Top 10 Questions for Families with Wealth

Family is important.
We can agree with that sentence as family relationships nudge, bump. poke at our course in life. You have heard the quality of your life is determined by the quality of your relationships. I would add, "family relationships." Many factors shape family relationships and money is one of them. Both when it is abundant and when it is scarce, money is key in shaping family relationships.
Money and its impact causes problems in family relationships. Who gets the money? Who receives the information about the family's wealth? Who actually has the control over that wealth - is it really family wealth or one person's wealth?
Tough questions that many choose to skip with resulting drama that fills movie scripts but also real lives.
Money also brings the opportunity to discover what money means to a family. It can be an open discussion to discover how a family can work together and clarify their thinking about the purpose of the money.

Family

What is money's purpose? What does money mean to the family?
Rather than divide the family, money can have a beneficial affect on bringing together a family and have a surprisingly beneficial effect on family dynamics. Relationships can be cemented.
In fact, the hardest issues facing families are usually not the money but the family relationship based and family based. You can begin to set a positive family dynamic by asking yourself questions and your family members these probing questions about finances and philanthropy.
In my experience, there are questions to get the process started. You can pose these top ten questions to each of your family members. What is most important is to listen and observe how family members respond is more important than the answers.

1. What challenges do we face in regards to our family and to our money?
2. What is our vision for our family's future?
3. What is our family's definition of success?
4. What principles will guide our decisions about asset allocation?
5. What has been our experience of the family working together?
6. How do we prepare our children to steward a financial inheritance?
7. Should we bring our son or daughter in law into the conversation on finances and philanthropy?
8. What are our core philanthropy interests and how did these become so important to us?
9. How may we enable the next generation to create a shared dream with a family foundation while also fulfilling the founder's vision?
10. How do we promote a togetherness while also promoting the individualism of each family member?

What do you think of these questions? Are there any more that you would add?

Wealth managers versus brokers

Typically, wealth managers, also known as financial planners, earn their living either from commissions or by charging hourly or flat rates for their services. A commission is a fee paid whenever someone buys or sells a stock or other investment. You may want to avoid financial planners who rely on commissions for their income. These advisers may not be the most unbiased source of advice if they profit from steering you into particular products.

A growing number of financial planners make money only when you pay them a fee for their counsel. These financial planners don’t get a cut from life insurers or fund companies. You might pay them a flat fee, such as $1,500, for a financial plan. Or you could pay an annual fee, often 1% to 2% of all the assets—investment, retirement,  university savings and other accounts—they’re minding for you. Others charge by the hour, like lawyers.

You might also encounter financial planners who cater exclusively to the rich and refuse clients with less than $2 million to invest. Don’t take it personally—hugely successful planners in this range of wealth are called wealth managers and would just prefer to deal with big accounts rather than beginner clients. 

You want a planner who’ll make the time to focus on your concerns and is interested in growing with you.

If you have more than $2 Million to invest, look for the wealth managers usually found in the global banks.

Gloria Steinem is too political in Toronto

Vanessa Grant, McCarthy Tetrault, kindly invited me to hear Gloria Steinem speak in Toronto. Gloria is an admirable person who has made a huge change in attitudes in society and I was excited to hear her speak and wondered what her message would be.
It was disappointing to hear her start with the right wing's attitude to women's reproduction. According to Gloria, the right wing only want hearth and home and sex is for the reproduction of the species, nothing more. This Footloose style attitude has certainly not stuck around in Canada and as I sat with a table of dynamic female lawyers, all partners at McCarthy, I wondered if Gloria's activist message no longer had the same urgency for North American women.
I also wondered if the American right wing did believe that sex was all around procreation. Quite the image painted by Gloria.