Retirement is supposed to be “our time”—when we’re no longer spending the better parts of our days building a career or raising kings (or both). But for a lot of women, that’s not how retirement plays out. Research reveals that women aren’t as confident about enjoying retirement as men. Part of that answer lies in financial education. With this guide by Baird, women can take control and achieve the retirement they want and teach their children about the importance of saving, wealth, compound interest, and more.

It’s not uncommon for parents showing signs of mental or physical decline to need assistance from their children from time to time, and today that help primarily comes from their daughters. Daughters spend more than twice the amount of time caring for aging parents that sons do, and women make up 60% of all caregivers in the United States. Here is some guidance on how you can make conversations with your parents about their finances easier and more productive.

In "How To Talk With Your Family About Wealth," we discussed the importance of the family conversation when it comes to planning a legacy—and how quickly wealth can be lost when these conversations don’t take place. Yet despite their importance, these discussions can still be difficult, especially if your family doesn’t regularly talk about money.

If you’ve been thinking that a prenuptial agreement might be a nice precautionary measure to have in your back pocket, you’re not alone. Romantic notions are increasingly giving way to pragmatism in recent years. Among the reasons to implement a prenup will vary, including protecting your children’s inheritance in the event there is a divorce. If you’re considering a prenuptial agreement, there are best practices to follow to help safeguard your marriage—as well as your financial future.

We all want our children and grandchildren to be critical thinkers and to find their own way in the world. But we often want them to also adopt the family’s values and, in some cases, the responsibilities of running a family business. When those two goals are mutually exclusive, it can be a challenge to chart a course that embraces the future without letting go of the past. In this interview, Melanie Schmieding of Baird Family Wealth shares three steps and advice to help families with that challenge and uncover their family’s values.

It’s both a special and critical milestone when your children turn 18. At that age in the family life stage, they become legal adults with many new rights and responsibilities. While there are certain ways to help them get started on ensuring their financial future, there are also rights that you as a parent lose when they reach adulthood, like guaranteed access to their medical records. With their financial future in mind, there are a few critical things to watch out for to help them with their personal finance and protect their future.

If you’re not used to having conversations surrounding family wealth, it can be an uncomfortable experience that can lead to in-fighting and a breakdown in trust. That’s especially true when talking about inheritance: older generations often question if their kids are ready to grow into their roles as stewards of wealth, and younger generations often let inexperience and a fear of being judged keep them from asking important questions.

Wealthy families often take every precaution in preserving their legacies for future generations, with carefully constructed estate plans, wills, and trusts. But they often overlook the hidden factor that can undermine all these plans, and it isn’t investment returns or poor estate planning: It’s family dynamics. Studies have shown that the main reasons wealth fails to transition successfully across generations have little to do with making sound financial decisions—and much more to do with how the family interacts with each other.

As a young adult moving from college to your first real job and your own apartment, it's time to start adulting and being responsible for your own finanicial life, insurance coverage, and building your wealth. Here are a few items and easy steps to take that can help make sure you’re ready to succeed in the adult world.

When setting up a family legacy plan that extends across generations, it’s vital to have a family governance plan that empowers a family to govern its wealth and enterprises as a cohesive unit. While each family is unique, the keys to incorporating an effective family governance will be uniting around shared purposes, having a written family constitution that sets forth broad principles and policies in areas that are identified by the family as needed, and keeping it separate from any operating business governance.

For a variety of reasons, Americans tend to be reluctant to discuss the specifics of their wealth—especially with adult children. While there may be discomfort around talking about wealth, there are several good reasons and ways to have these critical conversations. For more insights and tips on ways to set the stage for better family communications and lead in a way that can be an enriching experience for everyone, see "Wealth Management is a Family Affair."

To help put 2021 in context and prepare for what 2022 has in store, we explore the investment themes and look at the prospects for continued inflation, tax changes out of Washington, the 2022 midterms, and much more.

No matter where you are in your life’s journey, there’s an element of risk to plan for to protect your assets. Blake Panosh, Baird’s Manager of Insurance & Annuities, covers common insurance planning misconceptions, as well as who should consider insurance planning and how to get started.

Too often, taxes are only thought of once or twice a year, but the reality is that an effective tax plan is considered year-round and on a multi-year basis. Tim Steffen, Baird’s Director of Tax Planning, shares his insights on common tax planning misconceptions, when and why to consider tax planning, and how to respond to legislative changes to the tax code.

Although the future is unpredictable, we do know that financial planning can allow families and their advisors to operate from a position of strength and resilience, no matter the changes that lie ahead. In this video, the Baird economic analysts and financial planning specialists look at how the economic landscape impact your finances in 2021 while highlighting wealth planning opportunities to consider.