Financial First Steps for Newly Widowed Individuals with Carolyn Howard

Announcer 1:02
Gloria, Steinem once said, we will never solve the feminization of power until we solve the masculinity of wealth. Barbara Provost and Maggie Nielsen are the team at Purse Strings that will help you navigate the ins and outs of financial independence so that you can be financially fearless. This is Women And Money, The Shit We Don’t Talk About.

Maggie Nielsen 1:26
Carolyn, we are so glad to come and have you here, here and share your expertise. So before we dive in, could you give a little intro of who you are and what you do?

Carolyn Howard 1:37
Okay, so as Barb said, I am a certified financial planner, but I think before all of that, I was a wife, a mother, a former classroom teacher, so I’ve had lots and lots of years of public speaking, and a little over 30 years ago, decided to become a financial professional. My career was going very well, and my late husband became ill and died within 10 months. It turned my world upside down, needless to say, and even though I was very grateful for all of my financial knowledge and experience, there was a certain level of paralysis as well as just devastation and grief that I had to go through. And grief never totally leaves us. It just changes over time. So I’ve been widowed now for a little over 16 years. I was very fortunate and blessed to have remarried another widowed Person A few years ago, and that’s part of the language change, and I’m always learning it was like, okay, so how do I explain being widowed and yet I have this husband? So even this year, I actually learned that I refer to my late husband as my deceased husband and my current husband. Doesn’t that sound weird as my living husband. So I have a deceased husband and a living husband, but it made my life much simpler. The other language that has changed is not referring so much as to widows and widowers as just widowed people are a widowed person that also just puts a big umbrella over everything, which I think makes it pretty simple. But going back to after my late husband died, the paralysis that set in and just the time that it actually took for me to cross all the t’s and dot all the eyes. And so it really became a mission for me after that to start really using my financial expertise to guide and direct and handhold and support and encourage widowed people. I will tell you that there are more widowed women than widowed men, I mean, the statistics are out there, and that hasn’t changed. I just was in a conference this summer where I did a presentation for a group called soaring spirits International. They have camp widow, and there were roughly 450 to 500 people there from all over the world. And I would say I don’t even think 5% maybe one or 2% were actually men, and the rest were women. So statistically, that is our reality. I. Um, unfortunately, women, I hope that changes, but I’m not sure it is. Culturally, we have relied on our spouses to handle money, handle our finances, which was really one of the reasons I got into the financial world. My late husband was on the faculty at MIT, and was very busy and he wasn’t doing it. I told people, I buy the books. I’d fall asleep. And I decided, seriously, I’m going, Oh, I’m never going to learn this, and it’s so boring. But with that being said, with the encouragement of my dad, who was in financial services, I decided to dive in and dive in. I did, and boy, am I glad I did.

Barbara Provost 5:47
So does that mean you were the person in the relationship that managed the money and handled the funds? Yes. Okay, cool. So may I ask you how old you were when your husband passed?

Carolyn Howard 5:59
I was in my I was 60.

Barbara Provost 6:03
Okay, because we’ve talked about this, Carolyn, that the average age of a widow is 59 and you happen to mention that you think it’s younger. Can you share a little bit about that?

Carolyn Howard 6:15
Yes, well, I can tell you some of the data that soaring spirits has done, has said the average age of widowhood is 47 to 52 and in these conferences, I also belong to another group in Lexington, Kentucky, and it’s also a national group called Never Alone widow. And I look around, we have about 35 members locally, and I look around at that group, and boy, do they fit that 47 to 52 year old profile.

Barbara Provost 6:49
That is so young.

Carolyn Howard 6:53
It is so young. And I’m currently working with some young widows that are in their 30s with young babies. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s very emotional and very sad. I felt at least grateful that my children were adults when their dad died. But, you know, it’s an initiation by fire and and there’s all kinds of deaths, there’s sudden deaths, there’s suicide, there’s murders, there are, you know, cancer deaths, other illness deaths. It’s an indiscriminate group. I mean, death doesn’t discriminate. I mean, we’re all subject to it. And as women, I think it’s critically important to be aware of what the possibilities are out there, even if you’re not widowed,

Maggie Nielsen 7:52
Yeah. I mean, just knowing some of those numbers, there’s so much we, you know, just getting, like, the wills and the power of a state, and, you know, I’ll get there, I’ll do that, or it’s too early, you know, and it’s and it’s not, because you just never know. And so there’s a big reason why there’s some of the stuff that we shouldn’t put off, push off, because it could be too late. Because, like you said, you know, death does not discriminate, and so you never know. You know what could be around the corner, and we don’t want to, it’s just, it’s just the truth of life.

Carolyn Howard 8:19
It is, and you don’t have to necessarily be morbid about it at all. It is our reality. And how do we prepare ourselves from the time that we are young adults or even, you know, my son is my business partner, and he’s been really good about educating his daughters, who are young adolescents at this point about finances. He even teaches a finance class to their school. So

Maggie Nielsen 8:49
I love that. And so I mean, like you were saying, how, how can women kind of prepare themselves for widowhood? Or what are some common mistakes that you do see out there that women can kind of, you know, prepare themselves and avoid those mistakes.

Carolyn Howard 9:03
Well, I think the best thing that they can do is sit down with their living spouses and pick their brains, get all the information they possibly can. I was talking to a woman in Sarasota this last spring, and she said her husband kept telling her, please, please sit down and talk to me. Let me tell you everything where we are. She goes, I’m just gonna let you handle it. I’m bored. That stuff drives me crazy. I don’t want to try to understand it. Well, guess what? Her husband got covid and died in four days and and boy did she learn by fire. So I would say, do not put off today, what you need to do today, or to put off tomorrow, what you need to do today, because there’s no more important time. And I will share this that. Toward the end of my late husband’s life, his I had done our taxes, I managed our household finances. I had been in financial services at that point for 15 years. I knew everything financially about what we needed to have done and did. And boy, was I grateful. But at the end, he said, I asked him if he was anxious about the days ahead. And he said, No, I’m not. I just missed the thoughts of missing you and and then the other thing he said, though, he said, I just think you will be better able to handle this and I would have been so it’s not always the woman in the dark, and he wasn’t in the dark at all about our financial situation. It’s just that he didn’t have the micro version of it. Yeah, so,

Maggie Nielsen 10:55
And I think there is that sense of relief knowing that they’re set up, that they feel prepared, that, you know, I left that person in the best situation I could. And, you know, all of that was kind of taken care of, because, you know, it’s hard leaving anyone behind. So being able to, yeah, knowing that they’re prepared and secure kind of in that way, is really a blessing. Yeah,

Carolyn Howard 11:17
Now it is. And women in particular, just cannot be prepared enough for these life experiences. In my opinion, when a doctor tells you to get your affairs in order, you better do it.

Barbara Provost 11:31
Yeah, and that’s a scary place to start right after a conversation like that, because your mind is going 1000 different places. So we are always at purse strings, providing tools and resources and information and calls to action for women to really get their paperwork in order know where the documents are, and we have tons of tools that can help them do that. And like Maggie was saying, too many people think I’ll get to that later or tomorrow. And really it’s not that complicated to meet with an attorney to get your powers of attorney and a will in place, and meet with the financial professional and get all of your documents in order, and then it’s you know that you’re okay. Everything’s set. You know who to call. You know who to go to. So what are some I know you work Carolyn a lot with widows. What are some tips you would give women today in order to not be overwhelmed? But you know, make a an easy to do list, if you will.

Carolyn Howard 12:34
Well, I’ve actually created an easy to do list, and it can be electronic, and if someone wants a copy of this, they can certainly sign up for our newsletter that we are just launching this month, called hopeful ever after. And if they subscribe to the newsletter, then they get a copy of our love letter. If you’ll hold on a second, I’ll show you what it looks like. I have my own

Maggie Nielsen 13:04
And of course, it’s going to be in the in the show notes to grab that link so you can download this as well.

Carolyn Howard 13:09
Yeah, let me just I know, I put it in here this morning. Hopefully I’ve got a copy of it, but it’s and if I don’t, I will send a copy. But the point being is that it’s it’s actually you can do it electronic, or you can actually do it handwritten. I’m a handwriting kind of person. At the back of that love letter is our checklist for widowed people to make sure that they have done all of the things that they need to do, because it’s super important that they know how to proceed. And there is so much wrong information out there. So I’m going to give an example at the conference this summer, at soaring spirits at Camp widow, a woman, one of the things that people need to do when they’ve been widowed is get appraisals for their homes. So if you have a home that’s jointly owned, which most of us do if we’re if we have a spouse or a partner, you need to get that house reappraised. And the reason being is the the person that has died will get a date of death stepped up value on that property. So in my case, we had not, we hadn’t been in our house for 37 years, and we didn’t pay a whole lot of money for that. So we got the house appraised when he died, or I did, and depending on where you live, that’s not an expense, it’s 250 or $500 for an independent appraisal. So I had done something, and we’d put the house in his name, because we had time. Now. Everybody has that time. But even if you haven’t had that time, half of the value of that house gets a new date of death value called cost basis. And so if you decide to sell that house, you have two years to get up to a $500,000 capital gains exemption. If you wait beyond that, it’s 250,000 but you can start doing the math. This is tax planning. So in this presentation I did this last summer, this woman raised her hand. She actually worked with an attorney to get her things sorted out, and nobody ever told her to get her house reappraised.

Barbara Provost 15:41
I never heard of that.

Maggie Nielsen 15:43
Yeah, this is news to me as well, which is, is not surprising, as we always say. You know attorneys, they know the law where you need a financial professional or a tax professional to know some of these financial and tax ins and outs, and that’s why it does take that financial team. But I’m so glad you mentioned that, as that’s something I had no idea about either.

Carolyn Howard 16:03
Well guess what? That’s in our checklist on our love letter. So people really should check out the love letter, yeah, and subscribe to the newsletter, because then they’ll have access to that and at the back of our love letter, it actually has a checklist. That checklist was born out of my experience and the experience of my widowed clients about all the things that need to be done, and a lot of it is financial and tax planning, which is critical. So the number one thing that I tell everybody, whether they’re widowed, have a spouse that’s ill, a partner that’s ill, or everybody’s healthy. Get your affairs in order. Make sure all your T’s are crossed and all your eyes are dotted, and use professionals. Do not try to do this yourself. It’s just, it’s not, doesn’t make sense to do it yourself, and I would ask questions. You know, take a love letter to your other professionals. Let them see the checklist. Pass that on to them, because they don’t always have that information.

Unknown Speaker 17:23
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Maggie Nielsen 18:06
I feel like you just sharing that information and using a professional I mean, you don’t know what you don’t know. So you wouldn’t even ask about your taxes and your house reassessment, because you wouldn’t know to ask that, right? I mean, that didn’t cross my mind. And so especially when you’re going through such emotional, you know, time, those things are not going to be top of mind at all. And so, I know there’s a couple, like, more things on your checklist, but if you find yourself suddenly widowed, like, what are some of those first financial things you should think about, versus some of those things that should really, you know, wait a little bit of time.

Carolyn Howard 18:40
Well, I don’t think any big decisions need to be made, but some of the important things that I think people need to think about, I don’t think it’s necessary to necessarily identify or notify your credit card companies, your banks, your mortgage company, all of that, as long as you’re paying your bills and you’ve got everything in order, I think just let that be. And there’s some reasons for that. So let’s take a credit card. I’m going to go back to the woman from Sarasota, Florida, that said she her husband kept bugging her, and she kept ignoring that. She called and notified her credit card company. Right away, her husband had opened up the credit card and put her on as a joint user. As soon as she called the credit card company, they shut the account down. She had she said I had enough points on that card that I could have replaced all the appliances in my kitchen.

Maggie Nielsen 19:51
Oh my God.

Barbara Provost 19:54
And so she had no access.

Carolyn Howard 19:55
She had no access. She couldn’t even use the credit card. So. So I say, take a breath. Get death certificates. Contact your professional, you know, contact somebody like myself that has gone through this, that knows the ins and outs and what you should be doing and what you should be thinking about. And don’t take no for an answer from anybody, get a team of people, whether it’s your accountant, your attorney, your financial professional. Another example is I had a client in California, and as I was walking her through her newly widowed position, one of the things I told her she really needed to do was to get her brokerage accounts reassessed by her broker, so again, to get a date of death stepped up value. Well, California is a community property state, and if that’s a joint account at the first death, 100% of those accounts get a date of death stepped up value. So if she decides to change her investment strategy months later, she doesn’t have the same kinds of tax implications that she would that her broker said, Oh, well, that’s not something we really get into. I said to her, it’s a requirement. He’s got access to this. Don’t take no for an answer. So that was an example of her reaching out to me as a good friend when she told me her husband had died. I had babysit her daughter when I was in college, so we’d stayed in touch all these years, and I handheld her through that entire process, what she should do, how she should do it, get her house appraised, and I just It’s been two years this week that her husband died, and I got a text message from her. She said, Carolyn, everything you said in the conference this summer, everything on that checklist, you handheld my hand and walked me through every bit of it. I could not have done this without you.

Barbara Provost 22:09
Wow, good for you. Well, that’s fabulous that she had you there. And we need more women to know that there are financial professionals out there with this type of experience. I mean, unfortunately, you you did go through becoming a widow, now remarried, but you’ve been through the process. And do you know the ins and outs as a financial professional? That’s fantastic.

Maggie Nielsen 22:34
Do you? Did you have a financial professional on your side when you became a widow? Or is that something that you navigated by yourself since you were a financial professional?

Carolyn Howard 22:43
Well, for the most part, I did have an accountant. I had an estate planning attorney. When my late husband got his diagnosis of brain cancer, I contacted the family, and my next stop was with my estate planning attorney said, Do we have everything in place? And that’s when we made a decision to change the ownership of our home from being jointly held to being put into his trust. So at his death, I got 100% date of death stepped up value. And so when I sold it, and I sold it within two years, I not only had that new date of death value, but I also had that $500,000 exclusion on capital gains, so I paid no taxes. If I had not gone through that process, I would have owed probably more, I don’t even over 100 to $200,000 in property tax or in capital gains tax.

Maggie Nielsen 23:56
Wow. And I think that’s just a great example of, you know, even professionals have their own team, of course, absolutely, because there’s so much mental going on, you know, just being having that grief, that you can’t navigate all of that, but also that these professionals end up paying for themselves. I mean, if they didn’t mention that to you, and you had to pay all those taxes, that would have been huge, you know, but they the couple $1,000 you paid to confirm that estate plan to get everything locked down ends up just paying for itself time and time again.

Carolyn Howard 24:27
Well, and I will say this when it came time for taxes, for me to file my taxes. And by the way, the first year after being widowed, you still get to file jointly. If you’ve got dependent children, you can do that for two years. So after that, your whole tax world turns upside down. But my tax professional, I ended up having to get him connected with my estate attorney, because he thought I was going to owe taxes. So for. Me, it’s just really important to have that team building, which I believe is what Purse Strings is trying to do.

Maggie Nielsen 25:10
Yeah. Definitely. And then, you know, we wanted to ask you, with all, with all of your experience, if you have a, you know, a friend or a loved one who just became widowed, you know, what are some really best ways to help support as as that outside loved one, as a friend in that time?

Carolyn Howard 25:28
Well, first of all, it’s not a scary place, and I think a lot of people have a problem and try to avoid dealing with it. Having gone through it, it’s really easy for me. So I think the first thing I have done with friends and family is just to acknowledge their loss, encourage them that you promise it’s going to get better, but that’s not something they need to hear at the moment, and it’s just either virtually or physically hold their hand and walk them through that process and help them to feel not alone and just be there for them if they’re nearby, take food. When I was newly widowed, I had a group of women that totally surrounded me, and I was so grateful for that. I’ll never forget one night I’d just come home from work, and this friend called. She said, What are you doing? I said, Well, I just got in my sweatpants, and I’m getting ready to sit down and eat some soup. She said, Get over here. We’ve got a group here. You’re going to have dinner with us. And it’s the little things like that that makes such a huge difference. And all I could think of was, oh my gosh, when her husband died, I didn’t know to do all of that. I feel terrible. But instead of dwelling on that, it’s just pay it forward and make sure that you do that for people and help them to feel that you’re there for them, and then as they inch toward weeks, months, then, and hopefully just weeks then, that’s a place that I just hand them my love letter, mail it to them electronically, send it to them along with a checklist, because they need a map. We all need maps, and this is a way of providing a map. So you know, please reach out for that love letter and checklist. Because even if you’re listening to this and you’ve got a spouse that’s well and alive, it’s a guide for knowing what you’re going to need to have prepared for yourself, especially as women, and not just women, but occasionally there’s a spouse or a male partner that needs that same guidance.

Barbara Provost 27:56
Absolutely. This has been such a wealth of information and insight to a topic that a lot of people don’t like to talk about, it’s sad. But what we want to do here at purse strings is really make sure women are in front of any situation that they may encounter by having their wills, powers of attorneys, having their financials in order and just knowing where the money is and where it’s going, so that they don’t have to start dealing with all these questions and concerns, should something happen. So Carolyn, we can’t wait to publish this and make sure that we get that link to your love letter, which I think will be so fantastic, just for, like you said, everybody just to have in their hands and take a look at and make sure they can maybe pass it on to someone who may need it just in time. So this has been great. Thank you for your time today.

Carolyn Howard 28:52
Oh, you’re very welcome. And there’s one more thing, please know your spouse’s passwords.

Barbara Provost 29:01
Good point.

Carolyn Howard 29:01
That is a big deal.

Maggie Nielsen 29:05
Yeah, there’s so many different passwords with the master key password to your password lock, or to your phone and your face ID,

Carolyn Howard 29:11
Yeah, yeah, just you can’t be over prepared. Yeah. Thank you so much, yeah. And thank you all for giving me this opportunity, and if I can be of help to anyone, please reach out. I have emails, toll free numbers, cell numbers, you know, all the 9000 ways we can connect these days.

Maggie Nielsen 29:33
Awesome. Thank you so much. So thank you again, Carolyn, for coming on. Carolyn’s one of our Purse Strings-approved professionals, so the link to her web page will be in the show notes, as well as all of her contact information and a link to download that checklist as well, whether it be for you or for a friend, it’s a great resource to have in your back pocket. And remember, as always, take a little step today to have a little bit of action, whether that be scheduling a conversation with your partner. Or sharing a password login, or, you know, getting both names on a bank account, whatever it may be, just take a small action today to help you in the future. So until then, be financially fearless.

Carolyn Howard 30:11
Thank you.

Speaker 2 30:13
Thank you. Information is for illustrative purposes only and does not constitute tax investment or legal advice, always consult with a qualified investment legal or tax professional before taking any action. Do.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai