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Stronger Together: The gift of financial literacy

Financial ignorance in a family can divide and damage. Overcome these obstacles to preserve your wealth, align your family values and bring you closer together.

It has been a rallying cry among the political masses through to big pharma producing a vaccine to fight COVID both last year and this year. We’ve talked before about the advocacy of family gatherings to discuss the family wealth, but how do we educate those that haven’t been so well read in all matters financial?

It comes from making you all equals around a table. No question is too stupid to ask within the confines of the family space. If you are the one person who knows how to earn, manage and save money, it can be emotive to see the rest of them spending it.

While the family is young, it is easier to instil an understanding as well as knowledge and provide opportunities for them to budget for themselves. But when they are older, it can be a trickier proposition. A teenager is less likely to want to sit down and talk about pensions and portfolios over romance and friendships. But as young adults, they are already aware of lifestyles and aspirations that they will want to achieve.

Providing them with reading material or academic books concerning wealth is not going to be too well received at this point and so the advocacy of these meetings will allow you to not only gauge their knowledge but help them expand it. It allows you to nurture and be inclusive and not preach.

This is a proven process in bringing emotional maturity to the meetings as well as maintaining the core value that money in their lives is a creative force to be respected and valued.

It allows your wealth to have family members preserving it and working in unity in the interest of it. Above all else, it allows the family to work as a team.

It delivers on the saying of being stronger together.

Family Offices: Talking money with your family during Lockdown 3.0

Supporting your family isn’t just done with money. When it comes to family wealth, every member of the family needs to feel enriched and supported beyond that of simply financial means.

It can be an alien concept for a family to sit together and discuss issues, especially money ones, for the first time. But, it must be said, overcoming that fear is better and can relieve underlying pressures and answer questions that may be playing on one’s mind. There may be conflict or differences of opinion, it wouldn’t be a family if there wasn’t, but that’s a good thing because now you’re talking.

Admittedly this shouldn’t ideally take place around the dining table but rather within the safe space of a trusted adviser, but that is only to facilitate a safe space for the conversation. By talking in this manner the family squabbles are less likely to arise and the business of family wealth will remain the featured event.

By having the conversation, a level of financial literacy can be gleaned and shared among those that will be affected most. It is a proven methodology to have more lasting success of working together for a set of shared goals rather than having responsibility resting on a few, or worse, just one family member.

The frequency of meetings is dependent on each family’s need for them, whether they be monthly, quarterly or annually. As with many families, getting together isn’t always possible for many reasons but at least having an initial sit down followed by regular updates, even using screens and technology, is prudent now more so than ever. With another national lockdown imposed on us, at least within the UK, it offers a unique opportunity for households and families and this unique opportunity comes in the form of time.

Sharing time and having these conversations with your family can bring a togetherness that you are all in it together. A sense of belonging. It is where you can either start conversations amongst yourselves or even virtually introduce the advisors to the family who have helped maintain and grow the portfolio. Stories of shared experiences with money and learning from the good, bad and ugly ones are encouraged.

By allowing this support network for the family wealth, it not only keeps lines of communication open but it will educate the next generation of family members on all aspects of mutual benefit.

In business, you are encouraged to offer tools and coaching to the employees to help them develop and keep the business moving. So why not the same with your family wealth?

Strategic planning and investment in this fashion has shown that it not only protects the parents wealth, but it also leads to a greater return for the financial well-being of the children, as well as offering them a safe place to discuss other matters that they may be struggling with and are less likely to share outside of the confines of a ‘safe space’.

After all, now more so than ever, support, trust and honesty are required as we continue to navigate this ever-changing world around us.

Stronger Together: The gift of financial literacy

Family Offices: Talking money with your family during Lockdown 3.0

Let’s push things forward. Together.

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