Twelve years ago, our first grandchild Stella was born. It seems like yesterday Laurie and I were pacing nervously in the hall at New York’s Mt. Sinai Hospital, waiting to

Here we are on Election Day with a race that’s too close to call. Even after the outcome is known, so much uncertainty lies ahead. How do we deal with the

In last week’s 200th post in my Family Legacy Planning series, I reflected on some of my personal favorite posts. Looking back over those 200, one of the most popular

This is my 200th post in this Family Legacy Planning series (now called “Blum’s Blog”). The idea for this blog was born during the height of the COVID pandemic. I

Does your family own a meaningful real estate asset that you’d like to keep in the family? Maybe it’s a childhood home, lake or beach house, vacation home, or ranch.

National Estate Planning Awareness Week is coming up in two weeks. For me, that week comes 52 times a year. But I guess Hallmark needed an excuse for another greeting card. So let

“Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning?” Alan Jackson’s country song captures how I felt one year ago. The first time I felt that way was in my fourth-grade classroom the

In last week’s post, I covered the complex analysis involved in filling out a beneficiary form for a retirement account. For example, I stressed the benefits of leaving your retirement

It happens all the time. My assistant Cat receives this call: “I just have one simple question for Marvin. How should I fill out the beneficiary designation form for my

President Biden’s painful exit from his reelection campaign, coupled with my 70th birthday, got me thinking about how to age with dignity. What lessons can we learn so that, as

My recent post, “I’m a Graduate of Blum’s Café School of Hard Knocks,” focused on the lessons in life I learned from my hard-working father, Julius Blum. That post generated

At last week’s Democratic National Convention, Kamala Harris delivered a stirring “New Way Forward.” Here’s what Kamala didn’t reveal: How do we pay for it? However, her campaign has quietly