Personal Finance

I'm in my early 50s and looking to retire in 10 years - how do I ensure my family is prepared for when I'm gone?

David Beren

Published: January 27, 2025 12:46 pm

As soon as someone hits their early 50s, thinking about retirement is not unexpected, even if they plan to keep working. While these thoughts are likely (and common), the same can be said when considering other necessary scenarios, such as how to best plan for your family if you are not around. 

For one Redditor posting in r/fatFIRE, this is the exact concern he has as he’s undergoing some “serious health issues” and has started to think about scenarios that allow him to retire early. However, his bigger concern is how to best plan for his family to ensure they are all taken care of when he’s gone. 

I can only imagine the challenges this Redditor is facing, which include a combination of health issues and the difficulty of considering what life may be like for his family. 

A Difficult Reality

We know from this Redditor that he is in his early 50s and plans to keep working until his late 60s, assuming his health holds. He lives a very modest lifestyle, and money has never been a major goal. He is thankful that he has made a reasonable amount of money to live a comfortable life, allowing the family to enjoy themselves. 

However, his big concern is that his health issues could be accelerating, so he’s considering pushing up his plans to retire early. The primary focus here is that he is confident his family would be and is unprepared for a sudden scenario in which something was to happen to him. 

The good news is that he does have a living will and trust, but he’s looking to meet with an estate attorney to see if he needs to do more. This would include ensuring all of his beneficiaries are set up correctly, but he also needs to start thinking through how to give his family access to funds. 

One big thing that jumped out as I read this is that his family doesn’t know where his liquid assets are. The concern grows when he mentions they wouldn’t even know how to log into any accounts, something he can try to rectify quickly by setting up a password list. 

Ultimately, he’s looking to learn things that he might not be thinking of, which might help him prepare his family as best he can in a worst-case scenario. 

Where To Go From Here

First and foremost, most of the Redditors agree that if he is to do anything first, he needs to ensure all of his beneficiaries are set up correctly. This, along with providing his wife and kids with access to liquid assets and accounts, is of the utmost priority. Even if they have no interest in accessing these accounts now, they should know how to do so in emergencies. 

If this were me, I would create a file and save it somewhere in the cloud where my wife and/or kids could access it. This would include investment goals, a description of current assets, and potential plans that provide examples of moving money to more steady ETFs that the family could sit on for a while and earn 5-6% annually. 

I completely understand that this Redditor doesn’t love paying 1% to a financial advisor, which isn’t an uncommon complaint.  However, the reality is that he very well should, and even if I cannot give financial advice, I feel confident that this is exactly what his family needs right now. 

This individual or group could tell your wife exactly how much she can safely withdraw every year to help keep spending in check. At a time when everyone is grieving, the last thing they want is to try and figure everything out on their own, so paying someone to help, even if it’s just temporary, is the right and best move. 

Keep Pushing Forward

The last real piece of advice for this Redditor is to keep pushing forward with the hope that he has many more years available. Whether focusing on retirement or continuing to earn as long as he can, he should continue to live an everyday life until he is very comfortable stepping away from work. 

The hope is that he has many years left and that his serious health issues will improve. Even if this isn’t the case, he should do what he can to ensure his family is in the best possible position to be healthy financially. It’s very