Money Basics Series – Part 6: Protect Assets and Your Future Nest Egg

Personal Finance Fundamentals

Your financial journey doesn’t end once you’ve figured out your budget and eliminated your debt. After you’ve secured some wealth and you’re in a stable financial position, your most important goal is to protect the assets you do have and to build your nest egg for retirement.

This series won’t go into the basics of investing your money for retirement, as that is an enormous topic that includes stocks, bonds, ETFs (exchange-traded funds), venture capital, private equity, real estate, and other alternative assets.  Instead, we’ll talk about how to protect your wealth in more general terms.

To Protect Assets, You Need to Know Your Assets

First, make a plan to have at least six basic ‘money dates’ with your partner or yourself.  Plan for the money dates to be at fixed times, and limit them to 30 minutes. Grab a binder to hold all of the information, and toast with a glass of wine to celebrate your assets.

Date 1: Expense Accounts

The first meeting should focus on expense accounts and passwords. The money handler should gather all of the expense account information. This should include all household accounts, with usernames and passwords, account numbers, and any other relevant information. At the date, the money handler should identify and explain each account and how it is handled.

After the meeting, place the account information in a secure place such as a lockbox or a safe.  Make sure your partner also has the combination to the safe and the combination or key is kept in a separate, safe place.

Date 2: Insurance and Expenses

The second meeting should focus on insurance policies and expenses. The money handler should prepare a listing of all insurance policies along with the current billing cycles, accompanied by a calendar showing premium payments.

Laying out the dates of anticipated payments and the accounts from which the funds are to be drawn will be crucial to ensuring that things still run smoothly when the money handler is not available.

In the event of an emergency, you do not want to risk losing any of the policy benefits that you have been likely paying into for years; a missed payment may result in a cancellation of the policy when it is needed most.

Date 3: Family Legal Documents and Wills

The third meeting should be dedicated to ensuring that both parties know where to find the family legal documents. These documents may include living wills, powers of attorney, trust agreements, and any informal estate planning documents. It is important to review these documents together and make sure that your current wishes are aligned with those stated in the documents at the time they were drafted.

Date 4: Savings, Investments, and Your 401(k)

The fourth meeting should focus on your savings, retirement, and investment accounts.  Prepare a simple listing of all of your joint and individual accounts, with the account numbers, contact information for your personal representatives (or institutions), and the balances. If you have college savings accounts or other accounts set up for family members, be sure to include those as well.

If either or both parties have private, individual accounts or accounts where one is a custodian (holding money for another party) with a fiduciary responsibility to keep that information private, consider preparing a sealed envelope with any necessary information written on the outside.

Date 5: Real Estate Assets

The fifth meeting should focus on your real estate assets, if any. Prepare a listing of all property owned, along with deeds, mortgages, recent tax statements, and rental agreements. Prepare an analysis to clearly identify the current equity position of each property.

Date 6: Personal Property Assets

The sixth meeting should focus on your personal property assets. Prepare a listing of your valuable personal property, along with any titles to ownership and locations of the assets. This list should include savings bonds and tangible assets. Tangible assets can include automobiles, jewelry, collector items, and artwork.

There is no need to list your furniture and daily living items. Rather, this is an opportunity to prepare and discuss the value attached to items that have significant value. If there is a safe deposit box, make sure to identify the location and related information necessary to gain access to that as well.

Protect Assets with Insurance

Now you know how to record your assets, but how do you protect those assets?

Becky’s Story

Becky’s house was hit by lightning a month ago. The thunderbolt and its force surged through the chimney, blowing the bolted iron doors off the facing of her fireplace, discharging soot, and projecting shards of glass everywhere.

The strike fractured the concrete foundation, fried the electrical wiring, and tore through Becky’s keepsakes and collectibles. While the immediate scare slightly unhinged her, the secondary shock came in the way of tremendous financial repercussions.

Appliances, furniture, floorings, and clothing were instantly demolished. Artwork, irreplaceable family heirlooms, and other important belongings were gone. Becky’s family was forced out of their home for nearly two weeks. During that time, thousands of dollars went directly to hotels, meals, and repairs.

The Importance of Insurance

In 2024, it was reported that “almost 44.8% of homes in the United States, with a total value nearing $22.0 trillion, confront at least one type of severe or extreme climate risk from either flood, wind, wildfire, heat, or air quality.” In 2023, there were a total of 28 natural disasters that cost the nation over $1 billion. Since 1980, there have been 376. To drive the point further, 60% of all hurricane damage takes place in the U.S.

Those statistics are alarming by any standard.

While Becky did have homeowner’s insurance, she didn’t fully read her policy and did not know what costs would be recoverable. Becky also didn’t know how she was going to prove to the insurance company the scope of the damages she had suffered.

Asset Insurance Options

Today there are a myriad of options for homeowners and renters seeking to protect their assets. If you already have insurance, you want to be sure you will be entitled to collect on your claim. In order to do so you must (1) understand your coverage (replacement or current value) and (2) have a full and complete inventory of your assets.

While there are professional companies that provide this service, you can protect yourself by making a record of your household assets today. Once complete, be sure to provide a copy to your insurance company and keep a copy in the cloud.

When you know how to record assets, you can protect assets.

Read More ‘Money Basics’

• Part 1: How to Read Your Credit Report and Choose Bank Services
• Part 2: A Painless System of Budgeting
• Part 3: Debt Management and Credit Card Spending
• Part 4: Medical Debt and Overwhelming Financial Matters
• Part 5: Is Your Relationship Ready for a Joint Account?
• Part 6: Protect Assets and Your Future Nest Egg

We think you’ll also like:

1. Critical Tactics for Safeguarding Your Ideas and Intellectual Property Rights
2. Finances in Marriage: 3 C’s to Address Discontent
3. How to Protect Your Assets Now to Cover Your Ass(ets) for Later

[Editors’ Note: To learn more about this and related topics, you may want to attend the following on-demand webinars (which you can view at your leisure, and each includes a comprehensive customer PowerPoint about the topic):

1. Understanding Risk Management Basics for Business Owners
2. How to Read a Balance Sheet – And Why You Care!
3. The Sales, Marketing, Advertising & Publicity Bootcamp (SMAP) / Growing Your Business with ChatGPT and AI

This is an updated version of an article originally published on March 13, 2020. This article was most recently updated by the Financial Poise Editors.]

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