Money
How to Read a Brokerage Statement After Your Spouse Dies
Read an inherited brokerage statement line by line: ownership, value changes, cash, holdings, cost basis, fees, protection, and widow-specific red flags.
The Money desk
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Cash flow, statements, advisers, and the decisions you now make on your own.
45 guides · page 2 of 3
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Pay Off Debt or Keep Cash After a Spouse Dies?
A practical framework for deciding whether to repay a mortgage, credit card, or other debt without giving up cash you may need during estate administration.
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When to Replace a Financial Adviser After Your Spouse Dies
An evidence-based process for reviewing an inherited adviser, comparing fees and conflicts, protecting tax positions, transferring accounts, and escalating concerns.
Money
Social Security Survivor Benefits: A Widow’s Claiming Decision
Compare survivor and retirement benefits before filing: eligibility, claiming ages, switching strategies, work limits, taxes, remarriage, and records to obtain.
Money
Incapacity Planning for Widows: Who Can Act and How to Prepare
Create an incapacity plan after widowhood by coordinating financial powers, health-care directives, trusts, account access, safeguards, and practical instructions.
Money
Charitable Giving After Widowhood: Budget, Tax, and Boundaries
Build a deliberate charitable plan after widowhood, compare cash, securities, QCDs, and donor-advised funds, and preserve tax proof.
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One Large Holding: A Careful Plan for Inherited Concentrated Stock
How a surviving spouse can document basis, restrictions, risk, taxes, and decision authority before reducing an inherited concentrated stock position.
Money
Inherited IRA Options for a Surviving Spouse
Compare a spouse’s inherited IRA and retirement-plan options, RMD timing, early-withdrawal access, Roth rules, taxes, and beneficiary consequences.
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How Much Cash Should a Widow Keep After Income Changes?
A practical method for sizing a cash reserve when benefits, estate expenses, taxes, and household income are still changing.
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A Personal Investment Policy Statement After Widowhood
A practical one-page framework connecting each financial goal to its time horizon, liquidity needs, risk capacity, allocation, costs, and review rules.
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Returning to Work After Widowhood: A Benefits and Tax Decision Map
Before the first paycheck, map how a new job affects Social Security survivor benefits, health coverage, taxes, retirement saving, caregiving, and household cash flow.
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Consolidating Financial Accounts Without Losing Important Protections
A careful process for simplifying bank, brokerage, retirement, trust, and inherited accounts while preserving tax records, benefits, and coverage.
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The Investment Fee Audit: Find Every Layer of Cost
A practical method for reconciling advisory, product, trading, platform, insurance, and exit costs without double counting them.
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Pension Lump Sum or Lifetime Income: A Decision Framework
Compare a pension lump sum with lifetime payments using plan guarantees, survivor terms, inflation, taxes, rollover rules, fees, and longevity stress tests.
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Long-Term Care Planning for Widows: Costs, Coverage, and Decisions
Build a long-term care plan after widowhood by mapping care preferences, local costs, Medicare and Medicaid limits, insurance, legal authority, and funding.
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How a Widow Should Review Her Own Beneficiary Designations
Audit the beneficiary forms on retirement, insurance, brokerage, and bank accounts after a spouse dies, and coordinate them with the estate plan.
Money
Scams After Widowhood: A Practical Protection Plan
A calm, evidence-based guide to recognizing fraud after a spouse dies, protecting accounts, verifying callers, preserving evidence, and reporting a loss quickly.
Money
How to Find Unclaimed Property and Forgotten Accounts After a Death
A source-led search plan for state unclaimed property, old retirement benefits, life insurance, failed-bank deposits, credit-union shares, and savings bonds.
Money
Lending Money to Adult Children After Widowhood: Gift, Loan, or No
Decide whether family support is affordable, document a genuine loan, understand interest and gift-tax rules, and protect relationships and your estate.