Category: Wisdoms

  • Passing on Keepsakes

    Passing on keepsakes to those we care about and who we know will cherish them can be a meaningful experience. We hope that the recipient of these items will continue to find value and meaning in the keepsake long after we are gone.

  • Make Plans to Win the Game of Life

    Winning the game of life — and death — depends on having an effective plan in place before the inevitable happens. If you do not have an advance healthcare directive, your loved ones may find themselves blindsided and sidelined at the precise moment you need them to step in and make medical decisions for you.

  • Alzheimer’s: Steps to Prepare Financially

    If a person close to you has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, it may be time to address some serious financial questions. It is wise to get financial matters in order as soon as possible due to the debilitating nature of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia that affect your loved one’s ability to make…

  • A Retirement Dress Rehearsal Can Ease Emotional & Financial Concerns

    Two emotions are likely to strike those who are nearing retirement — excitement and fear. Leaving the world of alarm clocks and offices and having time to pursue your own passions on a daily basis is liberating — but the apprehension of entering a new life stage can easily creep in. Although work-related stress will…

  • Save Yourself From Sympathy Scams

    In a sympathy scam, a con artist plays on the victims’ emotions in order to extract money from them. Typically, you see a lot of these scams stemming from a tragedy that is highly publicized.

  • A Recipe for Conflict

    I have noticed a troubling emerging trend in estate planning. More families are owning property with different generations. This could be because real estate in Hawai‘i is expensive to purchase and even harder to maintain and keep. It is further exacerbated in situations where there are multiple children beneficiaries and/or where the parents need to…

  • Your Estate Plan: What NOT to Do

    Problems with your estate plan may not become apparent until it is too late to fix them. Here are some common pitfalls: • Failing to plan for large expenses, such as long-term care. • Failing to update your estate plan, including beneficiary designations on bank accounts, investment accounts, retirement accounts and insurance policies. • Failing…

  • Estate Planning: Start With ‘Why’

    Trust beneficiaries are sometimes left to wonder why a decedent instructed that a trust distribution be made in a  particular way. The trust clearly identified who the beneficiaries were, what they were to receive and how they were to receive. But unfortunately, the trust was silent as to the “why” of the distribution — the…

  • Elder Abuse Reporting Deadlines

    Recently, I received a call from a woman who wanted to report that her father had been the victim of theft. The culprit was her niece, who had taken over $100,000 over a three-year period. The caller had the evidence and her father now wanted to hold the niece accountable for what she had done.…

  • Passing on the Family Business

    Only about 25 percent of  family businesses survive 15 years or more. Only about 25 percent of those will survive the transition to the founders’ descendants. Many factors contribute to these statistics. Here are two critical factors.

  • Rules for Adult Kids Returning Home

    As the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the country, parents saw a wave of adult children move back home. Pew Research recently found that 52 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds now live in a parent’s house. Some children may have moved back simply due to safety during the virus response or because universities switched to e-learning.…

  • Trust, Talk & the Grieving Process

    It’s natural to experience grief when we lose a loved one. While we often associate grief with the death of a loved one, we can also experience it when we get divorced or when ties with a friend become severed. Everyone experiences grief differently. Some are able to move on, while others are unable to…