“I Inherited Money And Now I Can’t Blog About Financial Independence Anymore”

Doug Nordman  August 1, 2019

If we’re going to talk about awesome Financial Independence lifestyles then we also have to address the hard topics.

I’m finally ready to write about distributing my father’s estate. As many of you may remember, Dad passed away in November 2017 after more than nine years with Alzheimer’s Disease. For over six of those years, Dad was in a full-care facility while I handled his finances.

It only took six months to handle his estate and finish his income-tax returns, but it’s taken me another 13 months (and a lot of keyboard therapy) to internalize everything.

Image of Cameron Huddleston's book cover "Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk: How to Have Essential Conversations With Your Parents About Their Finances" | The-Military-Guide.com

Wish I’d had this a decade ago.

I’ll discuss the mechanics of distributing an estate, as well as the lessons learned. In a future post, I’ll talk about how Dad’s death improved our own Ohana Nords estate planning.

We don’t talk enough about financial literacy in polite society gatherings– let alone aging and estate planning– yet almost everyone in the room is dealing with the caregiver burdens and the concerns of losing a loved one.

This was a painfully tough post to write, but I feel that it’s an important challenge. Financial independence gives you a lot more control over your time (and energy), but the unicorns & rainbows are always interrupted by real life. If we’re going to talk about awesome FI lifestyles then we also have to address the hard topics.

I’d particularly like to thank Dew-Anne Langcaon and Bonnie Castonguay at Ho’okele Health Innovations for helping me navigate Dad’s dementia symptoms all the way back in 2009. They were always standing by over the years. I’d also like to thank Cameron Huddleston (again!) for just letting me talk. I’m no expert but I can pass on a lot of good advice.

 My blinding epiphany of the blatantly obvious

You’re never ready for the death of a loved one. Even though I had years to prepare Dad’s finances for his death, my brother and I still weren’t emotionally ready. Dad and my brother were in Denver and I was in Hawaii, but thousands of miles of separation made no difference in the pain and the other feelings.

We also weren’t ready because Dad had survived so many medical scares. The month before he died he had just begun showing some of the symptoms of end-stage Alzheimer’s, yet it’s quite common for late-stage Alzheimer’s to continue for several years of progressively worse issues.

When Dad first started having trouble with very low blood pressure and a sudden loss of physical coordination, we expected that he’d pull through this “health crisis” just like several times before.

Two days later, on the doctor’s advice, Dad was in hospice care and (at additional expense) a 24/7 care nurse.

While my brother and I were girding ourselves for weeks of medical assistance, on Friday evening Dad was given a small dose of morphine to calm his restlessness. He slept soundly through the night, and on Saturday he never woke up.

To continue reading, please go to the original article at

https://the-military-guide.com/lessons-learned-settling-my-fathers-estate/