I’m surprised that my girls have the tolerance for this, but I called another family meeting and they showed up with their laptops.
To begin, I pulled out the insurance declarations. We went line by line on what was covered, this was only the car insurance declarations, so as not to overwhelm them. It’s important to understand the coverage amounts when you shop for insurance I explained in great detail. The last thing you want is cheap insurance, although you do not want to over pay. Now, take the premium and divide that number by twelve I asked them. Their eyes widened in surprise. And, so on, as we went through the Comcast bill and the mobile phone bill.
They were very interested in the monthly charges for replacement of the iPhones. We are all bad about losing, destroying or in some senseless way annihilating our iPhones. One phone was recently lost at a McDonalds in London, another stolen on Muni, another we ran over with the car and another drowned in a spilled gin and tonic. Things happen but, these accidents come with a price and, “here it is,” I told them as I handed out the five page bill I had printed for them. “Dear God,” they said as they flipped through the pages.
We finalized our family mission statement and our family values and priorities bullet points. Next, we will move onto the assets and liabilities spreadsheets.
Take a guess what they want for Christmas? They asked for stocks! Luckily, that’s easy to provide. More on that later…
Love and blessings to all.
Sydney 