At this point, you may be saying to yourself, “this is good information and all, but I’m not retired, and I won’t be for awhile, so what’s the point?” If this is you, I would encourage you to keep listening. As I said in a prior episode, you don’t just show up to retirement without preparation. And if you do, you are probably not prepared to give generously in retirement. I want to share some ideas for everyone today. The truth is that there are things that we can all do to retire generously, regardless of where we are in the journey.

I’ve always said that generous people tend to be happier and more successful. But that can be a bit of a chicken and the egg situation. Are generous people happier because they are more successful? Or are they more successful because they are happier? I don’t really know for sure, but I do think that there is a strong correlation between the two. I said that we will only dip our toe in the waters of psychology. There are reasons for that. A psychologist I am not. I’m a financial advisor. But you can’t deny that the two subjects often crossover.

On today's epiosode we explore some outside the box ideas to help family and friends with two big financial burdens. Medical expenses and tuition expenses. By using direct payments to the provider or institution, you exclude the gift from your gift tax return, which allows you to be more generous in other areas. After all, if you are planning to be charitable in retirement, remember charity begins at home. Someone once said that, and it sounds good to me.