Background:RetiredAL wrote: ↑Wed Jul 11, 2018 5:34 pm
My DW is not a "LadyGeek" technocrat. She hates computers in general because often they work or present data differently than how she personally perceives it should be. Yet, she won't elevate her knowledge/skills/understanding to leverage the functions/capabilities of that interface/system.
An example is that in Word, she demands the hit <CR> at the end the line because that is what she learned in typing class 50 years ago, then complains of the screen jumping too many lines. Thus to preserve my sanity, I just have her write it on paper, give to me so I can enter it into Word, then I print it for her, she scribble edits it, and I fix the Word copy. Saves both of us a lot of angst.
Another example from just 3 days ago, DW came home from grocery store, where while bring groceries in, her car's alarm sounded 3 times. Her purse and electronic key dongle was left in the car because she was going back out shortly. My opinion, the car was being helpful in telling you that the dongle key was still in it. Her opinion, why didn't the car know she was going back out. I brought her purse in to prevent a 4th alarm, setting it directly in front of the door, so she could not miss it on her way back out.
1. I have two IRA's at Fidelity, one IRA was from my 401K, the other IRA was my lump sum pension which I work like an annuity.
2. I auto-withdraw money monthly from these IRA's to our checking account.
3. Our total income is SS, these withdrawals, and a very small amount of side-gig income. There is no pension income.
4. My main Roth is at Fidelity, and an older smaller on at Schwab.
5. Her main Roth is at Schwab, with a minor place-holding Roth at Fidelity.
6. The SWR across all the retirement accounts is currently less than 2%.
7. We have small taxable accounts at both Schwab and Fidelity. RMD's start in 2020, and my plan is to deposit that at the Fidelity taxable account.
8. There are other accounts at Schwab relating to my Dad, Son, and Grandson, but she does not have access to them.
9. Our Schwab accounts predate when my company switched to Fidelity.
10. All of our IRA and Roth accounts name each of as the primary beneficiary, and out kids as contingent with "per stirpes".
11. We each have POA's filed with both Schwab and Fidelity to each other's accounts.
12. Estate planning is complete, including a Revocable Trust. We live in CA. I'm 68, she's 67.
13. I currently don't use auto-pays unless its a financial institution making the transfer.
My overall investment policy is much more complex that just Target Date Funds, and moderately more complex than a 3 or 4 fund portfolio. I have bucketed the next two years of withdrawals in funds that support the automatic disbursement. The last money to be used will be the Roth's.
I'm not particularity interested in moving stuff to Vanguard. I could consolidate all the Roth's to Fidelity.
The decisions/concerns going forward seem to me to be:
1. Rely more on Target Date Funds, thus not much future decision for DW to make.
2. Have Fidelity manage the accounts for DW.
3. Have my local son manage the accounts for DW.
4. I would expect DW would be writing checks, not using bill-pay.
5. Most bills come as paper statements, so DW will see them. The two that don't send statements auto-pay to a credit card.
6. The two Credit cards in use are joint, the third is in her name with me as a user.
7. Option - Migrate month bills to checking auto-pays even though I'm against every Tom, Dick, and Harry being able to initiate auto-pulls to my checking account.
8. Pay more bills via credit card, but there is a limit to that.
9. Although I do our taxes via TaxAct, I have the last 20 years of returns on file.
10. All Financial Year-end statements are in a binder, so they will be easily find-able.
11. Tax statements are mailed to our home.
I'm interested to hear what proactive steps/ideas others with a similar spouse concerns have done to help.