I Inherited from my Mom. It’s Now My Duty to do Sustainable Investing for my Child
Heather has always been ambitious and hard working. Things didn’t come easy for her. After deciding to leave the east coast for greener pastures out west, Heather was now the sole bread winner for herself and her teenage son. She was able to quickly adapt and create her own small business. On top of this, she surprisingly inherited a large sum of money that she had no idea how to handle. Learning about her investing risk profile and how smart asset allocation can help weather the ups and downs of the market opened her eyes. Her internal drive and sound diversification has helped her live the life she enjoys.
Heather
Socking money away into her business retirement account and having Sustainvest keep a fairly conservative allocation with her inheritance has allowed her to focus on her child and business.
Age
49
Location
Santa Rosa, CA
Invested For
NO fossil fuels or big banks and community bonds that both pay dividends and help the underserved
Invested In
Inherited IRA and SEP IRA
As Heather moved out west with her young son, she was unsure how it would work. Having an education in botany and design, she quickly decided to create her own landscaping design business. The first few years were tough, both helping her young son get through his homework, etc. and at the same time trying to build a client base in Northern California. The business soon was paying for itself and Heather was in a good place.
And then, unaware of family members savings, she inherited half of a large IRA account that was held by her mother. She began to get calls from the large brokerage firms telling her about all the great investing they could do for her. But she wasn’t sold. She continued to ask them about sustainable investing, and their replies were mainly that this type of investing isn’t something they know about. As her passion for the environment held strong, she eventually learned about our sustainable investing services and financial planning work and it ended up being a perfect fit for her.
As Heather has worked almost 20 years for herself, she was able to put money away into a SEP IRA regularly. She also was able to rollover the IRA of her mother into her own Inherited or Beneficiary IRA, therefore being able to continue the tax-deferred growth of the account. She continues to work for herself and doesn’t have ideas of ending that any time soon, but she is also able to enjoy international traveling with her high school age son. She has saved funds for him to enter college but he decided on taking a gap year to travel and explore.
Because of her intention to continue working for 10+ more years, she is able to have about a 70/30 split with the higher weighting in equities. With large holdings in technology companies like Tesla and Apple, she has enjoyed the growth it has given her but also wants to invest in impact bonds along with supporting local initiatives as much as she can. She feels very fortunate with the inheritance and having her funds invested in sustainable responsible stocks, bonds and funds makes her feel all the better.