Happily Poorer

 Greetings!

I commented yesterday in a response to what was our direction to our investment advisors that their job wasn't to help us make ourselves happily richer, but happily poorer.

Gregory

A Legacy of Living Joy

 Greetings!

I've been promising Michele Luna (Executive Director of Stewards of the Coast and Redwoods) that I would write something about why Pat and I changed our minds about leaving a specific bequest to Stewards in our Trust instructions to the Sonoma Community Foundation.   We've decided not to leave it to chance and good fortune after we die.  There's a risk that increasing our annual contributions now will mean we won't have as much for ourselves in our advancing years.  If and when that comes about, we'll ask everyone (and ourselves) to make adjustments.  

There's also a risk that the fear of losing the wealth we now have will cause us to fail to respond to the vital needs of those causes we support.  We've decided that our fear of not adequately responding is greater than our fear of losing our wealth.   

Put another way, it's about what gives us more joy.  We enjoy it more to have our support reap benefits we can see, then to live more comfortably, and only dream of the impact when we are gone.

The decision wasn't made without plenty of financial planning.  My own super-spreadsheet was used to reassure Pat that we that could retire 15 years ago.  Many years of wealth managers have only strengthened that position, and allowed us to increase our support of the community while living a good life.

We encourage everyone to dig deep into your own giving philosophy.  Decide the financial assumptions upon which you live, and which you will carry forward.  You can always change them if the joy disappears.  We have found that the joy greatly reduces the fear.