Estates, real estate, brokerage accounts, beneficiaries --- SIMPLIFY

Often there are articles in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and various periodicals about how to save for retirement and then how to manage that money in the safest yet most productive way. How to balance those two objectives is generally boiled down to diversification.

One other important consideration that is only mentioned in some articles is to simplify a portfolio and an estate as much as possible.  Diversification and Simplification.  Over an earnings lifetime it is easily possible to accumulate multiple accounts and holdings.  There comes a time when it is necessary to aggregate accounts, simplify holdings, and deal with inherited assets that may have several partners.  This is a tedious thing to do, but it is a necessary effort.  Estate lawyers, real estate attorneys, brokers, tax specialists, and bankers will all help beneficiaries manage this, at a PRICE, but not leaving all of the work to beneficiaries is the best idea.  Why should they sort through reasonably successful investing that is marked by personal inanity or insanity, meant facetiously, or more accurately the work of hobbyist whose career led to a great interest in investing.  To say the obvious, consolidating and unwinding a portfolio can be a time consuming and tedious process.

Whether needed for next year, ten years from now, or thirty years from now, the suggestion here is that NOW is the time to begin that simplification process for people of a certain age.  Even though NOW is not that much fun, doing it makes for better sleep.  This is especially true of inherited assets in which beneficiaries could, along with assets, inherit a few unsavory partners. Finding a way out is essential, even at a price today.  What a treat.

Why not watch a baseball game instead?