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Caring For Generations

Thoughts on Estate Planning for Generation X

On Behalf of | Oct 21, 2020 | Estate Planning, Uncategorized

There’s some disagreement about the exact years that define Generation X, but suffice it to say they’re younger than Baby Boomers and older than Millennials. It’s been noted by financial commentators that Gen-Xers are less likely to turn to a financial advisor than either Boomers or Millennials, and that in fact, they are having a much harder time achieving financial security than their parents. After all, this generation, now in their mid 40’s to early 50’s, suffered through both the “dotcom bust” and the financial crisis of 2008. These experiences with major market declines seem to have made them more risk averse, Julia Kagan writes in Investopedia.com.

Other factors impacting Gen-Xers include the rising costs of education, healthcare, and housing – they now have the highest average debt of any generation before them, including student loans and mortgage debt.. Meanwhile, many are providing care for aging parents. On the positive side, many GenXers can expect a future transfer of wealth from those aging parents.

Regardless of whether that wealth transfer materializes, it is important for Generation X to put together an estate plan, protecting the assets they have accumulated, providing for their children, and preparing for retirement and beyond. It’s not all about death and taxes, is our message to GenXers who visit with our attorneys at Geyer Law. Many are surprised at our reminders to consider protection from creditors, decisions about giving others access to their social media accounts, and personal income tax planning. https://www.rgeyerlaw.com/blog/2015/10/estate-planning-for-genx-is-no-simple-matter/

Ideally, at Rebecca W. Geyer & Associates, our lawyers are able to bring together family members of different generations to coordinate an overall plan that includes sharing values as well as wealth transfer. (To better enable these multigenerational meetings, we offer appointments by phone and video conference using Zoom or FaceTime.)

As a Fischer Investment Strategies newsletter states so aptly: “Multigenerational planning involves the transfer of wealth, but it also extends to intangible concepts such as family values and legacy wishes:

– by Rebecca W. Geyer