at the end of the day and that’s what their children were going to see.

And they decided not to do anything differently. But they needed to work through it. They didn’t want to do anything differently for that one child than anyone else at the reading of the will. It ended up being equal amongst all of the children. But it was something very important for them to work through, and we were able to have these very in-depth conversations and personal conversations and spend time talking through the result of whatever choice they ended up making.

Oscarlyn Elder

I really appreciate you all sharing those really important stories and examples from your work specifically. You both moved into, really, solutions that your clients have embarked upon to deal with, right—to really deal with—a “life happens” situation.

And what I’d like to do is unpack that a little bit more, because the situations you gave there were very unique and likely happen more than we realize, right? That they’re unique, but, certainly, there are likely individuals, families, who have very similar situations on a regular basis. But I’d like to add to those situations, and Robin, have you focus on some solutions that often we are encouraging our clients or pointing folks to for preparation for some of these “life happens” types of events.

Robin Thomas

We recommend that our clients, in preparation for any life event, have an emergency fund with an appropriate amount of liquidity to fund their lifestyle. We talk about insurance solutions, you know, in the event of a disability, for instance, or a long-term care event.

How can we best protect them against that risk? Certainly a prenup is a discussion, a very important discussion, often people don’t like to have. People think of it as a negative, that it’s a bad thing. And we found that a prenup can actually be beneficial to both parties—quite beneficial to the spouse that is maybe the lower income earner. In the case of death or divorce, they could be well protected because of a prenup.

So very important to think about the positives of both sides of that type of agreement. Creating funeral arrangements maybe in advance so that clients can spend time dealing with the emotion around the loss of a loved one and not having to worry about preparing or making those final preparations at that time. And then I think really having a great budget, understanding their finances, working with an advisor to have a plan in general is going to best support them if there should be an issue that comes up unexpectedly.

Oscarlyn Elder

All great points. Thank you for sharing those. Jacqueline, what would you add?

Jacqueline Parks

You know, Robin made some great points. I do think understanding the budget and understanding the balance sheet are critical. How assets are titled, the complete picture of the debts and liabilities, the assets, the various streams of income—it’s absolutely important to know between spouses. But I think also we need to add in communication with the next generation.

Oftentimes parents keep their financial information close to the vest and don’t feel it’s necessary to share that with the next generation. And it doesn’t mean that the children are going to inherit all of that wealth, or, you know, there might be charitable plans embedded in there as well. But having some dialogue with the next generation around an expected inheritance can allow that generation, too, to then work with advisors to learn about, again, that language around trusts or taxes or portfolios that otherwise they wouldn’t be learning about. And at the death, when that inheritance passes on to them, they may be standing there very ill-prepared to address what they need to do when it’s time for them to manage the wealth themselves.

So having that communication again within a couple, absolutely. But then also across the generations.

Oscarlyn Elder

So a lot of information here is deeply private. And some people may not readily share it. They may also be reluctant to plan for times when life happens. We’ll discuss that next.

So far, we’ve been discussing life’s unexpected events and what you can do to start preparing for them. But in our experience, not every client wants to have these discussions. I have an example that comes to mind. We worked with an adorable couple who for years we had worked with them on their portfolio, their financial planning—really helping them move through the next phase of their life, if you will, preparing for it.

During those discussions, which occurred over years, what we experienced was that the husband really refused to think about any scenario around end of life that was other than he was going to die first. So repeatedly in conversations, he would say, let’s focus on what happens when I die.

What should my wife do? Who is her first call? What are her action steps? Every conversation. And as much as we try to focus him on and say, we’ve got that covered, but let’s talk about what happens should his wife pass away first, he absolutely shut down that conversation, refused to go there, because in his mind he only saw one scenario and that scenario was that he was going to die first.

Sadly, his wife passed away first, and he was definitely grief-stricken. They had spent many decades together, and he was frozen. He was absolutely frozen because, in part, he had never considered that he would be the surviving spouse. He had never really seriously considered what were his action steps should his wife pass away. What would he need to do? Our team spent a lot of time helping him through that period, really walking him through, helping him get from milestone to milestone. But what was obvious to us was that his lack of considering alternative scenarios really made his experience more difficult—more difficult than it had to be if he had just anticipated and given himself the flexibility to think about different pathways.

Robin, what have you seen within your practice and how do you think about, you know, folks who really don’t want to think about those other scenarios and where we’re having some of these very difficult discussions?

Robin Thomas

Grief is always difficult to cope with, Oscarlyn, and so much harder when the event is unexpected. We know that having a process in place in advance can help our clients to be able to better deal with their emotions when the unexpected happens. I’ve seen a similar circumstance. I worked with a couple like yours, an older couple who I had worked with for years around their planning. The situation was a bit different in that the wife was the caretaker for the husband, who had been ill for a period of time. I asked her many, many times to discuss what happened if she passed away first. God forbid, she’s not there to care for him. What happens? What’s the plan? And it was very, very difficult for her to contemplate that.

We eventually did get to work on a plan and speak with their children and other family members about his care if that should happen. But she was extremely resistant.

Oscarlyn Elder

Jacqueline, Robin just mentioned, you know, clients who are resistant, who find it very difficult to contemplate really these multiple scenarios that could play out. Why do you think people resist this sort of planning and scenario consideration?

Jacqueline Parks

I think oftentimes when clients are reluctant to do the planning, it’s because of, you know, maybe a personality thing. It might be something that is blocking them from moving forward. Sometimes it is a client who’s saying, you know, I know this is important, but these other things are more important.

Someone I’m working with right now who has three young children, and he knows that he needs to get his estate planning done. But the kids need school, you know, his job is more important. He’s got all of these other activities that are being prioritized ahead of getting in to see the attorney and get the plan done.

As we talked about earlier with the difficult situations, the clients are—they’re thinking, they know something is important, it needs to get done, but I don’t know what the solution is. And so in the absence of having that plan mapped out for them, they just delay making the decision.

And in fact, if they would just disclose everything to the team and allow the team to brainstorm and come up with a solution, that’s how you’re going to get there. But in the absence of knowing the path, they just delay going down it in the first place.

And then the third is, kind of the—this is not every client, but there’s a handful who respond: “I don’t care. I’ll be dead. I know it might be a mess, but I won’t be around to deal with it.” And so they delay putting off the decision or the planning because it’s really not their problem. It’s going to be the problem for their spouse or for their children to deal with. And so, so those are the kind of three of the types that we see for those that are not doing their planning.

Oscarlyn Elder

I’ll add in this perspective of only considering, or being really focused, on one path. There’s a cognitive bias that’s associated with that. So, specifically, attentional bias is when someone puts their focus and energy really into a particular or singular path or option, and we call that tunnel vision, right?

And it serves us really well at times. You think about athletes, you think about entrepreneurs, you think about even just kind of our daily lives. And there are just times where, you know, in the professional world, in the home world, if you will, we just have to tunnel vision to achieve a goal. And we focus on that goal and we just, we drive to it.

Well, when it comes to financial planning, which the heart of it is, right? The heart of a financial plan and sustaining wealth over time is that you think about multiple pathways, that you consider multiple scenarios as to how life may work out because there are multiple unplanned events that occur.

If we go back to the journey and think about the map, right, there may be a destination, but there are multiple ways that we may end up getting to the destination. And so with tunnel vision, you’re not really thinking about the whole map. You’re just focused on a singular route. And that, just having an awareness of that cognitive bias, having an awareness that tunnel vision—which can serve you really well in certain situations—can actually impede your ability to plan, to financially plan and to achieve your wealth objectives, I think can be very powerful. Just the awareness. So I want to encourage us to have an awareness of that particular bias.

And then the other element that I think you both have touched on as well is kind of an emotional element, and that is the fear that comes along with considering potential paths at times.

There can be an emotional reaction. It can be based in fear. It can be based in, you know, in an emotion that causes us to close up versus open up and trust. And so just want to recognize that there can also be this very powerful emotional element. Is there anything that you all would add to that?

Robin Thomas

I would add that when thinking of tunnel vision and bias, I believe we see that often in our business owners who are contemplating or approaching a potential transition. Often business owners spend so much time building that business. That’s their life. It’s their identity. It’s—they think that that’s their retirement, that’s their future. It’s their family’s future.

They put so much into the actual day-to-day work that they do to create that successful business that they don’t often consider what’s next or plan for what’s next. So that can look like getting ready for the transaction itself, or a transition of the business to another owner or to a family member or to employees, and it can also be the consideration of what’s next for them personally.

What’s that next chapter of their life going to look like? We find that individuals that sell a business without having a plan for the future are often unhappy. So it’s really, really important to have conversations with your advisor about what’s next in your life as well.

Jacqueline Parks

And when I think about tunnel vision, we do see individuals looking at what happened with their other family members and assuming that that is going to be their own story, right? And it can happen both ways. I can see a client saying: “My grandmother, father, whatever it is, lived well into their 90s. And so I don’t need to worry about estate planning now in my 40s or 50s because I’m going to live until I’m 90, and I can think about that tomorrow.”

Or the flip side, which is: “Hey, my dad died when he was 65. That’s probably going to happen to me, too. I don’t need to design a financial plan that’s going to last into my 90s because I don’t need to have wealth that lasts that long. I’m going to spend my wealth now. I’m going to enjoy my life now and not worry about that super-long-term plan because it won’t apply to me. And of course we know that that’s not necessarily true for any of us.

Oscarlyn Elder

Yeah. And that really speaks, that really sounds like to me, I would say, a combination of cognitive biases that are showing up there. So it’s really a combination of tunnel vision as well as some anchoring off of situations that are close to an individual. So someone who’s saying: “This is a situation that’s happened in the family, so it’s going to happen to me. And by the way, I’m only going to focus on this particular path because I’m assessing that it’s the path that’s going to happen to me. And of course our roles often are to help clients take that step back and be more deliberative, be more intentional, around considering all the ways that the paths can work out, because that’s really important to them achieving their wealth objectives over the long term.

So next, we’re going to have a couple of initial steps you can take so that you and your family are ready for unexpected events.

In future episodes of the “Life Happens” series, we’ll drill down into some of the actions to take for specific unexpected developments in your life. But for now, Jacqueline, what are some of the first steps people can take?

Jacqueline Parks

So, some of the steps that we do with all of our families is to help them create something that we call a success plan. This is a centralized location where you can include contact information for your advisors, like your attorney, your CPA, financial advisors, insurance agents, or other consultants. You would also include identification of your goals, your priorities, what’s important to you and your family in terms of your overall wealth. And then it also includes a summary of your basic plan, your estate plan, your financial plan, and current activities or recently implemented changes to that plan. All of this information in a centralized place so that it’s easy for you to find and reference or easy for your family members to reference if something were to happen to you.

Oscarlyn Elder

Robin, what would you add to that?

Robin Thomas

I would add that in addition to having a family success plan, it’s a great idea to have discussions with multiple generations of a family in advance of any event. We find, of course, that different generations have different values and different viewpoints, and the more we can facilitate conversations between those generations, the better the communication is between the family when any situation occurs.

Oscarlyn Elder

You mentioned an important word and that word was “values.” And we’ve discussed values before. I believe that was in episode number two. And some of the values that I think are often associated with some of this planning and the discussions often are focused on family and responsibility.

That said, I’ve had experiences where privacy, which obviously we’ve talked about in this episode, privacy. Independence comes to mind. That is a value where, often as a client is going through the planning process and thinking about what happens to the next generation, what happens to two generations from now, oftentimes, I’ve experienced that clients will be focused on independence and how to facilitate independence within future generations.

Those are just some of the values that come to mind. I’ll say the other one that has also shown up that I’ve heard especially entrepreneurs talk about is work. And specifically some folks, you know, have a desire to enable another generation to start their own business, right? To be comfortable taking certain types of risk. And if someone wants that to happen, then they need to prepare accordingly, if you will.

Jacqueline, any examples that come to mind from your experiences related to values and how those values have shaped how people have prepared for the unexpected?

Jacqueline Parks

So, I’m thinking about a client who, when her parents passed away, she at that moment became aware of the wealth that they were transferring to her and the wealth that the family had. And while she had grown up in a comfortable lifestyle, she really had no idea the level of wealth that the family had. Again, that’s a happy event, that she’s now very comfortably taken care of financially.

But it was very difficult for her at the beginning to understand the complexity of the planning that had been done previously and to understand all of the moving parts that the professionals were helping her with. So as she has learned, as she has grown, as our relationship has grown, it’s been very important for her to share more information with her children than her parents had shared with her.

And so we are engaged with her children, involving them in the portfolio discussions, involving them in doing their own personal planning ahead of inheriting. And I think that family communication is allowing her children to be more prepared than she was when her parents passed away.

Oscarlyn Elder

So, it sounds like the unexpected windfall in this situation, that the degree of the windfall, was a surprise and unexpected. And as a consequence, that’s impacting how she thinks about her future and her children’s future. And actually she’s taking something that was unexpected for her and turning it more into a planned, expected conversation opportunity for the next generation.

Is that a fair way to capture it?

Jacqueline Parks

Yes, that’s absolutely correct. Yes.

Oscarlyn Elder

OK. Thank you for sharing that.

Well, Jacqueline and Robin, you’ve provided some important to-dos for our listeners. But before we go, what have you been meaning to do? Robin, why don’t you go first?

Robin Thomas

Sure. The podcast has really inspired me to work on my own estate plan. So thank you, Oscarlyn. Most recently I have been updating the titling to the deed of my home, and I need to get that done. I need to take those documents and submit them and be able to check that process off of my list.

Oscarlyn Elder

Well, thank you for sharing that. And that’s a super important item, so we’re going to check back with you to see how that’s going.

Robin Thomas

Thank you.

Oscarlyn Elder

Jacqueline, how about you? What have you been meaning to do?

Jacqueline Parks

I frequently find myself recommending to our clients that they prepare powers of attorney and health care directives not only for themselves, but also for their young adult children. I myself have four young [adult] children. They range in age from 18 to 25, and this is something that we have not gotten around to completing yet. So I am going to take care of that before my youngest heads off to college in the fall.

Oscarlyn Elder

Jacqueline, that’s fantastic that you’re sharing that with us today, and I want to call out that we discuss this very topic on our last episode. So, we specifically talked about for children who are 17, turning 18, becoming legal adults, what are some of the key documents that parents should work with their children to execute? And you’ve just named a couple of them. And so we know it’s critically important, you know, for young adults to have these documents in order.

And I just want to say thank you for sharing that with us, and I know it’s important for you and your family, and we’re going to check back with you to see how that is going. And I’m hoping that in a few weeks you’ll be able to say, “Check. It’s done, and we’re moving on to the next to-do.”

Jacqueline and Robin, this has been a truly impactful conversation. Thank you so much for joining me today. It’s been an honor to have you on this episode.

Robin Thomas

Thank you, Oscarlyn. It’s been a pleasure to be here.

Jacqueline Parks

Thank you so much.

Oscarlyn Elder

And thank you for joining us today. If you liked this episode, please be sure to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast, and tell friends and family about it. If you have a question for me or a suggestion for this podcast, email me at DoThat@truist.com. I’ll be back soon for another episode of “I’ve Been Meaning To Do That,” the podcast that gets you moving toward fulfilling your purpose and achieving your financial goals.

Talk to you soon.