Personal Finance
56% of Americans say their parents never discussed money with them.
10’000 Hours | Digitalvision | Getty Images
As families gather for Thanksgiving this year, money is one topic that likely won’t be discussed.
Yet experts say it’s a perfect time to start the conversation, particularly with aging parents.
More than half of Americans — 56% — say their parents never discussed money with them, according to a recent Fidelity survey of 1,900 adults ages 18 and up.
One reason is that many people have a complicated relationship with money and wealth.
Most Americans — 89% — said they do not consider themselves to be wealthy, Fidelity found. For many, the definition of being wealthy is just not having to live paycheck to paycheck.
For the wealth they do have, most Americans say they accumulated it on their own, with 80% identifying as self-made and only 5% saying they inherited it, Fidelity found.
The fact that many people have relied on themselves, especially older Americans, may help explain why many don’t feel the need for more formal financial planning, according to David Peterson, head of advanced wealth solutions at Fidelity.
One-third of baby boomers don’t feel having a financial plan is necessary, Fidelity’s survey found, which is the most of any generation.
“They have sort of go your own way mindset, and that’s probably why they keep a lot of this just to themselves,” Peterson said.
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Yet experts say that not having a plan in place can leave individuals and their families vulnerable when unexpected events happen.
If you know what your parents want, have it written down and know where things are, it makes things much smoother in the event a parent passes, gets sick or starts showing signs of dementia, said MaryAnne Gucciardi, a certified financial planner and financial advisor at Wealthmind Financial Planning in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
“You want to catch things early and proactively and preemptively, so that you know what they want and you can advocate for them,” Gucciardi said.
The holidays are an excellent time to start conversations about family finances, Gucciardi said. But those discussions can also take place whenever there’s a group gathering where siblings and children can also be involved, she said.
How to get the family money conversation started
Research has found money is consistently one of the topics Americans would rather not talk about.
A recent U.S. Bank survey found more people would rather reveal who they were voting for in the presidential election than talk about their finances. Other research from Wells Fargo find discussing personal finances almost as difficult as talking about sex.
To get the conversation started with aging parents, experts say it helps to start small.
“Don’t go into it thinking that you’re going to solve it all this particular holiday,” Peterson said.
To kick off the conversation, you may want to talk about your own estate plan and ask for their advice on anything you’ve missed, he said. That way, you can get a sense of how far along they are in the process, Peterson explained.
It can also help to bring up examples of friends or family who died with estate plans that were either organized or in disarray, and how that affected their loved ones who were left behind.
“What I like to do is start with small topics and build up to the bigger topics,” Peterson said.
Peterson explained that wealth can be transferred through asset titling or beneficiary designations. But for assets that do not pass that way, you need a will, he said.
Without that planning, you leave it up to the state probate process. When someone dies without a will, also known as dying intestate, a state’s intestate succession laws determine what happens to their assets.
“The question is, do you want to be the one making the decisions?” Peterson said. “Usually, when you ask it that way, you get an answer that suggests that they want to be the ones in charge.”
In addition to a will, it helps to have other documents in place, such as a health care directive, power of attorney and HIPAA authorization in the event a parent’s health declines, Gucciardi said.
If those documents were not established recently, you may want to revisit them to make sure they’re up to date, she said.
Often, people have accumulated assets over their lifetimes and lose track of them, such as savings bonds or insurance policies, Peterson said. It helps to create a central location where all of that will be stored, either physically or digitally. Bank safe deposit boxes should be avoided, since they can be difficult for loved ones to access, he said.
With more assets stored online, it’s also important to ask about access to online financial, subscription and social media accounts, Gucciardi said. Using a password manager can help ensure those assets are secure, she said.
As families engage in these conversations, it may be best to start small with one area, such as health care preferences, and then build from there, she said.
To help start the conversation, books can be a great way to break the ice, Gucciardi said. Among the titles she recommends to clients include, “Who Gets Grandma’s Yellow Pie Plate?” “Crucial Conversations” and “Being Mortal.”
During those discussions, try to listen more than talk and ask open-ended questions, Gucciardi said.
The average tax refund is 10.4% lower than last year according to the latest Internal Revenue Service data, and inflation is taking more of those dollars.
Bill Oxford | E+ | Getty Images
The average tax refund this year is down 32.4% compared to last year, according to early filing data from the IRS.
Tax season opened on Jan. 27, and the average refund amount was $2,169 as of Feb. 14, down from $3,207 about one year prior, the IRS reported on Friday. That figure reflects current-year refunds only.
However, the Feb. 14 filing data doesn’t include refunds receiving the earned income tax credit or additional child tax credit, which aren’t issued before mid-February, the IRS noted. The previous year’s filing data included tax returns claiming these credits. The value of these tax breaks can be substantial, even resulting in five-figure refunds, in some cases.
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Typically, you can expect a refund when you overpay taxes throughout the year via paycheck withholdings or quarterly estimated payments. By comparison, there’s generally a tax bill when you haven’t paid enough.
Filing season numbers will ‘even out’
Although the average refund is currently smaller, “historically, filing season numbers even out as more tax returns come in,” according to the agency.
As of Feb. 14, the IRS received roughly 33 million individual tax returns of the more than 140 million it expects before the April 15 deadline.
As of Dec. 27, 2024, the average tax refund for the 2024 season was $3,138, compared to $3,167 in late December 2023.
‘Don’t call the IRS’ for refund updates
The latest filing statistics come amid mass layoffs for the agency as Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, continues to cull the federal workforce.
It’s unclear exactly how the staffing reduction could impact future taxpayer service. But experts recommend double-checking returns for accuracy to avoid extra touch points with the agency.
“Don’t call the IRS looking for your refund,” said Tom O’Saben, an enrolled agent and director of tax content and government relations at the National Association of Tax Professionals.
You can check the status of your refund via the agency’s “Where’s My Refund?” tool or the IRS2Go app, which is “available 24 hours a day,” O’Saben said.
Typically, the agency issues refunds within 21 days of a return’s receipt. But some returns require “additional review,” which can extend the timeline, according to the IRS.
An attendant holds 1-kilogram gold bars on Feb. 17, 2025.
Akos Stiller/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Gold prices are popping. But investors should avoid the temptation to chase a shiny object, investment experts said.
The SPDR Gold Shares fund (GLD), which tracks the price of gold bullion, is up about 11% in 2025 as of 2 p.m. ET Tuesday. Returns are up about 42% over the past year. (Prices were down more than 1% on Tuesday.)
Gold futures prices are also up about 10% year-to-date and currently 36% higher compared to the price a year ago.
By comparison, the S&P 500 U.S. stock index is up about 1.5% in 2025 and 17% in the past year.
Lee Baker, a certified financial planner, said he wasn’t getting client calls about gold a year ago. Now, he fields them regularly.
He thinks investors would be wise to remember the classic rule from Warren Buffett, “Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.”
“It feels to me everyone is starting to get greedy as it pertains to gold,” said Baker, owner and president of Claris Financial Advisors, based in Atlanta, and a member of CNBC’s Advisor Council.
The typical investor shouldn’t have an allocation to gold that exceeds 3% of a diversified portfolio, Baker said.
Investors enticed by lofty returns may make a knee-jerk reaction and buy a big chunk of gold (literally or figuratively) — and, in the process, make the common investment mistake of buying high and selling low, he said.
“If you’re going to make money with gold you need to buy and sell it — and hopefully sell it at right time,” Baker said. “And if you’re getting in now, are you buying at a peak? I don’t know.”
Why gold prices are up
Investors often perceive gold as a safe haven in times of turmoil and buy the asset when there are high levels of uncertainty, explained Sameer Samana, senior global market strategist and head of global equities and real assets at the Wells Fargo Investment Institute.
“I think we can check that box right now,” he said.
That said, “in true times of crisis, bonds have shone brighter than gold has,” Samana said.
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Additionally, many investors buy gold because they think it’s a good inflation hedge, Samana said. (The data doesn’t always support that investment thesis.) Investors have been concerned by recent data that suggests progress on bringing down inflation may have stalled, he said.
U.S. sanctions on Russia dating to 2022 have been the “turbocharger” for gold returns over the past year or more, Samana said.
The sanctions led some central banks — in China, most notably — to buy more gold instead of U.S. Treasury bonds to avoid the potential difficulty of accessing assets denominated in U.S. dollars during a future geopolitical conflict, Samana said.
That has driven up gold demand higher compared to the price a year ago — and prices with it, he said.
“Don’t chase” gold returns, Samana said: “As a whole, you probably want to hold off on precious metals at [current] levels.”
Experts don’t expect gold to continue to shine.
“There’s no reason in my mind gold will continue to have a significant uptrend, barring — and I certainly hope not — some sort of protracted war,” Baker said.
How to invest in gold
Sanshandao Gold mine in Laizhou, Shandong province, China, on Jan. 17, 2025.
CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images
Baker recommends getting investment exposure to gold via a fund like an exchange-traded fund or by investing in the stocks of gold mining companies, for example, instead of buying physical gold.
Funds and stocks are generally more liquid in the event an investor needs to sell the asset, Baker said. Investors with a lot of physical gold likely have the additional hassle of storing it somewhere and insuring it, Baker said. Insurance may cost investors 1% to 2% or more of their gold’s value per year.
Similar to Baker, Samana believes it may be okay for investors to hold 1% to 2% of a well-diversified portfolio in gold.
Investors interested in buying gold should consider it as a piece of a broader commodities portfolio, which likely includes allocations to energy, agriculture and base metals like copper alongside precious metals like gold, Samana said.
Wells Fargo’s investment models have an overall commodities allocation that ranges from 2% for conservative investors to 7% for more aggressive growth, he said.
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