Could Thanksgiving be your family meeting?
November 9, 2026
Listen Now
Subscribe
Ready to talk with an advisor?
The advisors at American Retirement Advisors have been having these conversations for over 25 years. A no-cost discovery session is the fastest way to find out where you actually stand.
Schedule a Discovery Session
Show Notes
Eddie and Betty's Conversation
Hold your end level. These two halves have never once lined up on the first try, and this one is no exception.
Our daughter just texted. At Thanksgiving, can we finally talk about the plan?
Tell her yes. We have a trust. It's all taken care of, and the pie will still be warm.
The trust is paperwork. She's asking for a conversation. And she wrote finally.
She said plan. The trust is the plan. If the trust is done, what's left to talk about?
Morning. The table is getting its extra leaf more than two weeks early, and that text is still sitting there.
The leaf sticks in December. And the thing she's asking for has a name. Family meeting.
You said that the way other men say jury summons.
Because we did this part. Attorney's office, signatures, blue binder, my card in pencil. A finished job.
It is a good trust. I'm not going anywhere near the trust.
Then what are we circling?
Finally. Nobody says finally about something that occurred to them this morning. She's been carrying that question a long while.
Carrying what? It's handled. She knows it exists.
You just said the sentence nearly everybody says. We have a trust, it's all taken care of. And the way I've heard it answered is no. A trust is about ten percent of inheritance planning. The rest is the conversation.
Ten percent? I paid for a hundred.
You paid for ten percent done beautifully. Nobody's refunding you.
She knows it exists. I told her myself, at this table. Knowing it exists is most of the job.
Does she know where it is?
Sideboard. Binder standing on the left. And taped inside the drawer with it, the index card that says what's where.
So the map to the treasure is kept inside the treasure.
All right. Which drawer, Betty?
There are three of them.
Top to bottom. Pick one.
I don't know. I have never opened it.
Not once? In our own dining room?
Never had a reason. You keep the papers, I keep the people. That's been the arrangement for years, and I just learned I'm standing outside my own plan.
Come here. Second from the top. It sticks, same as the leaf.
It doesn't stick. You pull it crooked.
There. Card's off the tape. Pencil, because things move. Deed, the policies, where the spare keys hang.
And the little safe in the closet. Who has that combination?
That's me.
Say it slower and listen to yourself.
Hm. All right, the house has a gap in it too. So what's the fix, walk her around with a flashlight?
You show them where everything is. The papers, the keys, and who has the combination. One place is easiest, but wherever yours are, you show them.
Show. Not tell.
Tell is the card. Show is this drawer open with people standing around it.
Fine. Next question, and it's the one I'd want answered. When something needs coordinating for everybody, who runs it?
You tell me.
That's me. I run it. And now I hear what I just said out loud.
There's a word for the job. Steward. One person who steps in and coordinates for the family, with a backup behind them. It's a family role, not a legal one.
Then it's our daughter. She's the one who calls a company at eight in the morning and gets a human being on the line.
Have you asked her?
She knows.
The step is asking out loud. Will you do it. Out loud, with the others hearing it, so the backup knows they're the backup.
I can do that Thanksgiving morning. Two minutes in the hallway before the oven's on. In, out, done.
The hallway.
Nobody wants a meeting served with the gravy. Tell me I'm wrong.
You're not. I'd leave that table myself. But you don't hand a person a job between the coats and the stairs with nobody else listening. You ask with everyone there.
Then when? The meal is the only hour all year when everybody's in one house.
The guide names it. Not during the holiday meal. After dinner, or the next morning over coffee. And you don't have to cover everything at once.
After dinner. Twenty minutes while the plates soak. That I'd sit for.
That's you changing your mind. I'm marking the date.
In pencil. Now here's what I don't know, and it's bothering me. How do you start it? Everyone's full, the game's on, and I say what? Gather round, I have a binder?
You open with why. This has been on our minds. We've been getting our things in order, and we want to share what we've found and what we still need your help with.
Let me try it. This has all been handled, and I'd like to show you the binder.
That's not it. You led with handled again.
Hm. This has been on our minds. We've been getting our things in order... and there's a part where we need her help.
Help is the word doing the lifting. You're asking her in, not reading her a file.
And then straight to the deed?
Start with whatever feels easiest. The small things. The passcode, the photos, the stories.
The passcode is the easy end?
Easier than the deed.
Then we start on the couch with the photo albums, the way we used to. Except now the pictures live in a phone.
That's the opening I'd follow you into.
So we don't hand her a card. We show her, and then we ask her.
Say that one again at the table and you won't need me there.
You'll be there. Last question, because I plan. If we only get to three things, which three?
Where everything is, and who has the key or the combination. That's one.
Two, the steward says yes. Out loud, like you said.
Three, your phone passcode.
My passcode.
You guard those six digits like the crown jewels.
They are the crown jewels. Fine. Three things. Why does this feel like something we have meant to do for years?
Because it is. Everybody's thought about it but never did it.
That one landed. Then this is the year.
This is the year. Now get that leaf in.
Lift your end. Last inch.
It's in. Level, too.
First try. I'd like that noted.
My thumb's on the reply. What am I telling her?
Yes. After dinner. Two things to show you, and one question to ask you.
Anything else?
Finally.
And if you'd like to hear more about the family meeting, come to Fiscal Fridays. It's a live show at the American Retirement Advisors studio in Scottsdale, and this month the theme is the family meeting.
Friday, November twentieth. Doors open at ten for coffee, the show starts at ten thirty, Arizona time. There's no cost, and everyone in the room goes home with the family meeting guide.
Save your seat on the Fiscal Fridays page, at American Retirement Advisors dot com.