November 2025
In this episode of THE FINANCIAL COMMUTE, Wealth Advisors Sophie Leahy and Chris Galeski discuss these challenges, sharing how grief and financial decisions intersect and how professional guidance can provide clarity during such a life-changing transition.
Tune in if you’re interested in:
Watch previous episodes:
Ep. 160 The Secret to Financial Success: Partnership
Ep. 159 How Do I Pay for My Child’s College Education?
Sophie, thank you for joining me in the conversation today, where we talk about widowhood. Not exactly the most exciting conversation to talk about, but it's one of the realities of life. As we age and get older, we potentially have to face the loss of a loved one. And there are a number of ways that this affects people. And so as we talk about this conversation today, you know, you brought up something that I found was really interesting, that when we're talking about what I've heard, often the statistics say something like the majority of women outlive men.
That's not always the case. Yes, but lot of widows and widowers end up making a large financial decision within the first 12 months, it was something around 70% of them are faced with some large decision that they have to make. And that can be a little bit unnerving or stressful. So I'm excited to have the conversation with you today to not only talk about what somebody goes through, but ways that we can also help them and things that they can do in advance to help prepare for an easier transition while somebody is going through a very emotional time.
So thank you for joining me today.
You're welcome Chris, I'm excited to talk about it. It's not very fun necessarily, but that's really a fact of life. And I think, you know, both you and I have experienced loss and supporting family members and, you know, jobs, you know, that's something we do on a very regular basis. And people are very different. But, we are set up to help them deal with this challenging time in their lives.
Yeah. And we were discussing in sort of our prep meeting that, you know, a lot of couples have different roles in their relationships. Somebody might, you know, take on more of the finances, versus somebody might take on, you know, more of other things around the home or planning. And so when you're going through the loss of a loved one, those roles and responsibilities oftentimes get shifted.
And somebody may not feel as confident or, you know, have the ability to navigate through that. So, you know, let's start there. Like when a spouse passes away, what are some things that they face and what can they do?
Well, first of all, you know, the grief is intense and, people react very differently, you know, from one situation to the next. So, we'll see it with people we work with sometimes, there's been a long illness and people are preparing themselves in advance. Sometimes we deal with situations where there is sudden loss and sometimes it's in old age.
Sometimes it's, you know, much younger than anyone would have expected. So, you know, the first thing is, is huge grief. And, what we like to do is invite our clients to come and meet with us, bring a family member, some kind of support you can find with the family, and start having a discussion about, you know, what we could do next.
I think that's the first step.
I don't have enough fingers on my hand to count the times that clients have come to meetings and said, listen, you know, if something were to happen to me, I want to make sure that my spouse or my partner knows what they can come to you for, how you can help them. I mean, we have a lot of resources here, not only internally with all of our certified financial planners.
We have an estate planning attorney that can help step in. We've got a number of ways to help navigate life after somebody, has unfortunately passed. And so I love the clients that think about this and proactively get ahead of it, as opposed to just pushing it down underneath the bed and ignoring the reality of, hey, if something were to happen to one of you, you're going to need a team and support to be able to help.
So, again, I've lost the number of fingers to be able to count the amount of times it's happened, but it happens all the time.
Yes. And that's a best case scenario when people have prepared. I thought I've thought it through, and that's, you know, the best way we can help them. But we also find situations where people are at complete loss. May not be clients yet, but, are introduced to us by friends or family members. And we step in, in a very difficult situation, not knowing who their partners in life are and what the professional partners are.
And we start from there, you know, building that team, as you mentioned.
Yeah. And there's a lot of emotional turmoil from going through the grief of the loss. And so, you know, it's important for people to have, you know, family members, professionals or even, you know, some sort of a therapist to be able to help navigate those emotions with grief. But when somebody passes away, there's a large administrative burden.
There's a whole checklist of things that need to get done. And then that, that can sort of bleed. And, I'll have to make all these decisions right now. Not all of them are time sensitive, though.
Absolutely. And that's what we can help prioritize these decisions. And that's where also, you know, I always like to advise clients to be mindful of people around them, while offering their help, and feel powerless, don't know what to do. And that's the time when we can suggest things that they can do to enlist the help of family members.
You know, all these phone calls that need to be made. They don't have to be made by you, you know, painfully talking about the loss of your loved one. You can enlist the help of these family members or very good friends to make some of these calls. And when they sit down with us, we can say, you know, let's go through a list.
You know, some of these decisions about finding out about accounts about you know, life insurance, about benefits that can be made available very quickly to provide immediate funding. We can go through that list and say, you know, some of the decisions you can make later. You know, you don't have to decide, you know, that you need to sell your house right away or, you know, move next to your children or whatever long-term decision.
This can be done later, right? But also, there are a couple of decisions that have tax implications that people have to be mindful of, and that we are like those for them.
Right. And when I think about this, obviously, if you're wanting to be proactive to make sure, like, hey, am I in a good spot where if something were to happen to me that I'm not leaving a mess behind for my spouse? Obviously you can start by looking at your estate plan, making sure that the people who are named in that document are the right people.
Everything's sort of buttoned up there. You can take a look at the beneficiaries for your retirement accounts and sort out their accounts that are not part of your trust to make sure that the right people are listed there, you can double check to make sure that your home is, you know, named in the in the trust, is in the name of the trust.
Well, when we work with clients, you know, very calmly, over time, to develop those plans, and have that ready.
And your life could be different. Whether you know, you're older in life and you don't have any dependants with you, your tax situation may be different. And what's available to you in that first year versus, you know, if your spouse passes away and you do have dependent children under the age of 18, your tax situation could be a little bit different for a couple of years.
And so making sure that you have the right team and you ask really good questions, you come to your CFP or your financial planner here at Morton, or you speak to your CPA. You're working with the right people to help make the best decision for you and just know that you're not alone throughout this process.
And that's an important point also about, you know, the kind of support we can, provide to build a team. We're very happy to make referrals to different kinds of professionals, and to associations that might provide, you know, mental health and grief support. You know, this is something we do on a regular basis.
You know, when I think about the number of, you know, situations that I've unfortunately had to be in because, you know, a client or a loved one is has passed away, there is an administrative burden and there's a lot going on. But one of the things that's come from having to go through this with so many people is the organization that comes with this.
I mean, there there are times where there's accounts all over the place. There's, you know, things that other people weren't privy to because they didn't handle the day to day finances and our ability to come in and help hold their hand and clean all that up and get everything more simplified. It relieves a lot of stress and burden on the one that's sort of left kind of having to manage and monitor this.
And so I do love the after impact of having to go through this and working with clients that we're able to do.
And once we've done that, I mean, the next step is really to, you know, when the clients or the person, you know, grieving is ready to start thinking about the future. And that's a gentle process. That's a journey that can be difficult for some people, but we gently encourage them to, start thinking about, you know, where they might want to live, what they might want to do, do they need to go back to work or, you know, are the finances, you know, strong enough to support, you know, early retirement?
You know, when that's relevant. So that's, you know, gentle prodding and working together is really important, you know, to protect yourself.
And what you're bringing up really has to do around our cash flow projections and being able to look at the situation, some of these in how it's changed. So that way they can understand the impact that they have financially and, sort of what they want or need their life to look like going forward and how we can help navigate all of those future decisions.
And in general, it's difficult for people who are not grieving. But when you're grieving, it's even more difficult. So we very much realize that and we are helping hand to go through that process. But, you know, until you have a good handle on how much money you have and what you can, you know, do in the future, you know, you're not going to have peace of mind about that future.
So that's a necessary step that we have to work on together.
Yeah. And you talked about things that widows can do. And so right away it's obviously like secure access to accounts. Make sure the beneficiary information is updated, you know, apply for survivor benefits. But then one key takeaway I think here and you've got to let some time pass. But within the first 3 to 12 months you've got to relook at your life and those expenses that you know you have today and what they might look like going forward and sort of revisit that spending plan.
Absolutely, absolutely.
And beyond there we talked about like 1 to 3 years, after the loss of a loved one, revisiting, like updating your estate plan, revisiting some of those things. But you hadn't mentioned to me making large financial decisions. Try not to do that within the first 12 months.
Yes, absolutely. You know, that's tempting sometimes. And people grieve differently, but sometimes people want to be busy and get things done. And we can help also, you know, slow things down. Sometimes you might decide to, you'll have the impression you have a lot of money, a lump sum of money, and you might make, you know, a purchase, buy a big house, you know, next to your kids or whatever.
But then, you know, your cash flows in the future may not support that decision. Or you might change your mind as we know. You know, when your life is, turned upside down, you might totally change your mind within a few years. So, yeah, we try to, you know, make sure that, any decision is, well thought out.
Yeah. So we thank you for joining me today. Obviously, a very emotional topic to talk about because we can both think about personal family members, but also clients that we've had to help navigate this with. And, we've got a lot of experience here at Morton Wealth in terms of the team support, the decisions, the questions that need to be asked, and even a whole checklist of things that need to get done, to help keep people organized and sort of stay on track.
Yes, yes. That's right. That's what we can help with.
