Today I am really looking forward to sharing the financial ins and outs of Rachael, a wonderful wahine who has been listening to this very podcast for years. She enjoys this podcast because the stories I share are relatable because they are, of course, about everyday Kiwis in Aotearoa. Hers, as you are about to find out, is a cautionary tale that she hopes you don’t have to go through yourself, but you will come out more aware and informed having heard about it. Her partner of eight years, Tony, died suddenly in mid-2020. While coping with the shock and grief of this, she then also had to embark on a long journey of unravelling the financial side of his life, but because he died intestate or without a will, she had shaky legal rights to do so. These days, she is really focused on her finances and said she will squawk at anyone about them, particularly when it comes to retirement plans, end-of-life plans and the necessity of having a will. Coping with her grief was hard enough; sorting out the settlement of his estate made it doubly hard, and she wants you to avoid this same situation at all costs.