Wealth transfer is a hot topic in financial planning. Thinking about how to pass funds from one generation to the next can be emotionally difficult. Perhaps the older generation doesn’t approve of the way the younger spends the money, or the younger generation isn’t involved in the family business. Furthermore, tax and legal issues can complicate matters.
While estate and inheritance planning can be complex, other wealth can be transferred more easily: the wealth of knowledge. My grandmother successfully passed a financial education to my mother, who transferred it to me, as I am a proud third-generation licensed broker. My maternal grandmother Miriam Rosofsky struggled against social norms to enter the work world. But eventually she had the distinction of being one of the first women to hold a U.S. Securities license. She started as a secretary in a brokerage firm, but then began picking up her own book of clients. My mother Rhoda Goldstein was an associate vice-president in Dean Witter. Dinner-time conversation around my childhood table alternated between medical issues (my father was a surgeon) and economic discussions. I saw how both my parents helped people gain and maintain their physical and financial health. It was therefore only natural for me to begin my financial career partnering with my mother on Wall Street.
After I made aliya, I founded Profile Investment Services, Ltd. with the aim of helping people living in Israel create financial plans and maintain U.S. brokerage accounts. I try to follow in my mother and grandmother’s footsteps in transferring the wealth of financial knowledge to my own children. Even though none have announced their desire to be financial planners (but my wife recently became a licensed U.S. broker), they do check stock prices regularly.
We frequently discuss fiscal responsibility, budgeting, and other economic topics at our dinner table. Some of the kids are reading books on behavioral finance, and others are reading books about loyalty, fidelity, and trust. My mother, keen to pick up on children’s natural curiosity about money and the way the “grown up” world works, recently came out with a book geared for young adults about how the stock and bond markets work, and how an entrepreneur can raise the funds necessary to fulfill his dream. If you’re interested in sharing this information with your children and transferring the wealth of financial knowledge to them, visit my website to get her new book Stocks, Bonds, and Bicycles. Let me know if you recognize any of the characters in the story.
