In order to budget together and plan financial goals we have a working joint account and then we have some separate savings account. We have a prenup that stipulates things equally. It is hard to figure out and kind of scary but it’s much easier now that we’ve combined things.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everything joint. I have 3 kids from first marriage. DH has none. I have life insurance with my kids as beneficiaries that will go into a trust with my parents managing the trust. Once my kids are out of college, I’ll reevaluate the life insurance.

For DH and me, all our income, savings, investments, and real estate are in both our names. When either of us dies, it all goes to the other.

I don’t find this to be complicated at all and it seems weird to not partner because of finances. DH and I both make relatively similar salaries and come to the relationship with similar assets.

This all works out great unless you pre-decease him.

No. If I predecease him, the life insurance goes into a trust managed by my parents. The kids would go full time to their bio father. DH would get the rest of my resource. If I was married to bio dad, all my resources would go to bio dad.

The bio dad would have incentive to leave them to his bio kids. Your DH does not.

Yeah if you die tomorrow and your kids move out and your DH lives another 30 years, do you think your kids will get anything when he dies? if you want them to get more than your life insurance, you have to leave it to them. Also are your parents healthy enough to be the trustees? Who is the trustee if something happens to them? Is it your DH?

+100. The pp's thinking is rather shortsighted. Given that parents generally predecease their children, having the parents as the trustees makes little sense. The pp's line of innocent thinking will inadvertently disinherit her kids.

My dad passed earlier this year, and within 24 hours, his greedy wife was inquiring about the will, benefits, insurance, etc. He was 80 when he passed and had only been married to his wife for three years (foolish idea to marry so late). They never lived together, and none of their accounts comingled. Yet, she still somehow felt entitled. He left his entire estate to my two brothers and me.

In the real world, these factors mean we are leaving DSC a smaller percentage of our assets compared to our other kids. I worry a lot that he will take it to mean we love him less, or ascribe some other negative meaning. As the kids all reach adulthood, we are open to trying to even out the percentages, so maybe it won’t be an issue in the end.

I would be very worried about this. I think keeping in mind expenses of your children together until they are through college sounds reasonable, but factoring in what DSC will inherit from the other parent to determine DSC inherits less could be really painful for DSC, who already lost their intact family and is now being subordinated to later kids. This is one of the factors that pretty much every ACOD on this forum complains about. Are you going to adjust inheritances based on how financially successful your kids are, for example if one is a teacher and one makes millions in private equity? Treat all the kids the same.

My parents are healthy. Oldest kid is almost 18. He would be the manger of the trust if my parents are unable. I already have separate college funds for each kid. Not sure why they would need more than what I planned.

I don't understand why your DH would need everything and why you think your kids won't need anything but college. What about weddings/grad school/unexpected health expenses that if you were married to bio dad you would probably help with? If you were married to bio dad any assets would immediately or eventually flow to them, and you are taking that out of the equation. Don't be surprised if your kids end up resenting your DH.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everything joint. I have 3 kids from first marriage. DH has none. I have life insurance with my kids as beneficiaries that will go into a trust with my parents managing the trust. Once my kids are out of college, I’ll reevaluate the life insurance.

For DH and me, all our income, savings, investments, and real estate are in both our names. When either of us dies, it all goes to the other.

I don’t find this to be complicated at all and it seems weird to not partner because of finances. DH and I both make relatively similar salaries and come to the relationship with similar assets.

Your poor children.

The children are just fine. No one will leave me an inheritance and I don’t need one. I made all my wealth. My children will have their childhood and college paid for. I don’t plan to leave them anything other than that - even if I was still with their bio dad. Young people have no incentive to work if they have money or know that it’s coming. If I die, DH will still need money to support himself - especially if he’s older. Able bodied young adults can work. My elder spouse won’t be able to work.

+1 I plan to pay for my kids college/grad school, weddings and down payments. Only if it came at no expense to myself or DH at the end of life, would I preserve further legacy.

This is another interesting perspective. Should my boyfriend and I end up getting married one day, he will definitely be like an additional parent, and a wonderful one at that (from what I’ve seen so far, and yes I’m treading cautiously). In an ideal world I would want him taken care of and would want anything leftover to go to the kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everything joint. I have 3 kids from first marriage. DH has none. I have life insurance with my kids as beneficiaries that will go into a trust with my parents managing the trust. Once my kids are out of college, I’ll reevaluate the life insurance.

For DH and me, all our income, savings, investments, and real estate are in both our names. When either of us dies, it all goes to the other.

I don’t find this to be complicated at all and it seems weird to not partner because of finances. DH and I both make relatively similar salaries and come to the relationship with similar assets.

Your poor children.

The children are just fine. No one will leave me an inheritance and I don’t need one. I made all my wealth. My children will have their childhood and college paid for. I don’t plan to leave them anything other than that - even if I was still with their bio dad. Young people have no incentive to work if they have money or know that it’s coming. If I die, DH will still need money to support himself - especially if he’s older. Able bodied young adults can work. My elder spouse won’t be able to work.

+1 I plan to pay for my kids college/grad school, weddings and down payments. Only if it came at no expense to myself or DH at the end of life, would I preserve further legacy.

First marriage for me, second for DH. One child from his first marriage who is now 21, our kids are all still under 10.

DH brought more assets to the marriage than I did. I earned slightly more when we met, although he now out-earns me significantly.

We mingle all funds, everything is joint. Our joint assets are now much, much larger now than what he brought to the marriage. We have been married almost 15 years.

The hardest part is creating the will and trying to be fair. My DSC’s mother has a high income and they will likely inherit all her assets (no other kids). We are also high income, and in a perfect world we would like to try to take into account what DSC would inherit from their mother when we allocate percentages for all the kids in our will. (Because we have multiple kids, even though we have a significant estate, divided evenly each individual portion will likely - again, just guessing based on child support paperwork that is now many years old - be less than what DSC will inherit from their mother.) We are also trying to balance the fact that our kids are still young and need resources in different way than DSC does just because of their ages.

In the real world, these factors mean we are leaving DSC a smaller percentage of our assets compared to our other kids. I worry a lot that he will take it to mean we love him less, or ascribe some other negative meaning. As the kids all reach adulthood, we are open to trying to even out the percentages, so maybe it won’t be an issue in the end.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everything joint. I have 3 kids from first marriage. DH has none. I have life insurance with my kids as beneficiaries that will go into a trust with my parents managing the trust. Once my kids are out of college, I’ll reevaluate the life insurance.

For DH and me, all our income, savings, investments, and real estate are in both our names. When either of us dies, it all goes to the other.

I don’t find this to be complicated at all and it seems weird to not partner because of finances. DH and I both make relatively similar salaries and come to the relationship with similar assets.

Your poor children.

The children are just fine. No one will leave me an inheritance and I don’t need one. I made all my wealth. My children will have their childhood and college paid for. I don’t plan to leave them anything other than that - even if I was still with their bio dad. Young people have no incentive to work if they have money or know that it’s coming. If I die, DH will still need money to support himself - especially if he’s older. Able bodied young adults can work. My elder spouse won’t be able to work.

We are trying to figure this out now to redo our wills. My first marriage, spouse’s second. We have two kids together and spouse has an older child (now adult) from first marriage. All our finances are joint but it’s the wills that are complicated. Right now his is what we are working with:

our house is jointly owned and any equity /house goes to the other spouse.

Spouse will leave 25% percent of assets (retirement and savings) to each of us (3’children and me). im beneficiary of his term life insurance (expires age 70).

I will leave my term insurance to spouse (expires age 68 I think) and divide rest of my assets between spouse and our two kids. Monies I may/likely will inherit from my parents will be placed in a trust for kids managed by their uncle (my brother). Spouse won’t inherit anything (we support their mom and dad has passed):


Fortunately, the oldest has / will have significant wealth from other parent (much much more than spouse and I have together) which formed part of the equation; it we are still fine tuning.

*the realty

Anonymous wrote:So what’s the best way to keep things separate? Waiver? Prenup? Trusts for kids?

Trust

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everything joint. I have 3 kids from first marriage. DH has none. I have life insurance with my kids as beneficiaries that will go into a trust with my parents managing the trust. Once my kids are out of college, I’ll reevaluate the life insurance.

For DH and me, all our income, savings, investments, and real estate are in both our names. When either of us dies, it all goes to the other.

I don’t find this to be complicated at all and it seems weird to not partner because of finances. DH and I both make relatively similar salaries and come to the relationship with similar assets.

This all works out great unless you pre-decease him.

No. If I predecease him, the life insurance goes into a trust managed by my parents. The kids would go full time to their bio father. DH would get the rest of my resource. If I was married to bio dad, all my resources would go to bio dad.

Who manages the trust when your parents die?

My parents are healthy. Oldest kid is almost 18. He would be the manger of the trust if my parents are unable. I already have separate college funds for each kid. Not sure why they would need more than what I planned.

Parents can go from healthy to dead or incapacitated pretty quickly (actually that is possible for all of us, sadly). You may want to have a sibling be the backup trustee and put some more of you estate into that trust in your will.

I agree. A life estate for him on my realty but that realty should eventually be passed on to your children

Anonymous wrote:She is much, much younger than me.

Finances are co-mingled. She is beneficiary of insurance policies and pension survivorship. 50 percent of premarital assets go to my children, all other assets go to her.

Do you have children with her? The pre marital assets should really go to kids

Anonymous wrote:Everything joint. I have 3 kids from first marriage. DH has none. I have life insurance with my kids as beneficiaries that will go into a trust with my parents managing the trust. Once my kids are out of college, I’ll reevaluate the life insurance.

For DH and me, all our income, savings, investments, and real estate are in both our names. When either of us dies, it all goes to the other.

I don’t find this to be complicated at all and it seems weird to not partner because of finances. DH and I both make relatively similar salaries and come to the relationship with similar assets.

Your poor children.

So what’s the best way to keep things separate? Waiver? Prenup? Trusts for kids?