One of the issues here is whether a spouse wants to manage his/her portfolio. I currently manage my wife's which is about half the size of mine. We are at Fidelity with all low cost index funds except she has some stock in Starbucks for reasons I can't fathom. She doesn't go there but it was a position from her high cost advisor that she had until the advisor dropped her like a lead balloon when the fiduciary rules came about. The reason that she was with the high cost advisor was that I was concerned that if I died she had no clue what to do and did not care to learn. She had a girlfriend with an advisor so she picked her. I started running the numbers but she liked her advisor. I wasn't going to go there. It was fortuitous that the advisor dropped her and I just put everything except the Starbucks (I think she just likes owning part of a visible company) in the index funds at Fidelity. I think she's currently 70% stocks, 30% bonds. If something happens to me now, she can probably let the accounts sit as rebalancing probably won't matter. We are both retired and really don't need our investments unless we end up in long term care.
My wife and I decided to self-insure. We were unwilling to pay into something with no idea where the premiums could go. Plus the fact is LTC insurance does not pay 100%. We have no children or close relatives and plan to leave whatever is left when we die to charity. We think we should be able to cash flow any issues and plan to stay in our home with home health care as long as possible. The main problem we have is making sure we have someone who is trustworthy when we can no longer manage our assets. Of course, children or relatives have no guarantee of being trustworthy either.
My wife and I are both on Medicare with a G supplement. We received a letter from our physician group about being in an ACO. We contacted Medicare through Chat and opted out of our information being shared with any ACO. We received a letter from Medicare stating "Medicare will not share your information with any ACO."
Comments
One of the issues here is whether a spouse wants to manage his/her portfolio. I currently manage my wife's which is about half the size of mine. We are at Fidelity with all low cost index funds except she has some stock in Starbucks for reasons I can't fathom. She doesn't go there but it was a position from her high cost advisor that she had until the advisor dropped her like a lead balloon when the fiduciary rules came about. The reason that she was with the high cost advisor was that I was concerned that if I died she had no clue what to do and did not care to learn. She had a girlfriend with an advisor so she picked her. I started running the numbers but she liked her advisor. I wasn't going to go there. It was fortuitous that the advisor dropped her and I just put everything except the Starbucks (I think she just likes owning part of a visible company) in the index funds at Fidelity. I think she's currently 70% stocks, 30% bonds. If something happens to me now, she can probably let the accounts sit as rebalancing probably won't matter. We are both retired and really don't need our investments unless we end up in long term care.
Post: The High Cost of Financial Advice: A Tale of Two Portfolios
Link to comment from July 10, 2025
My wife and I decided to self-insure. We were unwilling to pay into something with no idea where the premiums could go. Plus the fact is LTC insurance does not pay 100%. We have no children or close relatives and plan to leave whatever is left when we die to charity. We think we should be able to cash flow any issues and plan to stay in our home with home health care as long as possible. The main problem we have is making sure we have someone who is trustworthy when we can no longer manage our assets. Of course, children or relatives have no guarantee of being trustworthy either.
Post: Is buying long-term-care insurance a good idea?
Link to comment from July 15, 2023
My wife and I are both on Medicare with a G supplement. We received a letter from our physician group about being in an ACO. We contacted Medicare through Chat and opted out of our information being shared with any ACO. We received a letter from Medicare stating "Medicare will not share your information with any ACO."
Post: Rx for Medicare
Link to comment from June 12, 2022
Thanks for the recommendation. I read this book on it a few years ago. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000OCXFWE/
Post: Positive but Not
Link to comment from December 18, 2021