The Great Wealth Transfer is usually described as money moving from parents to children. The transfer that happens first gets less attention: an estimated $54 trillion passing between spouses through 2048, most of it to women. When Money magazine asked me about it, my advice was the same advice I give clients. After a spouse dies, the first priority is not to reinvest the inheritance or rewrite the estate plan. It is to slow down, protect cash flow and understand the whole picture.
For the first six to twelve months a surviving spouse should delay anything high-dollar or hard to reverse, confirm that ordinary bills can be paid for 90 days, inventory every asset and deadline, and build a survivor roadmap. Couples should build that roadmap while both are alive. The test is simple: if one of us died tomorrow, would the survivor know what to do next Monday morning?
The full piece, including how marital trusts, South Dakota community property trusts and asset protection trusts turn the roadmap into a working plan, is at turnipseed.law.
