Retiree/Survivor Case Study

Joe and Mary are looking forward to retirement. Joe is 67 and Mary is 63. Joe has been retired from the city job he had for a couple years and now it is Mary’s turn to look forward to not working. They have both done a great job of saving money for retirement, raising their children, and helping them with their college costs. Not it is their time to enjoy. While Mary has worked her entire 35 years as a nurse and saving in her own right, Joe has handled everything for her. She hasn’t really had to worry about retirement, Joe took care of everything. She just knew she assumed she had to work till age 65 before she could retire.

Just 4 months before she turned 65, Joe died suddenly in his sleep. All of their plans for retirement suddenly had changed. Even more, Mary was lost. Joe had taken care of everything. She didn’t know how to move forward with the mortgage, the small debt they had, the income needs. Even more distressing is Joe chose the life only pension on his retirement when he retired because he was interested in the highest income . Mary discovered this when he passed. She now knows there is no survivor income from Joe’s pension for Mary. Additionally, he had not established a living trust to protect their assets for their children.

Fortunately, Mary’s co-workers had worked with Oakwood Wealth Partners to help them into retirement and introduced her to the team. After meeting with the OWP group, Mary was able to learn about and take control of some of the decisions left. During the meeting, many priorities were established:

1. Help understand her income needs and the fixed income she has available.
2. Establish her short- and long-term goals, now that Joe is not involved.
3. Understand risks to her retirement including inflation, health care, and longevity.
4. Position her retirement and non-retirement assets to best position her to not outlive her money.
5. Helped to establish a living trust to protect her children from probate costs upon her death.

The Oakwood Wealth Partners team worked with Mary and eventually her son, Sam, to create her financial plan going forward. After the planning process, Mary was relieved to know she had a partner in OWP she could trust. A team that will both educate her and coach her as she works into and through retirement.

This case study is for illustrative and educational purposes only.