Preparing for the future as a family through financial planning can create closeness, clarity, and peace of mind. Start by exploring The Later-in-Life Conversations Study which reveals what families are—and are not—talking about.
Generational planning is not just about the amount of money you have. It's about how your family transitions through time. When you openly involve family in your financial planning process, there is more opportunity for clarity, closeness, and a smooth transition.
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14%
Percentage of baby boomers who are actively talking to their children about "legal and financial planning" among those who ranked it as their most relevant later-in-life topic.
87%
Percentage of baby boomers who identified an 'emotional resistor' that keeps them from talking with their family about later-in-life planning.
Source: The Generations Project℠ "Later-in-Life Conversations Study" from The Fidelity Center for Family Engagement, 2024
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The Fidelity Center for Family Engagement
We can help you create closeness and clarity for your family as you pursue your shared goals. Take a moment to reflect on your intentions, explore topics to discuss with loved ones, and identify ways to take action today.
Reflect on your family's beliefs, assumptions, and experiences around planning.
Will you leave a legacy of closeness?
The way you approach planning conversations and decision-making today can have a long-term impact on family relationships. Get insights on creating closeness
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Will you leave a legacy of closeness?
Are you and your spouse aligned?
Talking about individual wishes can help you and your spouse align around a shared vision. Get insights on navigating different views
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Does your family have peace of mind?
Your family's comfort around planning comes from being involved and having the information they need. Get insights on creating peace of mind
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Bring your family peace of mind
What do your beneficiaries want to know?
When you name a beneficiary, they want to talk about expectations and the impact on their lives. Get insights on beneficiary conversations
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Source: "Later-in-Life Conversations Study" of The Generations Project℠ sponsored by The Fidelity Center for Family Engagement, 2024.
Have conversations about the topics that matter to your family, including their goals, hopes—and how to prepare for the unexpected.
Talk about fairness around gifting
Fairness is always a perception. It doesn't matter if you think it's fair if someone else thinks it is unfair. Get insights on gifting
Talk about "What if?" your spouse were gone today
Imagining what today would look like if something happened can inform your planning priorities. Get insights on preparing for the future
Talk about how to involve your children in planning
Involvement in planning can happen in small, incremental moments of input and conversation. Get insights on involving your children
Talk about your wishes and fears around planning
Our feelings about the future can be vulnerable to talk about, but they are an important part of any financial plan. Explore this scenario
Ensure your actions are informed by thinking and talking with your family.
Send a gift for a 529 account
A multigenerational conversation around education is a great way to start a shared planning process. Get insights on 529 conversations
Envision your retirement with your family
Considering your family’s perspectives around your work-life choices help you create a shared future. Get insights on imagining the future together
Talk to an advisor
Talking to an advisor about your planning might be a next step in your financial future. Get insights on starting a conversation with an advisor
Consider opening a joint brokerage account
Joint accounts create opportunities for shared decision-making and a seamless transition in the future. Get insights on planning a seamless transition
The Fidelity Center for Family Engagement (FCFE) envisions a world where families grow closer together as they navigate their financial lives. FCFE empowers families to talk about the emotional and relational aspects of their generational planning.
The Center's team delivers "how to" guidance through coaching, live events, research, videos, and articles that help families transform their planning journey one conversation at a time.
The Later-in-Life Conversations Study highlights data and insights from The Generations Project℠, a research initiative from the Fidelity Center for Family Engagement.
When we make big decisions in life, most of us look for a source of professional guidance to help us make thoughtful choices to meet our individual goals and needs. Generational planning can certainly entail some big decisions that can affect you and your family.
Many Fidelity customers who have previously managed their own investments and are looking for help may want to consider working with an advisor. Advisors can help your family align around a shared vision of the future in order to create clarity and closeness through your planning processes.
From the Fidelity.com referrals page, select the Refer your friends and family button. Next, copy your personal referral link and share it on your own. Your referral can click that link to learn more about the advantages of everything Fidelity has to offer. Alternatively, you can enter the email address of the person you would like to refer. After entering your referral's email address, click "Refer now" and Fidelity will then email the invitation directly to your referral.
You can add, view, and update beneficiaries for most of your Fidelity accounts on the Beneficiaries page in your ProfileLog In Required.
Keeping your beneficiary information updated is so important, it supersedes instructions written into a will. Here are three reasons to maintain your beneficiary information:
Discover how baby boomers, Generation Xers, and millennials approach wealth transition planning based on their wealth, health, life stage, and family dynamics.
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Create a plan together
Work with your partner on a roadmap that meets your mutual goals and priorities.
Save and invest as a team
Consider contributing to a joint account and invest together to support your shared vision.
Use the skill of Process Out Loud—saying what you're feeling and thinking in a way that invites others to join the conversation. It sounds like, "It feels crushing to even think about one of us being gone or incapacitated, but can we try to explore what we might do?"
Then you run "What if?" scenarios together that make hard topics safer. You are just surfacing thinking, not trying to make decisions. What if one of us … needed long-term care … were unresponsive … were gone tomorrow?
No matter how hard we try to make things equal, others may perceive a decision to be unfair. So just ask, "Does this feel fair to you?" and invite people to share their feelings and thinking. "Mark, I want to set up 529 education accounts for your sister’s kids, but you don't have children. I am not sure how to think about fairness around this." And remind everyone that this is a voice, not vote, conversation. You reserve the right to decide after hearing their thoughts.
Take small conversational steps. Break planning topics down into manageable parts and have bite size talks. If we wait until we feel prepared for "The Talk," we will keep putting it off. The goal is to give our children voice on topics they may care about or that will impact them.
Try conversation starters like, "Can we talk about my health proxies?" or "What are your thoughts about the future of the lake house?" You can also ask simple process questions such as, "How would you like to be involved in my planning?"
Ask each other about wishes and fears around planning. (Wishes are the flipside of fears.) In an odd way, it is often easier to start with fears. "I have fears that our decisions won't seem fair." What is the wish? "I wish we could just ask the kids." Or "I have fears I won’t know anything if you are gone." What is the wish? "I wish we could involve the kids so they could help me."
Keep going back and forth. And catalogue them as a continuing agenda to talk about.
"Legacy" is sometimes viewed as a grandiose or even self-serving term. But it is a good word. And it can describe generations of good work. What makes the difference is "how" that legacy is created.
When it is an individualistic pursuit, it doesn't always feel attractive to others. But when we view legacy building as a collective family activity and co-creation process, it sets our families up to have a shared vision with shared legacy outcomes. Reflect on how your family can co-create a generational legacy that inspires everyone.
Reflect on the assumptions you might be making about your spouse's views. We often end up debating those assumptions. Instead, ask open-ended questions to fully understand your spouse's feelings and thinking like, "What are your thoughts about helping the kids?" And follow up with exploratory questions like, "What would concern you?"
Then identify where you are aligned and where you need more conversation. For example, if you are aligned that you want to financially support your children without giving direction, but aren't sure how much, that's a more focused conversation.
Ask your family what would bring them peace of mind. Peace of mind is how family members feel about the information, access, and conversations they are having. When there is silence and avoidance around plans, people can have "wondering anxiety"—wondering what may happen in the future.
Reflect on where there may be anxiety around your planning. Then ask family members what they want to know and how they would like to be involved. Generally, the more information and input people have, the more peace of mind they will have.
Reflect on how to make beneficiaries a "today" conversation versus a "someday" name on a line. Start by telling them they are a beneficiary. Talking to your beneficiaries isn’t just disclosing an inheritance. (You don’t have to talk amounts). It’s starting a conversation.
Functionally, talk about the accounts they are named on and how they can engage when necessary. Relationally, use the conversation as an opportunity to share wishes and talk about their involvement in your planning. And remind them that circumstances change through time—this is the current plan.
Planning for the future can feel a little overwhelming. View it as an incremental process. Ask yourself, "What simple things can I do that will have a big impact on a future transition?" One is to have joint brokerage accounts. That ensures access to funds if there is an unexpected health event. Setting up a joint account can be a door to planning conversations about other investments or how money moves between accounts. It can also raise questions like, "Do we have beneficiaries named?" and, "Who else needs to know about our thinking?"
Planning is about preparing for how your family transitions through time. It is not just about the amount of money you have or will be passing on. We call it "generational planning," because your whole family is impacted by the planning process.
Having transparency around beneficiaries, health proxies, power of attorney, passing on family assets, and conversations about roles in the event of an unexpected health incident are all generational planning topics. The more involvement and transparency, the more opportunity there is for a seamless transition that creates closeness in the family.
Connect at the emotional level and ask humble questions. Start the conversation by describing how you're feeling, rather than quizzing your parents about specific decisions. Let them know your questions are about how you will navigate the future together.
Maybe start by saying something like, "Mom and Dad, I am excited about your retirement and would love to hear some of your wishes for the future. I care a lot about how we connect with one another in this next season of life." And if it’s a little uncomfortable, that's okay. Stay with it.
Helping our children is an important part of our planning: everything from opening 529 educational accounts for grandchildren to annual gifting and, ultimately, leaving an inheritance. The key is to talk with them about it. Even generous gifting impacts them, and they should have a voice.
It sounds like, "How can we help with education for the grandkids?" Or, "We would like to start gifting and want to talk about the best way to do it." Or, "We would love your thinking on our family antiques." This is co-planning.
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