Life After Loss
Photographs, Messages, and What Survives a Phone Contract
Digital memories are fragile in ways paper never was, and they are routinely lost during the tidying that follows a death.
Every guide, newest first
The Archive
300 guides · page 4 of 13
Private Wealth
Inheriting a Wine Cellar: Care, Appraisal, and Sale
Protect, inventory, insure, and appraise an inherited wine cellar, then sell, donate, or divide it within federal, state, and IRS rules.
Life After Loss
The Animal in the House: Comfort and Contingency
A pet is frequently a significant source of comfort and structure, and it also needs a plan that does not depend only on you.
Private Wealth
Privacy After a Spouse Dies: Records, Brokers, Home Address
A practical privacy plan for a wealthy widow: audit public records, remove data-broker listings, use California DROP, and understand the limits of trusts, LLCs, and PO Boxes.
Private Wealth
Prenup for a Second Marriage: Estate and Retirement Rules
How a second-marriage prenup can coordinate inheritance rights, disclosure and separate property, and why ERISA retirement waivers must wait until marriage.
Life After Loss
Declining Things Without Providing a Justification
Widowhood generates invitations, requests, and expectations, and the energy spent explaining each refusal is energy you do not have.
Life After Loss
Learning the Things Your Spouse Always Did
Every household divides tasks, and the division is invisible until one person is doing all of it.
Private Wealth
How to Hold a Family Wealth Meeting: Agenda, Roles, and Boundaries
A practical family wealth meeting agenda: decide who attends, what stays private, explain fiduciary roles, record decisions, and align the discussion with your estate plan.
Private Wealth
How to Prepare Heirs for an Inheritance: Skills, Accounts, and Trusts
Prepare children and grandchildren to inherit responsibly: teach money in stages, use custodial and retirement accounts carefully, and design trusts without infantilizing adults.
Life After Loss
Travelling Without the Person You Always Travelled With
Travel that was shared becomes a different activity, and the practical arrangements need rebuilding as much as the confidence does.
Life After Loss
Holidays: Deciding in Advance What You Will and Will Not Do
Family occasions carry assumptions about who hosts, who attends, and what continues, and none of them survive a death unexamined.
Money
Medicare Premiums After Widowhood: IRMAA and SSA-44
How a spouse's death changes income-related Medicare premiums, the 2026 IRMAA brackets, what to send with Form SSA-44, and when to appeal.
Money
Delegating Paperwork: Money Managers, Bookkeepers, and Controls
What to hand a daily money manager, bookkeeper, or assistant, how to vet one lawfully, and how to design access so no single helper can quietly move your money.
Life After Loss
Create a Secure Household and Estate Information Index
Build a maintainable map of advisers, accounts, documents, property knowledge, and digital access without exposing passwords.
Life After Loss
Build an Independent Team of Financial, Tax, and Estate Advisers
Map the professional and personal roles you need, verify credentials and conflicts, and keep one adviser from controlling every decision.
Money
Trusted Contacts: A Five-Minute Safeguard for Your Accounts
Your late husband may still be the person your brokerage would call. How the trusted-contact and hold rules work, whom to name, and what that person can and cannot do.
Living Well
Travelling Alone: Ships, Guides, and Solo-Friendly Hotels
Choose a trip format that suits one traveller, question the single supplement, protect deposits, and prepare passport, REAL ID, STEP, Global Entry, and medicines.
Life After Loss
Volunteering After Loss: Use Your Practical Knowledge
Widows frequently emerge with hard-won practical knowledge and no obvious outlet for it, and both of those are addressable.
Life After Loss
When Friendships Change After Your Spouse Dies
Assess changing friendships, ask for the contact you want, and build connection without guessing at motives.
Living Well
Medical Cover Abroad After 65: Medicare and Evacuation
Original Medicare rarely pays abroad. How Medigap's travel benefit, Medicare Advantage, travel medical policies and evacuation cover fit together before you go.
Life After Loss
The Second Year of Widowhood: Support Without a Deadline
Review routines, relationships, health, and support in the second year after a spouse dies without assuming a universal timeline.
Living Well
Buying Art: Provenance, Condition, and Sale Terms
How galleries, auctions, dealers, and advisers are paid, what conditions of sale promise, and the provenance, condition, tax, and record checks to make first.
Life After Loss
How to Tell People Your Spouse Died Without Retelling the Whole Story
Prepared words, delegated calls, and clear boundaries can make repeated death notifications more manageable.
Life After Loss
When Caregiving Ends: The Loss Underneath the Loss
For those who cared for a spouse through illness, the death ends a role as well as a marriage, and the second loss is rarely acknowledged.