Her Situation

Margaret recently came to us, having recently lost her husband. Though she had been well provided for financially, she was distraught over her husband’s passing and was unsure about how she would manage her investments, given she had so little to do with them before. In fact, she was even unsure how she would pay her bills as her checking account was almost empty, and she was terrified at the thought of spending any money in her investment accounts.

Margaret’s distress was compounded by the fact her husband had made investments in real-estate, stocks and mutual funds which seemed all-to-complicated for her to understand. Her husband had done an exceptional job of building wealth for them, but despite the size of her portfolio, she had no idea what it meant for her in living day to day, or if she would “run out of money.”

Our Solution

In addition to being painful, losing a spouse can bring incredible stress and uncertainty about what the future holds. This is especially true when the surviving spouse had very little to do with the finances of the family and investment matters.

As we were getting to know Margaret over the course of nearly a dozen conversations, it became clear that what she wanted was a sense of security which comes from knowing that we could help manage her financial affairs, but more importantly, that we could empathize with and cared for her.

It was not difficult for us to consolidate investment accounts, and to rearrange her investments to provide the stable income she needed, nor was it difficult for us to devise a strategy for handling and managing her real-estate investments. In Margaret’s words though, the real value of working with us came in the peace of mind she derived by knowing she had people she could work with, “who knew her, and who she could trust.”