In last week’s column, “‘Sudden’ Situation Can Put Retirement Finances At Risk,” I promised to offer advice to couples where one spouse was not able to take charge of retirement investing if need be, due to spousal incapacity or death.

This is how a reader I’ll call “Anna” put it: “I definitely fall into this category [of needing advice]. I am 67 years of age and my husband has been managing all of the investments up to this point. I really don’t have the knowledge, skills and ability -- math has always been my biggest weakness!”

Anna and her husband, whom I’ll call “Bob,” would benefit from viewing retirement as a “joint venture” between spouses.

Here is the path to go forward.

First, a reframe: One has to accept that a change is necessary. The best way to do that is to state the obvious.

Anna acknowledges that she defers to Bob on things financial. She goes further by stating an interest in learning what it takes to increase her knowledge. And, she asks: What would Bob suggest?

Without Anna coming forward with an inquiry statement, someone in Bob’s position could assume a lack of interest on Anna’s part. It’s Anna’s job to initiate. It’s Bob’s job to be open to discussion.

Bob could begin with one very simple, very important retirement planning baseline: the retirement income gap.

In three easy steps, he would review:

1) Retirement spending

2) Retirement income from Social Security and pensions

3) The difference between those two figures, and whether there is a gap that needs to be filled from investments.

Knowledge of the gap is the foundational piece of information that leads to achieving retirement security.

This straightforward review would give Anna a start in understanding one important goal of a retirement portfolio -- how to fill the gap.

Every investment decision flows from this base of knowledge -- and it doesn’t take serious study. Even if you, like Anna, don’t care for math, you can do this work.

If you do this review, you will (hopefully) be better able to move on to discuss the investment strategy, how to stay informed of progress, and what to expect of financial professionals who may be an important part of the team.

While this is not the case for all families, couples should keep in mind that it’s usually -- but not always -- the wife who finds herself in the “suddenly” situation. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, the National Center for Health Statistics found that through the first half of 2020, the average life expectancy at birth for males was 75.1 years, which was 5.4 years less than for females (tinyurl.com/p43cchrc).

As the Department of Labor pointed out for married women in its report “Taking the Mystery Out of Retirement Planning” (tinyurl.com/y9xay2bf), “When preparing for retirement, you face the very real possibility of spending part of your retirement without your spouse’s financial support -- most likely through widowhood.”

Well before you join the ranks of the suddenly single, consider this shift in thinking (and doing) on the part of both spouses/partners. Once you realize that both spouses would benefit from jointly being involved in retirement finances, it’s easy to start a review of the retirement income gap.

I’ll be writing more about this topic in future columns.

Julie Jason, JD, LLM, a personal money manager (Jackson, Grant Investment Advisers Inc. of Stamford, Connecticut) and award-winning author, welcomes your questions/comments (readers@juliejason.com). Please visit www.juliejason.com.

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What happens when you suddenly find yourself in charge of your retirement finances without the benefit of having much experience on the subject matter?

The “sudden” nature of this situation is usually couple-oriented. One spouse or partner becomes incapacitated or predeceases the other.

I’ve seen this many times, and it is avoidable, with some planning. In my practice, I encourage couples to treat retirement as a joint venture. That’s a new experience for couples who, like most I know, haven’t thought about the “Gosh, I’m suddenly in charge of the family finances” risk.

What I find interesting is that this state of unpreparedness is not limited to people with no financial experience or training. I see this “head in the sand” approach even when both partners have advanced degrees and work in law, finance or accounting.

Here is the reality: Sooner or later, a partner is unexpectedly left on his or her own to figure out a financial situation that is complicated and possibly overwhelming -- retirement finances being the biggie (irrespective of age).

For anyone in this situation -- meaning, having done no preparation -- the temptation is to look for help, perhaps from a lawyer, accountant or a financial adviser, or a relative or friend. That can work, if you are lucky enough to have skilled and ethical advisers to choose from. I’ve seen people go down this path and never find their bearings; the danger lies in creating a dependency. To be effective, the help has to be short-term and focused on specific outcomes that lead to strength -- sound, independent decision-making strength.

What else can you do? Start studying your “new” situation.

One of my favorite sources for unbiased information is FINRA (the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority), which regulates the brokerage industry. FINRA has a section on personal finance (tinyurl.com/2ct47sx5), as well as one titled “Learn to Invest” (tinyurl.com/yp77dcvh), which could help someone new to investing get a better understanding of some of the concepts related to it.

Another favorite resource is Investor.gov, which is part of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The section on “Introduction to Investing” (tinyurl.com/4hympfnp) contains helpful information, including breakdowns of investment products and a section titled “How the Markets Work.”

FINRA provides help on choosing an investment professional (tinyurl.com/mb8dxvae), be it a stockbroker, a financial planner or an investment adviser. There also is a section offering tips for working with an investment professional (tinyurl.com/zj65vesf).

FINRA’s BrokerCheck (tinyurl.com/t5ynhxcs) will allow you to check a particular firm and its representatives. You can find information there on both broker-dealers and investment advisers. Form CRS (investor.gov/CRS) is the key document that will help you compare and contrast firms.

It’s not easy to jump into a situation involving money when you are not familiar with the language or the nuances of investing and financial management. You’ll have to put in some time and do some homework, but it is worth it.

Now, here is my message to you if you are part of a couple: I’d like to see you avoid this “suddenly” predicament. My advice is simple and straightforward: Think of your retirement as a joint venture with your partner or spouse -- and do something about it.

What can you do? That’s the subject of my next column. If you have something to share on this topic, I’d like to hear from you. Send me questions and comments at readers@juliejason.com.

Julie Jason, JD, LLM, a personal money manager (Jackson, Grant Investment Advisers Inc. of Stamford, Connecticut) and award-winning author, welcomes your questions/comments (readers@juliejason.com). Please visit www.juliejason.com.

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Digital currencies, most notably bitcoin, have generated a lot of attention this year. Should cryptocurrencies be an option for 401(k) participants?

Year to date, bitcoin is up about 37%, beating the stock market, as measured by the S&P 500 Index, by far (up 17.6% as of 7/29/2021). What is not visible, however, is the wild ride that intervened. Bitcoin reached an all-time high of $64,829 on April 14, 2021, according to CoinGecko (tinyurl.com/ax3p5hh9). On July 29, bitcoin traded between $38,349 and $40,409 (see CoinDesk: tinyurl.com/mj9nceee).

Bitcoin was approved as legitimate government currency in El Salvador in June, with the new law taking effect in September (tinyurl.com/y9wths32). Some NFL players have requested to be paid in bitcoin, as detailed on the website Buy Bitcoin Worldwide (tinyurl.com/53f76w6n). It was also the currency of choice when hackers demanded payment to end their encryption malware cyberattacks on Colonial Pipeline and JBS (tinyurl.com/324vs6je).

When I last wrote about bitcoin in August of 2017, I noted that “both regulators and speculators have been drawn to this virtual currency. Speculators are attracted by the possibility of outsized returns (and, as with any speculative ‘investment,’ there is a potential for outsized losses). And regulators raise warnings.” That’s one huge point of concern: Four years later, regulators are still sorting out whether cryptocurrencies should be regulated -- and if so, how?

The past few months have illustrated some of the issues. In May, during testimony before a House subcommittee (tinyurl.com/ud497mrz), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Gary Gensler, citing concerns about “greater opportunities for fraud and manipulation,” said he wanted to work “with fellow regulators and with Congress to fill in the gaps of investor protection in these crypto markets.”

On July 7, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., called for answers about the SEC’s authority for protecting consumers who invest and trade in cryptocurrency. In a letter to Gensler (tinyurl.com/t32dxjv7), Warren wrote: “As the cryptocurrency markets continue to grow and expand, the lack of regulation to provide basic investor protections is unsustainable. The SEC regulates national securities exchanges, and cryptocurrency exchanges that operate in a similar manner should be subject to similar regulatory standards.” Warren also noted the “potential need for Congress to take additional action on these matters.”

Warren sent a separate letter later in July (tinyurl.com/4zj74sfp) to U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, asking Yellen, in her role as head of the Financial Stability Oversight Council, to “mitigate the growing risks that cryptocurrencies pose to the financial system.”

The SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Office of Customer Education and Outreach released an Investor Bulletin in June about funds trading in bitcoin futures contracts (tinyurl.com/64v9rhbs), urging investors to “weigh carefully the potential risks and benefits of the investment.”

The future of bitcoin offerings for 401(k) plans may already have arrived. “Alt 401(k),” offered through ForUsAll (forusall.com), allows 401(k) plan participants to direct up to 5% of their balances to 50-plus different cryptocurrencies (tinyurl.com/xchmntwt). Coinbase Institutional (coinbase.com) is the cryptocurrency platform for the offering.

If you are a regular reader of this column, you can probably guess what my position might be on offering crypto through a 401(k) plan, a subject I will address in an upcoming column. In the meantime, what’s your position? Would you like to see cryptocurrency in your 401(k) plan? Either email me or take a few minutes to tell me through a five-question survey, the results of which I will share with you in a later column. The survey link is tinyurl.com/yf7cbbcv. If you write to me (readers@juliejason.com), please be sure to include your city and state, and the name of your newspaper.

Julie Jason, JD, LLM, a personal money manager (Jackson, Grant Investment Advisers Inc. of Stamford, Connecticut) and award-winning author, welcomes your questions/comments (readers@juliejason.com). Please visit www.juliejason.com.

DISTRIBUTED BY ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION