An unexpected new tradition in our family

Happy holidays!  With a blend of excitement and a touch of the jitters I am excited to publish the 1st issue of 'Jack of Many Trades, Master of None'. My goal is simple: to share knowledge, insights, and experiences across a range of subjects I am passionate about.

In this debut edition, I'm excited to discuss a new tradition that has become a part of our family's routine: monthly discussions focused on family finances and collective growth. This fledgling tradition has already changed how we interact and support each other. As we approach the new year, it might be an idea worth considering for your own family.

2023 marked a shift in priorities. I aimed to reduce my work hours and allocate more time to my family. High on my list was setting up our family for long-term financial success. In the past, my efforts focused on myself, my wife and our children. This year, I had the time to include my siblings and parents. I proposed starting a monthly call dedicated to investing and our finances, and the response was a resounding "yes."

Monthly family finance call
We held our first “Monthly Family Finance” call in November. Here’s how we did it. In most families, there is usually one person that is in charge of the finances. While this is common, it’s not ideal. Money has a nasty habit of blowing up families. Especially over generations. And if there is a divorce or death in the family, the consequences can be disastrous. So I thought it was critical to include our spouses and children. The attendees were my parents, my siblings (my brother was traveling and couldn’t join), their spouses and my 16 year old son. Over time, we plan on including his younger siblings/cousins as well.  

Prepare an agenda
To ensure our meeting was productive, I prepared an agenda to provide structure to our conversation. We began by discussing our goals and identifying the topics we wished to explore. Our agreed-upon subjects included: deepening our understanding of our familys’ assets,  learning to take a more active role in our finances, becoming closer as a family, creating a financial onramp for the next generation and exploring potential investment ideas. Since my parents as well as my siblings/spouses have achieved financial success, we decided to focus on investing instead of generating income and managing expenses. If you're considering starting a similar discussion within your own family, I recommend starting with income and expenses before diving into investing. 

My favorite resource in this area is Ramit Sethi. I highly recommend reading his book and watching his Netflix series (he also offers courses on his website, but I haven’t tried them myself). Make sure to include your children. As managing personal finances is overlooked in most K-12 and college curriculums, it falls upon us to equip our kids with these crucial skills. Otherwise, they may end up learning through less forgiving real-world experiences.

Tracking financial assets
After outlining our objectives, we delved into asset allocation—a fundamental building block in investing. As this topic was new to many in the family, we began with the basics. I won't delve further into this subject here, as it’s likely a topic for a future newsletter.

We then tackled best practices for tracking financial assets. Some of us were using spreadsheets, while others were relying on memory. We discussed the importance of properly tracking financial assets, as it's challenging to make informed investment decisions without an easy way of viewing every asset in one place. I provided a quick tutorial on Kubera, a platform I recently started using to track our assets. We concluded by discussing my father's plan to transfer his assets from his current financial advisor to a no-fee account for investing in index funds (also a topic for a future newsletter). 

Try it yourself!
Our call lasted about an hour, and we decided to continue these monthly discussions. I found it to be a rewarding way to spend time with and understand my family from a new perspective.

If you have tried something similar with your own family or have insights on how to refine our approach, I would love to hear your thoughts.  Additionally, if you're considering implementing this in your own family and have questions, feel free to reach out any time.

Wishing you a joyful holiday season,

Sangeeth Peruri - Jack of Many Trades, Master of None
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