On the one hand, we’re systematically labelling which things to get rid of, and when. But we’re also downsizing our ambitions.
5 min
The first year in retirement is often the most difficult. But it also can set the stage for how you’ll fill the years ahead—both financially and psychologically. Stephen Kreider Yoder, a longtime Wall Street Journal editor, joined his wife, Karen Kreider Yoder, in retirement a year ago. In this monthly Retirement Rookies column, the 66-year-olds chronicle some of the issues they are dealing with early in retirement.
In the kitchen, I look up at my woven companions—16 baskets atop the cabinets. They’re from a dozen countries, and they radiate warm memories.
But wait, do I need so many baskets? And 40 more are around the house, many as decorations or stored in closets.
I’m trying to get rid of stuff methodically early in retirement, and it’s beginning to feel like a steady job. There’s no urgency. But when the time comes for a smaller place, I want to be ready. That time could come any time.
I want to winnow our possessions before there’s a health crisis or moving van at the door, while I can do the hard work of organizing and categorizing, of identifying what I need long-term, what to disperse and what to pitch.
It’s partly psychological. As I age, I find I have less room in my head to keep track of things. And the sheer numbers of some possessions create a growing mental tension.
We were ahead of the game when we retired. We moved a dozen times in 44 years, each time purging a bit. Helping our parents downsize inspired us often to do a sweep of our own when we got home.
Now that we’re both retired, I’ve created some downsizing categories to keep me from being overwhelmed:
• Don’t use it, don’t need it. Old electronics and orphaned cords. Knickknacks without sentimental value. My 20 thimbles from around the world, only one of which I ever use. The 150 beautifully sharpened No. 2 pencils in a row of blue-and-white ceramic pots, one labeled “Pencil Collectors Society.”
I’ll use perhaps a dozen pencils the rest of my life. The others can be off to Goodwill now, along with everything else in this category.
• Things we use now but won’t in a smaller space. Some of the guest-room furniture, extra chairs, large house plants, the piano, a rusty wheelbarrow. We should do an inventory now and label what we’ll ditch when we move.
• Stuff only I can handle. My childhood report cards, recital programs, work accomplishments, letters and such are a priority for thinning out now. Nobody else can make sense of them, but it can feel like throwing away bits of myself.
“But Mom, you have to save all of that,” says our son Isaac. “It’s like your personal legacy.” Maybe I’ll keep more than I intended, for our boys to root through as a window into my youth. (But, I wonder, will they really care about those report cards?) At least, though, I should organize it.
• Family heirlooms and mementos. These, too, are hard to part with, imbued with family history and shared memories.
We aren’t antiquers, but we do have a few elegant old Japanese tansu cabinets the kids grew up with. And I have about 25 quilts, some I made starting at age 7, and many from family and friends. They are works of art and full of memories but too many to fit in a condo.
The boys say they want some but are still too mobile, so at least I should make a plan for who gets what.
• Things I want by my side through older years. Family photos. My Japanese pottery. Journals from our travels. My quilt frame.
And baskets. I have always cherished handmade baskets. My first is from South Dakota, where at 16 I learned willow-basket making from two local weavers. I can’t part with it.
When our son Levi is home, we eat sticky rice with our fingers out of little lidded Laotian rice baskets, recalling Laos when he was age 2 and clutched his sticky-rice basket as we bicycled around Luang Prabang.
In our guest-room closet is a Japanese backpack basket—a gift from a student’s family—whose weaver was a Japanese National Treasure. In my reading room is a basket we bought in a Philippines market in 1987, not knowing it was for a baby until locals pointed and laughed knowingly. It became a bassinet to our three babies, and it’s a treasure.
Five dozen baskets is too many now. How many is just enough?
A classical guitar in its case stares at me from a corner of the bedroom. “Play me,” it taunts, and I look the other way.
Maybe it’s time I got rid of my lonely 1972 Alvarez Yairi as part of our gradual downsizing.
A tougher thought: I should probably also downsize my pipe dream of someday playing a guitar even moderately well, along with dozens of other unrequited ambitions I’ve clung to for decades. And I’ve got a few erstwhile passions I might best surrender now as well.
Karen talks of ditching stuff, and I’ve got plenty of boxfuls to sacrifice—textbooks, decrepit power tools, hardware that definitely might come in handy some time.
I also should release one or both of my vintage Honda motorcycles, which I’m sentimentally attached to but haven’t ridden in ages.
But for me, downsizing is more than getting rid of stuff. It’s about getting rid of conceptions of myself—of who I was, who I am and who I want to be.
That is, I should sell my motorcycles not just because they take space, but also because I think I’ve permanently moved on from motorcycling, my passion for decades starting at age 12.
Same with my skis and skiing.
Retirement has had a way of giving me permission to begin letting go—of my professional identity, my urge to do financial planning without help, the delusion that I’ll be fit forever. That permission makes it a good time for some wanna-do triage.
There are things I still intend to get to, now that I have more time. I want to weld better, brush up my Spanish, improve my swimming, study more history and learn to drive an 18-wheeler. There are activities we’re already stepping up, like traveling more in Africa, cycling around America, visiting family and seeking long-term volunteering opportunities that match our skills.
But finding time for all of it requires that I liberate other I-will-get-to-its that are increasingly a mental burden. I will probably never learn Arabic and should forgive myself of that, and French. I can get rid of the beer-brewing equipment I bought when I was 23 and discharge the notion that I’ll ever learn to use it.
I will probably never write a book; may I free myself from that weight? I hereby declare I can die happy enough without visiting Machu Picchu, the Galápagos or Rome as I’d once hoped to do. There are plenty of other places we want to go, and not time for everywhere.
Our house is a standing to-do list of fun projects I’ve put off and may never get to—or shouldn’t, lest I fall off a ladder and meet an untimely demise. Let’s just release some of those projects, too.
When I bought the Alvarez in 1981, my guitar teacher said I had talent. His kind words kindled my decadeslong conviction that I would learn to play it well, eventually. We moved to Japan the next year, and I took along the guitar but didn’t find a teacher—temporarily, I told myself.
The guitar moved with us many times until 2012, when Karen bought me lessons with a fabulous teacher for my birthday and I began learning again. I did pretty well, even playing in a few modest recitals. But I dropped it—temporarily, I said—when we moved out of town for a year.
Now there it sits. It’s time to set it free.
Or is it? I finally have the bandwidth. I just opened the case, and only one string is broken, a good omen. Maybe this time I really can learn to play it.
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Strong family financial planning can help reduce taxes and support younger generations. From intrafamily loans and asset gifts to inheritance disclaimers, strategic cooperation can create meaningful financial benefits—when families have the trust and structure to make it work.
4 min
Happy is the family whose members—parents, grandparents and grown children—trust each other enough to cooperate on shared goals, especially financial ones. When that is truly the case, Uncle Sam’s tax rules can help as well.
This matters especially now that mortgage rates are above 7%, and many families are looking for ways to help younger members. If the elders have resources and are confident younger ones can cooperate, a family loan could make homeownership possible while providing the elders with a useful income stream.
Other strategies can actually lower taxes, such as when funding 529 plans or Roth IRAs, or when someone inherits a traditional IRA with required withdrawals larger than they will need.
Here are three strategies useful for functional families.
It is perfectly legal for families to lend money to a relative for a down payment or even a private mortgage.
But it is important not to cut corners, says Ryan McKeown, a CPA with Modern Wealth Enhancement in Minnesota. If the loan is for a down payment, be honest with the mortgage provider and have a formal agreement. The lender owes tax on the interest payments received.
If the loan is for a private mortgage, both sides should have legal representation with a formal written agreement, including payment terms. The lender owes tax on the interest, and the borrower often can deduct it if he or she itemizes.
To avoid IRS trouble, the interest rate shouldn’t be lower than the agency’s Applicable Federal Rate at the time of the loan. Currently that is about 5% for loans longer than nine years; about 4.5% for loans three to nine years; and about 4% for loans three years or less. Currently, traditional mortgage rates are generally above 7%.
In addition, the lender could use the $19,000 annual gift-tax exemption (described below) to forgive some or all of the interest or principal annually. If both lenders and borrowers are married, that is up to $76,000 a year. There is no tax for the borrower on such forgiveness, because it is from a gift.
If you’re going this route, McKeown advises against having a fixed plan to forgive the debt. Instead, do it in one-off letters specifying the amount—and keep careful records. Otherwise the IRS might try to treat the loan as a taxable gift.
Powerful tax-saving moves for families often use gift-tax provisions. Under current law, anyone can give anyone else up to $19,000 of assets annually, free of gift tax. That means a married couple with three grandchildren could give them a total of $114,000 in 2026.
The gifts can be cash or other assets, like stock. For noncash gifts, the cost basis—which is the starting point for measuring taxable gain after a sale—“carries over” to the recipient. So if someone buys $1,000 of stock and gives it away when it is worth $5,000, the recipient’s cost basis is $1,000. If the recipient later sells the shares for $8,000, the taxable gain is $7,000.
Here’s an example showing how gifts could save a family taxes. Grandma is a widow of modest means, while her child and spouse have prospered. The couple has two children, and they want to contribute $5,000 to a 529 college-savings plan for each—but they need to sell stock to do it. Their tax rate on the sale would be 18.8%, and they would need to sell about $11,000 of stock.
However, Grandma’s federal tax rate on the stock sale is 0%. If the couple gives $10,000 of shares to Grandma, she could sell them, pay no tax, and fund the grandchildren’s 529 plans. This saves about $1,000 of tax.
These moves are legal, and they could be used in other ways, such as to help a young person fund a Roth IRA.
But trust among family members is essential: Under the law, givers can’t put conditions on a gift. Grandma could use her stock proceeds to take a cruise, but she makes 529 contributions instead.
Mark Sellner, a retired tax attorney and CPA living in Sarasota, Fla., uses this strategy. His children sell stock he gives them and fund 529 plans for his grandchildren.
The family’s tax savings aren’t huge, but he likes other benefits. The sales by his children don’t boost his adjusted gross income, which in turn could raise his Medicare Irmaa premiums or his 3.8% surtax on net investment income.
Sellner doesn’t worry about his children using the funds for another purpose.
“There can’t be any strings attached to gifts. Of course, it is up to us to decide whether to make them in the future,” he says.
Two caveats: The “kiddie tax” applies to most children under age 24, and it is levied at the parents’ rate on investment income above $2,700 in 2026. Consider this before making gifts to a young person.
Investors who give away stock also forgo the step-up, an important provision that exempts assets held at death from capital-gains tax.
Sellner knows he’s losing a step-up, but says, “The children could use a little more now. Why should they wait 20 years to get it?”
A disclaimer is a highly useful strategy in which one heir renounces an inheritance in favor of another heir. Assuming family members cooperate, this can save taxes.
Here’s one example. Dad died and had a large traditional IRA that he left to Mom. She has enough assets and income to cover her expenses, and she lives in a state with a stiff estate tax. The inherited IRA would put her estate over the threshold.
Also surviving are three young-adult children. If Mom disclaims all or part of Dad’s IRA within nine months of his death, that amount could go directly to the children. They will have 10 years to empty the account, and the family as a whole will likely save estate and income taxes.
Disclaimers have many key details, especially regarding beneficiary documents. Although heirs have great freedom in choosing what assets to disclaim, the rules about who gets disclaimed property are rigid. It is best if the original owner names tiers of heirs so that if one disclaims, the next recipient is clear.
