"Perfection gets in the way of good. If we're reaching for perfection, then we'll miss the opportunity to make a good decision and inevitably make no decision, which will be poor."

Death is the conversation most couples never have. Not because they don't care, but because they're too busy living.

Our hosts, Natalie and Dan Slagle, sit with that discomfort in today’s conversation, walking through what the financial situation would actually look like if one of them were gone tomorrow.

Using Natalie as the hypothetical (because she doesn't mind talking about death) they trace the real, practical consequences when one of them passes away: business income suddenly cut in half, childcare costs ballooning without a second set of hands, and a $2 million life insurance payout that sounds like a lot until you realize it doesn't come close to replacing a lifetime of earnings.

Then there’s the seemingly small yet deadly stuff. Dan couldn't log into their own bank account for a month because two-factor authentication defaulted to Natalie's phone. It took a gentle cornering in the breakfast nook to finally fix it. That's the kind of friction that's an annoyance when your spouse is alive and a genuine problem when they're not.

Guardianship is another obvious consideration. Who raises your child if you both go at once? Who manages the money? Those don't have to be the same person. The weight of that decision is exactly what has stalled their own estate plan update since 2020.

You and your spouse can never achieve perfection, but you both need to make a good enough decision now. Because no decision, as Natalie puts it, is the worst decision of all.

Key Topics:

1. Why Couples Avoid This Conversation (08:16)
2. What Happens Financially if a Spouse Passes Away Tomorrow (15:38)
3. Stock Compensation, Business Ownership, and What Stops Coming In (17:33)
4. A Real-Life Example of Being Financially Unprepared for Loss (21:51)
5. How Having a Child Changes Everything (24:39)
6. Guardianship: Who Raises Your Child, Who Manages Their Money (26:45)
7. The Password Problem: Small Logistical Gaps That Become Big Problems (29:39)
8. The True Cost of Unpaid Labor When a Spouse Is Gone (34:02)
9. The Three Estate Documents Every Couple Needs (38:20)

Resources Mentioned:

1. NYT Article: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/14/your-money/taxes/couples-taxes-mistakes.html
2. Recommended Listen: Money Dates Episode 12: Estate Planning Essentials: Wills, Trusts, and Avoiding Probate: https://www.fyoozfinancial.com/podcasts/estate-planning-essentials-wills-trusts-and-avoiding-probate

Schedule a Free Consultation: Go to https://www.fyoozfinancial.com and click the button in the upper right-hand corner

Join our newsletter to stay up to date on the latest financial resources: https://www.fyoozfinancial.com/signup

Natalie Slagle, CFP® and Dan Slagle, CFP® are the founding partners and lead financial planners at Fyooz Financial Planning https://www.fyoozfinancial.com/ — an independent firm dedicated to helping high-earning couples in their 30s and 40s confidently navigate the complexities of managing money together.

At Fyooz, they specialize in turning financial stress into strategy, guiding couples through everything from cash flow and investing to aligning money with shared goals.

Disclaimer: For updated disclosures, please visit https://www.fyoozfinancial.com/

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I remember once everything was set up, he got the new debit card issued. He's a boomer, so he's got to use cash. He wanted to make sure, before I flew back home, that he was comfortable using the ATM. And I recall leaving the bank, getting in the car, driving through the ATM, drive through, pulling up, and it was just like, all hell broke loose. He like, almost hit the ATM with the car. He like, didn't know how to how close to get to the ATM, and then it was a matter of me reaching over from the passenger side and being like, Okay, this is how you insert your card. This is the code that you need to access to type in your pin. This is how you draw from specific accounts using the machine, right? So that was, to me, that was very eye opening in terms of every situation is different when one partner passes away. But it was the prime example of what it can look like to be unprepared if someone were to pass away. From a financial standpoint, that person who passed away being more of the head when it comes to finances within the household.

Welcome to money dates, the podcast that makes money conversations with your partner feel a little less taboo. I'm Natalie Slagle, a certified financial planner, and I'm joined by my husband and business partner, Dan Slagle, also a Certified Financial Planner, say Hi, Dan, hello. In each episode, we'll share honest stories and practical tips to help you and your partner feel more connected and confident on your financial journey. So grab your drink, get comfortable and join us for our money dates. Hi, Dan, hi, Natalie, it's just you and I today. How sweet is that? Just like old times, does the two of us such a good song just

01:53

the way we like it, right?

Just the way we like it. You know? It was really special for us. Special, maybe couple and professional moment all in one was our feature in the New York Times recently.

That only was it a feature in the New York Times, but it was also published on Valentine's Day. My wonderful Valentine's Day present to you. Why?

Thank you. And what's really fun is online. The article was called, tax missteps happen even when two financial pros are married. So we are in the New York Times talking about a mistake we made, which I think listeners know by now, we are not ashamed of mistakes and missteps along the way. And so it was a fun opportunity to explain our

little misstep. I remember when, when we had an inquiry into the the author who published the article, I wrote the article, reached out to you and and asked to get details on this tax misstep that that we had made, because it was a joint return at the end of the day, I remember I came home and you shared, hey, we we're going to be featured in The New York Times. I was like, that's incredible, right? Yeah. And then we got further along into the conversation, you're like, oh, it's about a mistake that we made. And I was like, I don't I don't know how I feel about that, but as someone said, Take it or leave it all. Press is good. Press Yes, yes.

I said, Dan, we say yes. We are yes people. If someone says, Hey, do you want to be in the New York Times and talk about a mistake you made? You just say yes. And since being in there, we've had two, at least two prospective clients reach out to us who were like, Hey, I appreciated your authenticity and your willingness to share and just be human in this non human world. And so it was a fun opportunity. What was also funny is we were told to smile without showing our teeth.

Well, hold on, back up. So not only were it was our name and firm name published in the New York Times, but they also asked for a photographer to come take a picture.

Yeah, right. So they took a picture here at the office that I'm working at today. And they great photographer. We did have some photos where we smiled, but she was like, knowing what I know about the New York Times and this feature, I think we need some non super smiley photos. And so the one the of course, the photo they selected for the article was us not smiling. And my brother called, and he was like, hey, congrats on being in the New York Times. That's huge. But what's going on with your smiles? And I just appreciated that, because he knows us, we're smiley people. And I was like, Yeah, we were, we were told to not use our teeth. And he's like, I can tell like, and so it was, we were

smizing, right? That's amazing term that yeah, just recently shared with me as smizing,

yeah, from Tyra break, thanks. That was really cool. The New York Times tax missteps. Happen even when two financial pros are married. Check it out. You'll see our big smiling faces. Wait no, you'll see our our big smiles without teeth faces. But anyways, Dan, what are we talking about today? Let's move on

from All right, we can move on today. We're gonna go somewhere most couples avoid and talk about what actually happens to our finances if one of us dies tomorrow, in this hypothetical world, we'll say tomorrow. But first off, before we get into the content that we're going to talk about today, just a shout out to listeners. If you've been enjoying listening to money dates, we do have a newsletter where you can subscribe and be one of the first people to be notified when a new episode is released. So we'll drop the link in the show notes, but again, that link is www, dot fuse financial.com, backslash, sign up. Okay, let's get into today's topic. And first off, I want to acknowledge this is a little bit of an uncomfortable topic. Does it feel uncomfortable

for you, no, but I'm strange in that way, and I weirdly like talking about death. So can I be the one that dies? I'm the one that is dying today, in the hypothetical what happens if Natalie dies tomorrow? Because we can kind of play that out for listeners to learn from our own experience that hopefully never comes true.

Hopefully never comes true. But you have brought this up several times that you do hope this is pre our daughter, but you have always said, I hope I pass away. I being you. In this instance, I speaking as as Natalie. I pass away before Dan does. I do

have a new rule if Jay our daughter, if she is 18 or younger, and one of us has to pass away, I would hope that it's you. If she is older and out, then I hope it's me. You know, we can talk about that a little bit more, but my instinct has changed on that, and that's the honest truth. But we're going to talk about finance today. We are going to talk about how the impact of having a child may sway this conversation a little bit. But I think in the grand scheme of things, this is an uncomfortable conversation for most people. It's still uncomfortable for us. I believe it's more uncomfortable now that we have a child. I'm like, Oh, I've always thought if I pass away like Dan, you're gonna be just fine. I'm not worried about you. You're cute. We'll find out you're smart, you can take care of yourself. You'll be just fine. But wow, yeah, when you bring in kids and and then like, maybe some of you who are listening aren't just taking care of your kids, you're taking care of your parents. So now, if you pass away, who's going to take care of your parents? They're just parents? They're just there's kind of more at stake here in this episode. It might start to sound familiar to some, because we have had an episode about estate planning. So if you go back, and you should go back, make sure you listen to episode 12, estate planning essentials, wills, trust and avoiding probate. That was estate planning itself. This is going to be a little bit above and beyond that. So the combination of this Episode and Episode 12 is a really good listen for those who are interested in this topic.

Episode 12. Okay, so Natalie out. Let's jump right into this. And I think the big, I'll call it elephant in the room, is I feel like a lot of couples avoid this conversation. No one likes to think about death or talk about death, right? You kind of have an avoidance until something actually happens. And part of our role in being financial planners for our clients is to ensure that let's keep moving forward and making sure some important documents are in place, important documents being estate plans, even talking about what happens to the financials, should one of the partners in a relationship pass away when you have brought this topic up to clients? Do you feel like that is often met with any resistance.

Resistance might be one word to describe it. I think there's a lot of work to be done. And so the resistance could be, I already have a lot to do. I'm like, I'm a high earning professional. I have children at home. I have adults, you know, parent adults that I'm taking care of, and everything I do in life is to make my life better or make the people I'm caring for better. And now you're trying to give me a to do list of things when I'm not here, but I have so many things to do in life when I am here, and people depend on me being here and like so it's almost like on the priority list, we don't think about ourselves being gone, and statistically speaking, you know, if someone's in their 40s or 50s, they're they still have a lot of years ahead of them. And so I feel like it just, it's not this resistance, it's. Is this lack of priority, and then should it happen? You're gonna hope that that that list of priorities got worked out so that it you're not leaving behind people a worse situation than what is already a terrible situation.

It sounds like it for most it's, it's hard to think about death because you're, you're so busy in your current life, you don't have a lot of time to think about the afterthought exactly, what if? Right? What if I were to pass away? And I think everyone has good intentions. They want to make sure, if they were to pass away, that the people they're leaving behind are well set up, financially speaking, and even outside of finances. But it's almost like the concept of grappling with the unknown or resistant or hesitant to secure their their loved one's financial future, if, if, again, something happened to them, right?

And just making sure it doesn't need to be this conversation that is happening monthly, but I feel like annually, couples need to talk about not only their estate plan, but the other aspect, aspects that would happen should someone pass away. Like what we do in our conversations is we say, okay, let's play out. Natalie, you're gone tomorrow, you pass away unexpectedly. What is going to happen to your finances? What is going to happen to your income, to your accounts? How are the beneficiaries listed? So I think that's what we should talk about next. Is kind of the things we think about. You know, above and beyond the estate plan, should a client pass away unexpectedly?

I think that's a great idea. I do want to take a step back before we get into some of the details. I want to bring listeners into our personal life. I think that's that's important, so people can get a sense of what another couple is going through with this type of conversation, have you and I avoided any part of this conversation around death and what happens to finances if one of us were to pass away,

I don't think we have put in the time and effort that we preach upon our clients to do. I don't know if it's an avoidance, because Lucky for you, Dan, I don't mind talking about this. I think it's really healthy. I think an issue for us is that, because we're in this every day, when we get home, it feels like we're talking about work, even though it's about our personal finances. So I don't know if, if we have crossed every T and dotted every i when it comes to thinking about, should one of us pass away tomorrow? Are things set up how we want it to be? Would you agree?

Yes, totally. I think we're maybe 90, 95% there. But there are some loose ends that need to be tied. And one issue we'll talk about a little later on for us that we've had is, is we have our basic estate plan completed, but life has become more complex as we've had a child, as our businesses continue to grow. That's we should be taking into account additional estate planning measures to ensure, again, that that our daughter and the surviving partner, everyone's taken care of. So this goes to your point earlier about, hey, it's not a monthly monthly money check in conversation, necessarily. It can be, but it should be, maybe reviewed once a year. I think that's that's sufficient enough, because things change, life changes. You may need to add a new child. If you have one, you change your property, whatever it may be, retitling accounts. I think for us, it's the complexity of our situation has warranted. The need to revisit our estate plan again. And I think part of the issue that we're having is, well, we already have an estate plan done, but we also need to review it, accounting for the life changes that have taken place over the last year, year and a half.

Yes, we got that estate plan done in 2020, 2020, 2021, we sat down with an attorney. Our business was little baby business back then, and it felt like we were little babies. Now these babies had a baby, and our business is a lot bigger, and we have an employee, and things just look so different. And so I I'm glad we have an estate plan. I don't think it fulfills the desires that I would have for our business or for our child now that those things look completely different, and we have moved since then. So we drafted our estate plan in the state of Minnesota. We now live in Oregon, and so there could be estate planning differences, which there are. The estate tax in Oregon looks a lot different than the estate. Tax in Minnesota. Don't forget, folks, your states have an estate tax as well as the federal estate tax, not for today's episode, but something to pay attention to. So yes, I To me that's a big orange flag for this Lego household. Wave the flag.

Wave the orange. Let's jump into what you what you wanted to talk about a little bit before we got on that conversation around our personal avoidance or hesitation. So now let's talk about what actually happens legally and financially if one of us were to pass away. Can you walk me through the practical reality of what might happen if you were to pass away?

Okay, so if I pass away right now, then the projection of our revenue based on our clients. Our clients obviously pay us, and then we make that money. If I were to pass away, those payments will still come in. However, the service that you're providing them, it's now you. It's not an us thing. It would be you and our employee could have a disruption. Obviously, I would hope anyone who loses a spouse has a disruption professionally, so they can focus on their personal needs. Now that's different because we're a business owner. I think depending on the type of business that you own, what happens to the revenue or sales that are coming in, should a business owner pass away? So when we were thinking about our life insurance, we wanted to factor in, what do we need personally, and then what would help so that the business can still do what it's doing. So Dan, you might have to go hire a financial advisor fairly quickly to replace what I do for our clients. And so that was just one of the things that that we talked about. So your your income won't change right away if you have to now hire a financial advisor, because we had two incomes coming into our household from our business. Now there's only going to be one income because you have to pay someone else, and so your income just got cut in half. And that's going to happen with most of our dual income households, one income is there to be cut in half.

Just to clarify, you're talking about hiring a financial advisor to replace you within our business to serve our clients. You're not talking about me correct my own financial advisor for helping me with the finances,

17:18

although you might need that too.

I might need that too, but in this instance, you're specifically talking about, like, replacing your professionalism. I don't even know the technical term, what we want to talk about it, but like you're talking about replacing your job within fuse.

Yes, exactly, exactly. So what will happen is we will be a dual income household that goes down to just Dan making what Dan makes from fused financial planning. And you know, I think making sure a couple understands that, and knowing, you know, a lot of our couples, they make different amounts of money. So what happens? Should this person pass away? Okay, then the other person, maybe it's the higher earning spouse, is the one who survives. Okay, what does that mean about the lower income? Or what happens if it's different? The other thing that we like to make sure to map out for clients is those who have different forms of compensation, whether it's business income or they work for a publicly traded company, maybe privately held, but like our publicly traded company, folks who have stock compensation, whether it's RSUs stock options, what we have seen in employer literature is upon that all of your unvested shares now best. So it kind of almost turns into this life insurance policy, although it will be likely taxable to the estate. But like, that's a form of income and almost, almost, kind of like life insurance that we like to map out and explain for clients, because that could be significant money, depending on the situation. That's a form of income that is going to be replaced suddenly, but that's going to be like a one year, likely a one year payout, and again, the household goes down to one single income.

And just to clarify, that is not for every stock compensation plan, right? We've exactly employers allow for that, but we've also seen other employers, they don't have anything like that, obviously, what an amazing benefit to surviving partners of companies that do offer it, right? Yes.

And there's different forms of life insurance, like, Should you pass away because of this? Then you get this amount. If you pass away because of this, you get the, you know, there's, there's just different things happening. So just having an understanding about that, and then, of course, mapping out how are you going to get access to all of the accounts? How is it going to pass you? How is the beneficiaries listed? What's automatic versus what's going to go through probate, or what's going to take time to you know, just like having again, it doesn't need to be crazy detailed. You don't need to have this conversation. Station all the time, but I think having both partners a general understanding is a really healthy place to be. Natalie.

What are some common mistakes that you have seen with clients when it comes to making sure finances are set up properly? Going forward

for bank accounts, I have noticed a lot of single ownership without putting a beneficiary designation, which would mean that account gets stuck. Just because you're married doesn't mean that account automatically passes. It might automatically pass through the probate process, you know, and and maybe that's fine, but some folks, they want to avoid probate, or they want their cash to go to the surviving spouse really easily. And so if bank accounts are in single ownership without a beneficiary designation, then that can be that's a common mistake I see quite often. So either making a bank account joint or being proactive with the bank and saying, hey, I want to list a beneficiary, because it's usually not a proactive experience like we see with our 401, KS, that's a common mistake I see quite often, and then not updating beneficiary designations in general, like we've we've seen so many of our clients who've been in a committed relationship for a very long time, and we look at their old IRA And it's like, hey, this still lists your mom as the beneficiary. Is that you want? And it's like, no, I don't want it to be my spouse. So just updating those beneficiaries are really, really important, and you can't ever assume that something automatically goes to a spouse. You really have to think about, well, how would it get to my spouse? Because being married, it doesn't make this automatic transfer, because it would have to go through probate. That's why you you need to think about your assets and how and how it would pass

to your spouse. Yeah, and I think in this instance, real life examples are very powerful to understand. I unfortunately had to experience this a few years back when my mom passed away, I think I also shared this story in a previous episode, but it's, it's a great story, so I'll share it again. Lucky for you listeners, when my mom passed away, you know she was she led a lot of the finances within the household. And a few weeks after she had passed away, and my dad and I went to the local bank to switch over the accounts, make sure everything's in his name, add myself, my brother, as beneficiaries. Should he pass away? Adding payable on death or transfer on death, another term for that to the bank accounts to make sure that can avoid probate. And I remember, once everything was set up, he got the new debit card issued, he's still he's a boomer, so he's got to use cash, right So, and I remember he wanted to make sure before I flew back home and left him that he was comfortable using the ATM. And I recall leaving the bank, getting in the car, driving through the ATM, drive through, pulling up, and it was just like, all hell broke loose. He like, almost hit the ATM with the car. He like, didn't know how to how close to get to the ATM, and then it was a matter of me reaching over from the passenger side and being like, Okay, this is how you insert your card. This is the code that you need to access for or to type in your pin. This is how you draw from specific accounts, using the machine, right? So that was, to me, that was very eye opening in terms of every situation is different when one partner passes away. But it was the prime example of what it can look like to be unprepared if someone were to pass away from a financial standpoint, and that person who passed away being more of the head when it comes to finances within the

household, right? It speaks loudly to how we tend to discredit what feels like a little thing that all of us do to manage household finances, so utilizing an ATM card, maybe that was something your mom did, and she never showed your dad how to do it. And the list goes on and on and on. I mean, even for you, Dan, that's one example. You have so many more that that your dad has experienced now that your mom's passed away, and man, my empathy is it goes out to your dad because dealing with grief, and then the reminders, just the little ticks and these little reminders like, Oh, my person isn't here anymore, because this used to be their thing, and now it's mine. It's just that's hard. It's really hard.

It's really hard. Yeah, Natalie, one of the hesitancies we've had that we talked about earlier in the episode. For us, in having this type of conversation with with specifically like our estate plan and our finances, if you were to pass away again, in this hypothetical example, is that we have. Our basic documents already created, but we've had a lot of life changes over the last year and a half where it warrants us to revisit getting things updated. So having our daughter has changed everything, financially and not financially, it just changed our entire world, right? So do you feel like having a child has shifted the urgency in this conversation for our household.

Yes, I do. I there's just some like, I was kind of saying it's like, Dan, I'm like, You're a very capable human, and you can take care of yourself. It doesn't mean I don't want things set up right for you. If I were to pass away, I want all of my money to directly go to you. I don't if we can avoid probate, and it makes sense for us to avoid probate. There's all of that. I don't want to discredit, all of those things that I want to happen for you. But when you think about your child, and should I pass away prematurely, even though, and hopefully, I really hope that, should that happen, you're still around to take care of her. I still want things set up so flawlessly that you can continue to be the great dad that you are. And I don't want finances to get in the way of that. Because, let's be honest, if you're struggling financially, or if there's hiccups financially that causes a certain stress that adds a certain layer, and layers add to the type of parenting that we do. So it certainly adds this just as, oh, this is serious and this is impactful, and this impacts how our daughter will be raised, in the things she will have access to. So the urgency is real,

yeah, and we, we've talked about guardianship in the past, and making sure that that's updated, right? And that's a really important call out for our listeners who have a who have a child or children, is to make sure things like your will are updated to list the appropriate guardian, because life changes, right? And again, what we've talked about in the past is we've had a guardian listed. We've had conversations around, okay, now that we actually have a daughter, because in our previous will, it just said, Any unborn children, right? Very generic. We didn't have a child, so we were like, Let's just name so and so. But now that we have a child, and we live halfway across the country for most of the family, our thought process has been well, who who would be able to take care of our child, raise them here, where we want our child to be raised, and then also have the ability to go back home and make sure family is still visited, right? Our family can see come out and see the child. So these are hard conversations to have, because I feel like your thought process can go in a million different directions, right? You could, you could say, oh, it should be, you know, this couple, because they had, they have ties back to where we're from originally, and they live out here, like, seems like a natural choice. But then there's some, maybe some guilt, like, Why? Why wouldn't I name a natural like my sibling and his or her partner, even, even though they live halfway across the country, right? So it's really just like playing out these different scenarios in your head. And a lot of times it's just like the what is the saying? Like, is it paralysis by analysis? Or maybe it's the other way around, but it's like, you, you, there's so many options, so you just end up not choosing or Yeah,

like perfection gets in the way of good. If we're reaching for perfection, then we'll miss the opportunity to make a good decision, and evidently, make no decision, which will be poor selecting that Guardian should we both pass away, who's going to take care of our daughter? And then there's the decision on who's going to take care of her. As a parent, you can make a separate decision on who's going to take care of the remaining finances. Because, should I pass away? I have a $2 million life insurance policy that's going to go to you, Dan, should you and I both pass away? We each have a $2 million life insurance policy. Well, that's going to go to our child. That's $4 million that will go to our child. Should we pass away at the same time? The person who manages our child does not have to be the person that manages our wealth. It can be, I think in an ideal, ideal world, it's the same person. For most, I think for most people, they would want it to be the same person. We don't live in an ideal world. And so the best caretaker for Jay could be different for the best caretaker of Jay's money, which will be a lot of money for a minor to inherit. So there's just big decisions, and these big decisions, I believe, have been what has prevented us from finalizing our estate plan. But in the meantime, we can at least make sure these other things are tightened up, and some of the other things are the small things, like we've talked about with password sharing. Dan, do you want to talk about that? About password sharing, yeah, and the experience that we've had with your inability to get into our bank account.

Oh, good. I'm glad he finished your sense sentence. I thought you were just gonna say, inability. Pause your inability. Inability. Yeah. The issue that I've been having personally with our bank accounts is we have two factor authentication on all of our logins. And the issue I've been having is that a lot of the the apps will just or the websites will just default to having one phone number from an authentication standpoint, for that two factor piece has been your phone number, because you handle, we've talked about this, you handle a lot of the the payments and moving the money around. So that makes sense. It was just a matter of me needing to go and add my phone number as an authentication device for that, that text for the code. But it was just, I hated that feeling over the past month or so of not being able to just log into my bank account and see what the balance was at like, yeah, it felt like and clients have had this issue too, or they're just like, it feels like I have an allowance and I'm being told how much money I have, and I have no actual visibility into it. That has all been taken care of. Now, I have since added my phone number. It was my fault. I shouldn't need to lean on you to add my phone

number, but you needed me to log in to add your phone number. So it wasn't your fault. It's not like it was all my fault, but we had to tag team to make it right. You couldn't do it yourself, right?

Yeah. And it took maybe 10 times for maybe me to be like, Okay, this is this is enough. We need to fix this now.

And for me, when I was it kind of felt like, Okay, this is this annoying thing. But like, Dan, like, I'm the one who takes care of this. I was, I should have listened right away. And it just priority list. It wasn't high on the priority list. And then you sat me down. We have this breakfast nook at our new house. I love the breakfast nook. And you like, cornered me in and like a good way, but you were like, I

did not corner you in first. Anyone who knows how a breakfast nook is built, you are naturally cornered in

on one. I know that's why it felt and you like, you were like, Hey, I would like to be able to log into our bank account. What do we got to do? And I was like, and it felt like I'm like, am I hiding something? I'm not. There is nothing to hide. I tell you all the time when you're like, hey, what's the balance or what, you know, blah, blah, blah, I just tell you, I'm like, What is going on that this is not a priority? Or I I just felt kind of weird in that moment, I was like, What am I hiding from you? I'm not hiding anything. Let's and then, like, it was released. Now you can get in whenever you want, but that's just an example. Like, if I were to pass away before that happened, I'm trying, like, how would you have logged into our bank account?

You just call the bank and you find a workaround. Like, there's, there's other ways to access the account.

There is, and you, you are on the bank. It's not that you're not on the bank. It just, we haven't had the authorization set up for your phone. But, like, you would have had to call the bank when your wife is dead and you are taking care of a child, rather than just pulling up your phone and being like, Okay, I have, there's enough money in the bank to pay off the credit card. Boom. It's, it's just these little headaches and these little ticks that it's like, can we make this better for their surviving partner? And not, I know we talked a lot about, like, guardianships and wills and beneficiaries, but it's, I think you really need to think about who's doing what. And yes, delegation is important in a household, because we all can't do all the things. So delegation is important. But is accessibility available for you and your partner when it comes to all the financial chores we'll call them, that you have to do as a household? Do people have the access that that they need, and that is necessary?

Question to ask, question to ask. Let's talk about a few other specifics related to our situation and having our daughter, and how things would change. So in this hypothetical scenario that we've been playing out in this episode, when you you pass away, like not only do I need access, as we talked about to different types of accounts. I want to think about about it, from a day to day cost standpoint, like, if you passed away, there's a numerical value associated with the additional needs that I would have to have in order to take care of our daughter. Daycare still would exist. You know, we still have, what, gosh, four more years of daycare. So if I think about daycare, and I'll just, I'll say our daycare monthly cost is around $2,000 if I have four more years of a daycare expense at $2,000 that's like $96,000.04 years that I need to be able to fund. Yeah, that's, that's a lot of money, obviously, things like life insurance. And having a tax free benefit that comes into play to being able to help fund these things that, to me, is like the biggest cost that I would be concerned about if you were to pass away. The next cost that I don't think you know, even I think about if you were to pass away is like, what is the cost for a nanny or like a babysitter as needed? Because if you pass away, you know, I still want to live my life and have some independence. And I know, like, a nanny or babysitters, it's not cheap, right? I know we've just, like, we're like, new into the babysitter world, not too but like, within the last six months, we've felt really comfortable with the babysitters that we've been using. And, you know, you go out for a date night, you and I go out for a date night, and it's like, oh, we had a very nice dinner. It was a little expensive. Oh, in addition to that, we also owe our babysitter, like, $150

and whatever your date costs double it when you have a babysitter. But there is a label for this Dan, and it is unpaid labor. So this is talked about a lot within my female circles, of like, all of the unpaid labor that that goes on in a household. And typically, I don't think this happens with our household, but a lot of households, it's a female position. And so these this unpaid labor, all of a sudden needs to be paid labor. That's what it turns into. So child care, because you still need to go to the gym, you still need to hang out with friends, I feel like as a as a one parent household, it's almost more important, because you need that autonomy. So there's What about grocery shopping? Well, maybe now you always have to do Instacart, or maybe you do hello, fresh or, like, a food plan thing, cleaning service, like you probably would do weekly, or bi weekly, you know, and, and maybe it doesn't add up to, you know, it's like, well, now you have $2 million Dan, like, go pay for everything. But the $2 million if I were to die is also a replacement of my income, like my between now and when I retire, I'm going to make a lot more than $2 million in my lifetime. And so it doesn't even replace all of my income that I'm going to make that you now that the household no longer gets access to and so it's not just the additional cost, but it's the there was money that could have been greater, that the Slagle household gets access to that now, now we don't. So I think the amount of money that it costs to keep up a household and the effort and the mental mindset, you know, it's like, we need a lot of money to keep it up. When it goes from a two person household to a one person household, it's insane,

like, what the potential costs could be. And, you know, it's making me reconsider. Is the amount that we have right now? Is that sufficient? Is it enough? Yeah, that's why we like to have these conversations. You know, obviously for for your listeners, but for ourselves as as well. Natalie, before we wrap up today's episode, let's just, do you mind just touching high level on the, you know, the three documents that every couple needs? I know we go into it in Episode 12 quite a bit, but just like a fresh reminder for those

listening, yes. So if you're thinking about the estate plan itself, what that's typically comprised of is a will for each partner, a health care directive to label and say the type of health care decisions you want to make should you become incapacitated. And a power of attorney, and the power of attorney has a lot of different flexibilities as well. So the power of attorney will likely come in on the financial side. So let's say you become incapacitated. You're still alive, but you can't make financial decisions. Well, the power of attorney then steps in. The will is what will step in when you do pass away. And a lot of our clientele, those are kind of the three main ones. And then when they go visit with an attorney, they also discover that they need to create a trust. So that's, that's a different document. You know, that's kind of document number four. And we'll let the attorneys decide who needs a trust. Dan, you and I, in our old estate plan, we do not have a trust. And I think, again, I'm not an attorney, so maybe they're gonna be like, Natalie, you don't know what you're talking about, but I have a feeling when we finalize our estate plan, we are going to have a trust, and that is going to change our beneficiary designation. So there's, there's quite a bit there again, go back listen to episode 12. We go into this a lot more, and then, to wrap up what we were talking about, don't discredit all the other things that should one spouse pass away, all the other things that will go on in a household to keep the finances afloat.

Yeah, it's a lot of work to get the documents done in the first place. And you know, I hate to spoiler alert, but it's, it's a lot of work out. For the documents are done. So it's always good to have a good team in place to be able to help facilitate as much as as possible. Want to close out this, this episode, you know, Natalie, as as we've talked more about our our personal journey on this topic, there seems to be an emotional payoff. So I'm curious, from your personal standpoint, as we've continued to talk about it. How does it feel for you to have actually talked about some of these things as opposed to

avoid it? I think it feels really good. I think it helps kind of clarify. It makes me think what other things do. Maybe I have access to that you don't, or that you have access to that I don't. Dan and I have started our monthly money check ins. We had a previous episode, I think it's two or three episodes ago. And I just feel like this podcast, which was not a goal, but a great outcome, has been that you and I are having conversations that have been that have not been happening. And so even this conversation today has felt like it's it's giving clarity to the other things we just need to keep track of.

Yeah, yeah. And if you tuned into today's episode, we would love to challenge you to just pick one thing today and do it. Try to do it this week, whether it's having the conversation with your loved one, if it's reviewing things like your life insurance policy, if it's finalizing the documents, if it's having to get your estate planning documents notarized and witnessed, that is one that turns up all the time. If that is it, go do it today. Go do it. Go do it today. So Natalie, thank you so much for your time on today's episode, I found it really helpful, just for us personally, again, to have this conversation. I'm excited for a few upcoming episodes we have, we have some really great guests, and get to dive deeper into their financial story.

Yeah, yeah, it'll be great. We are now three Well, we're in our third month of 2026, and as a reminder, it's not too late to start off the year, great on your financial journey. So at Fuse financial planning, we are accepting new clients. If you would like to learn more about how we could service you specifically go to our website, www, dot fuse financial.com and you can schedule with us right there. We do two free consultations. So maybe you just want to say hey and hang out with us. That's great too, so just go ahead and schedule and we can get you set on your way today. All right, thanks, Natalie, thanks. Dan. Bye, bye.

Hey, if you've enjoyed this episode and are looking for personalized financial guidance, schedule a free complimentary consultation using the link in the description below, Natalie and Dan Slagle are the founding partners of Fyooz Financial Planning, a registered investment advisor. The information provided in this podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any securities. Investing involves risk, including the potential loss of principal. Advisory services are offered to clients or prospective clients where Fyooz Financial Planning and its representatives are properly licensed or exempt from licensure. For more information, including our disclosures, please visit our website@www.fyoozfinancial.com