Margaret's Story Margaret was a wonderful lady who was referred to me by a widowed friend of hers. Margaret's husband had passed away a month earlier. Her son had helped with the executor duties, and that part was almost done. But as much as he offered help, she knew that he was not financially savvy, worked full time and had a wife and small child at home. She needed someone to talk to about the financial part that was not a relative, because she was embarrassed to admit that she didn't know what she was doing. Our very first visit we sat at her kitchen table and she completely broke down in tears. The overwhelm of losing her husband was devastating, and she finally admitted that she had only ever written a couple of cheques in her life. That was several years ago when she was giving money to a charity, but nothing to do with their home. Margaret lived in an apartment and just assumed that because they'd always paid the rent and bought whatever was needed, she could continue to do so. There was no life insurance and her husband's work pension stopped the month after he died. How I helped: I put together a simple chart of where all her money was and where her income was coming from. I showed her that indeed she could afford to stay in her apartment and she would be ok even if she lived to be 105. I created a very simple cheque book register so she could keep track of the monthly cash flow and ensure her bills were paid on time. We talked about whether, from an emotional standpoint, she wanted to stay in the apartment or would prefer a retirement residence where there were more people around. Not everything is about money, having that "emotional standpoint" conversation is vital. Margaret decided to stay where she was for at least a year until she felt her heart and her nerves had settled a bit. We talked about her updating her Will now that her husband was gone and what she had in place hadn't been looked at since 1986. My job was done. I loved when she said to me that she had so enjoyed working together because now she could just call her son to come for a visit without talking about "all this stuff".

Edwin's Story Edwin was out with friends one evening and mentioned that his bank had called and asked him to come in for an appointment. He hadn't seen anyone at the bank since he retired 11 years ago, and didn't understand why they wanted to see him now. His friend said "why don't you take Nancy with you", and I got the call. This was actually the first time I'd gone on this type of appointment and it was an interesting experience. Mary the bank rep asked to see Edwin's drivers license to update some paperwork, then printed off new forms for him to sign. As he held the pen in his hand, I stopped him, saying he should read what was printed out before signing. He didn't understand it, and Mary wasn't offering much help, so he slid it over to me to read. I said "didn't you tell me you have three children"?, he responded yes. "dont you like one of them"? he said, I love them all. Then why are only two of them listed as beneficiaries on your RRSP? Mary said there just isn't enough room on the paper for all the names, but we have it in the computer. I asked her to turn her screen around and show Edwin, and sure enough, there were only two beneficiaries showing. This was a simple error that was made 11 years ago when the paperwork was filled out, that no one had caught, and would have created an estate nightmare. Imagine that third child finding out he wasn't a beneficiary after his dad passed away, being left to think dad didn't love him. Mary printed off new paperwork with the 3 beneficiaries and handed it over for signature. Once again I said, read before you sign. He gave it to me, I looked at it, and asked about the investments. I said you have $300,000 in an RRSP and it's all in one investment, and asked Mary if she was going to discuss options. Maybe some changes should be made after 11 years?? She was not prepared for that conversation and our appointment took much longer than expected, but the investments were updated and finally it was time to sign off. Yay. Mary said thanks for coming in and was finishing the appointment. But then I asked about the TFSA. Could you just show us that the benficiaries on the TFSA are correct, I asked. No, they were not. So...we got that updated. The investment was fine in that account. The appointment was just over an hour, and a lot of good came out of it. I had spent a half hour before the meeting talking with Edwin to get an idea of what his knowledge was, spent slightly over an hour in the meeting, and then another 15 minutes chatting after the meeting to ensure everything made sense. We were all good, Edwin said thank you very much. He was upset with himself that he hadn't checked the paperwork all those years ago, and hadn't kept up with regular visits to the bank. But he was relieved we'd had the appointment, fixed what we did, and he was off to meet his friends again. I smiled as he was turning to leave and said "put a note in your calendar to do this once a year".