Bruce Helmer and Peg Webb

Families across America are preparing for one of the largest wealth transfers in history. Yet research consistently shows that most failures in passing wealth between generations have little to do with investment mistakes or tax inefficiencies. They are about something far more human: a lack of trust and communication.

That reality leaves many parents with a difficult question: Is it wise to share personal financial information with my adult children? The answer isn’t a simple yes or no. Rather, it depends on timing, maturity, and the way you handle these often-sensitive conversations.

Why families choose to share

For many families, openness about money provides clear benefits. Children who are introduced early to financial concepts tend to become more confident and capable stewards of wealth later in life. Studies suggest that kids between ages 7 and 13 are in a particularly effective window for learning the basics: how money works, why compounding matters, and how to balance spending with saving and giving.

Just as important, sharing financial information fosters trust. A landmark study found that 60% of failed wealth transfers result from poor communication or lack of trust between generations. By comparison, only 25% were due to insufficient preparation of heirs and a mere 15% to other issues such as inadequate planning. In other words, the conversation itself often matters more than the spreadsheets.

Open discussions can also help clarify values. Families that take the time to talk through what money means to them often find themselves better aligned. Parents and adult children should spend time sharing what they hope money will accomplish and how they want it to be used. Some may even create a Family Mission Statement that captures priorities and traditions while allowing space for next-generation perspectives such as corporate responsibility, sustainability or values-based investing.

Why many parents hesitate

It’s easy to understand why some parents hesitate to open the books. Financial information is deeply personal and some worry that disclosing income or inheritance could create entitlement or unnecessary anxiety. Others simply feel uncomfortable sharing numbers that they themselves may have worked hard to earn and protect.

Generational differences are also a reality. Younger family members may push for socially conscious or tech-focused strategies that clash with previously established investment traditions. Without a process for reconciling these differences, such conversations can devolve into conflict.

Finally, timing matters. Not every adult child is prepared to handle the responsibility that comes with knowledge of family finances. Oversharing too soon can backfire. Once sensitive information is shared, it must be carefully safeguarded. Families are right to be concerned over storing digital data and securely exchanging documents.

Finding a better way

The most successful families recognize that the real question is not whether to share, but how to do it wisely. Many start small, introducing children to basic lessons through allowance systems, or even small family loans that must be repaid under agreed terms. As children mature, parents can expand the discussion to more complex topics such as investing, estate planning, and philanthropy.

These conversations are often most effective when formalized. Some families schedule regular meetings, while others plan retreats that allow time both for recreation and thoughtful dialogue. The agenda usually begins with values, then moves to ownership and inheritance, and finally to issues like governance and conflict resolution. Governance can be a powerful tool, providing not just process, but purpose and transparency for decisions across generations.

Professional advisers can often play an important role as facilitators but may not be equipped to handle every conflict. In some cases, bringing in psychologists or mediators can help families work through more emotional issues. Even something as simple as having each person write a letter outlining their concerns can reduce misunderstandings and promote empathy.

Technology and giving can bridge generations

Technology is also reshaping how families plan and communicate. Digital storage and e-signatures make it easier to manage documents, while visualization and AI tools help families explore “what if” scenarios. But this convenience can present new challenges around disclosure, compliance, and cybersecurity.

One area where technology and tradition can meet is philanthropy. Many families find common ground in giving back. Developing a Philanthropic Philosophy Statement helps capture the vision, values, and causes that matter most. It’s a great way to show younger generations how wealth can serve a larger purpose.

A continuing process

Sharing financial information with adult children isn’t a one-time event. It’s an ongoing process that should unfold gradually, with attention to timing, structure and values. The payoff can be significant: stronger trust, better-prepared heirs, and a legacy that extends beyond numbers on a balance sheet.

Ultimately, it’s less about what you have and more about what your wealth means for the generations to come.

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The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual.

Bruce Helmer and Peg Webb are financial advisers at Wealth Enhancement Group and co-hosts of “Your Money” on WCCO 830 AM on Sunday mornings. Email Bruce and Peg at yourmoney@wealthenhancement.com. Advisory services offered through Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC, a registered investment adviser and affiliate of Wealth Enhancement Group.

 

The single-family home at 2133 Selby Ave. was there one day, gone the next. A few days after its Sept. 19 demolition, Tim Flanigan was surprised to see its garage torn down, and then excavators digging deep into the foundation and front yard.

When Flanigan checked property records through PAULIE, the city’s new online web portal for inspections and permitting, there was no evidence the city had issued a demolition permit.

He went downtown to talk to officials in the city’s Department of Safety and Inspections in person, and was told no such permit yet existed. The property is registered to a limited liability company, MJ Properties MN, LLC of Bloomington. Efforts to reach MJ Properties for comment were not successful.

“They told me there the application had been submitted and wasn’t even yet reviewed,” said Flanigan on Tuesday. The city later issued a stop-work order, but by then, the demolition had already taken place.

Tim Flanagan stands in front of a hole in the ground which will become a six unit college housing apartment along Selby Ave in St. Paul on Friday, Sept. 26, 2025. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Single-family zoning eliminated

If developers and property owners seem to be getting ahead of themselves in the neighborhood, there may be good reason.

In 2012, homeowners living near the University of St. Thomas convinced the city of St. Paul to slow the construction of privately-owned student rental housing in the area by creating an overlay district separating new registered student dwellings from existing ones by at least 150 feet.

Over the past year or so, developers reading through the fine print have found a work-around. That’s in turn led to the construction, permitting or conversion of some 24 new privately-owned student rental buildings in the blocks around the intersection of Cleveland and Ashland avenues, just off campus.

The St. Paul City Council voted to eliminate single-family zoning citywide in October 2023, opening the door to multi-unit residences within almost every zoning district in the city. The 150-foot buffer written into the overlay district applies to single-family homes and duplexes, but the language is silent on creating a separation requirement between other types of dwellings.

The result has effectively upended the student rental housing overlay district near St. Thomas, which has since been inundated by building permit applications.

Two large college rental apartments occupy lots that once belonged to much smaller single family homes on Ashland Ave. in St. Paul on Friday, Sept. 26, 2025. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Student housing

Flanigan can point to two single-family homes slated to be torn down and replaced with side-by-side six-plexes at 2149 and 2143 Selby Ave., which could span 24 bedrooms between them. The properties are both registered to private investors based outside the city — the Elliot Capital Group of Eden Prairie.

“If you have entire blocks that are only student housing, it creates a tipping point and makes the neighborhood structurally different,” Flanigan said. In a single block of Cleveland, “where there were maybe 20 students, now there’s going to be maybe 80 students.”

“Essentially, what we’ve asked for is a moratorium just for this type of construction — duplex to six-plex — so as a community we can ask, ‘Why is it only happening in this part of the city?’” Flanigan added. “Should it be done in this way or is it going to create problems in the neighborhood?”

Rather than impose a moratorium on the new student housing developments, city officials have largely treated the new units as a welcome trend at a time of sluggish housing growth in a city that could use more property tax base.

A “moratorium isn’t before the council,” said Ward 4 Council Member Molly Coleman on Wednesday, noting she would continue to work with DSI on quality-of-life concerns within the overlay district.

‘A bit of a land rush’

Flanigan, who chairs the grassroots group Neighbors for Responsible and Livable Development, said he and his fellow members have tracked two dozen new student rental properties in recent months as they’ve been built, converted or permitted. The units, he said, are marketed exclusively to students at monthly rents of about $1,000 per bedroom, using a website where St. Thomas invites property owners to list housing for rent near campus.

“Most of what has gone up so far is very large duplexes and triplexes that house 12 or 15 students at a minimum. There’s that many bedrooms,” Flanigan said. “And there’s no minimum setbacks, minimum side setbacks and no requirement for green space or tree replantings. There’s no back yard so all the partying happens in the front yard.”

“It’s a bit of a land rush. None of the units have any affordability requirements,” he added. “The applications to do these were duplexes or triplexes, but they’re actually rented by the room — like rooming houses — so there’s six individual leases for six bedrooms, which is actually not a permitted structure under H1 and H2 zoning.”

Danielle Hokason grew up in the neighborhood and lives in a duplex she’s owned for 20 years near Wilder and Portland avenues, about a block off campus. She’s seen about seven homes come up on Ashland, the street she grew up on.

“Everything is concrete now,” said Hokason, who can point to blocks where century-old trees no longer stand. “They’ve paved over parking lots and cut down trees. All the noise is amplified when you get rid of all of the green space.”

“You lose some of the buffer,” she added. “Saturday was pretty loud.”

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Call for moratorium on new student rentals

In response, Neighbors for Responsible and Livable Development have called for a temporary moratorium on the construction of new student rental housing within the overlay district until new rules can be sorted out. Their proposal has won the support of the Union Park District Council and the West Summit Neighborhood Advisory Council.

The Macalester-Groveland Community Council’s land-use committee supported the moratorium, but after lengthy discussion, the full Mac-Groveland district council did not.

“The voices that were coming through were the voices for the need for housing, not a moratorium,” said Laura Wallace, executive director of the Mac-Groveland Community Council.

University of St. Thomas responds

Jerome Benner, a spokesperson for St. Thomas, said the university has not taken an official stance on the moratorium proposal. However, it has held space to facilitate community discussions, which Flanigan called helpful.

Benner said the university wants more on-campus housing, but city regulations dictating building heights, campus boundaries and other details have been tough to navigate.

“Our overall student population has held steady in recent years, and our residence halls are currently at capacity,” said Benner, in a written statement. “We are seeing growing demand from students who want to live on campus, and we believe expanding on-campus housing would benefit both students and the neighborhood, as well as contribute to the city’s broader effort to increase housing availability. Right now, that option is significantly limited by the current Conditional Use Permit, which has been in place since 2004.”

No council support for moratorium

The neighbors group has held at least three community meetings in the past nine months, drawing 75 to 150 residents at a time, and hosted the candidates for the Ward 4 seat on the city council for a discussion this summer.

They’ve since held talks with Coleman, who won the seat in August, and heard mixed response.

Coleman “has not endorsed a moratorium but said she would discuss some of the other issues related to the developments — pollution, noise, parking constraints, people crossing intersections that weren’t designed for hundreds of people,” Flanigan said.

Ward 3 Council Member Saura Jost “has not responded to any communications that have been sent to her office at all,” he added. “We’ve included her with almost every email we’ve sent out.”

Jost noted Wednesday that 2133 Selby Ave. does not sit within her ward. Still, Ward 3 includes the section of the overlay district that stretches south of Summit Avenue down to St. Clair Avenue, which she described as “a very tiny amount of the overlay district.”

During his time as the interim Ward 4 council member this year, Matt Privratsky spoke with concerned residents and acknowledged that the transition from living next to single-family homes to suddenly residing by multi-unit student dwellings could be disconcerting for long-time homeowners.

Nevertheless, said Privratsky in a written statement this year, “all advice I’ve received from legal and policy experts in City Hall — in addition to my own professional policy read — about the student housing overlay is that it is likely either unconstitutional or, in the very least, not good public policy.”

“I am not personally or professionally comfortable re-affirming the city’s role in regulating how residents live in our neighborhoods based solely on whether they are enrolled in or accepted into an undergraduate or trade program,” he added.

In fact, at a time of relatively sluggish housing construction, “new developments like these six-unit apartment buildings are some of the rare examples of dramatically increasing the property tax value of a given lot and reducing property tax burden on others,” Privratsky said. “None of these citywide dynamics erase the thoughts and concerns of nearby neighbors, but they do impact the way citywide zoning changes need to be contemplated and analyzed.”

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By CHRIS MEGERIAN

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Saturday he will send troops to Portland, Oregon, “authorizing Full Force, if necessary” to handle “domestic terrorists” as he expands his controversial deployments to more American cities.

He made the announcement on social media, writing that he was directing the Department of Defense to “provide all necessary Troops to protect War ravaged Portland.”

Trump said the decision was necessary to protect U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities, which he described as “under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for details on Trump’s announcement, such as a timeline for the deployment or what troops would be involved. He previously threatened to send the National Guard into Chicago without following through. A deployment in Memphis, Tennessee, is expected to include only about 150 troops, far less than were sent to the District of Columbia for Trump’s crackdown or in Los Angeles in response to immigration protests.

Pentagon officials did not immediately respond to requests for information.

Since the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, the Republican president has escalated his efforts to confront what he calls the “radical left,” which he blames for the country’s problems with political violence.

He deployed the National Guard and active-duty Marines to Los Angeles over the summer and as part of his law enforcement takeover in the nation’s capital.

The ICE facility in Portland has been the target of frequent demonstrations, sometimes leading to violent clashes. Some federal agents have been injured and several protesters have been charged with assault. When protesters erected a guillotine earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security described it as “unhinged behavior.”

Trump, in comments Thursday in the Oval Office, suggested some kind of operation was in the works.

“We’re going to get out there and we’re going to do a pretty big number on those people in Portland,” he said, describing them as “professional agitators and anarchists.”

Earlier in September, Trump had described living in Portland as “like living in hell” and said he was considering sending in federal troops, as he has recently threatened to do to combat crime in other cities, including Chicago and Baltimore.

“Like other mayors across the country, I have not asked for -– and do not need -– federal intervention,” Portland’s mayor, Keith Wilson, said in a statement after Trump’s threat. Wilson said his city had protected freedom of expression while “addressing occasional violence and property destruction.”

In Tennessee, Memphis has been bracing for an influx of National Guard troops, and on Friday, Republican Gov. Bill Lee, who helped coordinate the operation, said they will be part of a surge of resources to fight crime in the city.

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Amy Lindgren

Today I’d like to make the case for earning a bachelor’s degree. Four-year degrees, as they’re called, are usually a bachelor of arts or science, depending on one’s discipline.

And they’ve come under fire in recent years, for everything from sky-high tuition to lack of relevance for modern life.

Much of the criticism is deserved and I don’t plan to defend the missteps of higher education. Nor do I have a reflexive admonition about how these degrees lead to higher lifetime earnings or better career prospects. Higher than what? Better than what? These studies have never sat well with me, but even less today.

By contrast, vocational training is finally having a moment, as are apprenticeships and other pathways into careers in the trades. This is good news, but I hate to see the pendulum swing too far the other way. Even those working as trades people could find they need more “book learning.” And of course, not everyone is cut out for the trades.

Hence, my reasons for encouraging someone to consider a bachelor’s degree:

1. Key to promotion. While it’s becoming easier to start a career with less, different, or even no training, candidates with higher degrees are almost always favored for higher-level jobs, even in the trades.

2. Chance to explore. Pursuing a bachelor’s degree presents a rare opportunity to delve fully into a liberal arts course, or to switch career paths on the strength of a newly-discovered interest.

3. Exposure to different views. Theoretically, exposure to ideas can happen anywhere but realistically, it doesn’t. Workplaces aren’t set up for the exchange of ideas, for example, while trades training is focused on specific practices, not philosophy.

4. Training in thinking and communication. One of the superpowers students learn in trades school, in any discipline, is problem-solving. For bachelors’ grads, the superpowers are analysis and communication. Their classes frequently require writing and presenting, while their coursework leans to gathering, evaluating and synthesizing information.

5. Pathway to specific careers. If you want to work as a lawyer, librarian, doctor, or in dozens of other occupations, your path will include a bachelor’s degree.

6. Networking. It’s wrong to assume one type of education would provide better lifelong contacts than another. But in general, institutions offering bachelors’ degrees facilitate the networking, making it easier to build or maintain connections through one’s lifetime.

In presenting these reasons I’m not trying to promote one type of training over another, but to demonstrate that there’s more to the decision than a cost-to-earnings formula.

That said, I’ve never been a fan of the four-year model of bachelor’s training, for reasons ranging from the sudden boulder of debt to the forced delay in a student’s process of “adulting.”

Luckily, we have abundant options today that weren’t as available in years past. In addition to a surprising range of grants and scholarships, there are also lower-cost community colleges and free college courses that help high school students shave years off their bachelor’s degree.

Perversely, I most often recommend going slower rather than faster. Instead of pushing hard for a bachelor’s in four years (or fewer), I often advise intentionally setting your sights on longer.

This advice stems from my own college years, when a series of life events unexpectedly stretched my four-year degree into seven. Essentially, it took about five years for me to complete my junior and senior years of college.

Disaster? Actually, no. In that time I took a number of internships, guided a campus organization I had founded, worked way too many jobs, and started my business. Although they were somewhat haphazard, I wouldn’t call those wasted years.

Now I tout (planfully) pursuing a slower path by noting the potential benefits of a lighter courseload: Extra time to work, which provides both experience and potential tuition assistance; the possibility of more internships; an opportunity to join or lead more campus clubs; the chance to use that student ID for more discounts than usual.

That last point is light-hearted, but the others are spot on. When I meet recent early-graduates I’m often wondering if that date on the résumé will prove more valuable than the work and leadership experiences they could have built on the slower path.

The answer could be decades away, but one thing we know now is that internships — however the student squeezes them in — create strong inroads to work post-graduation. Come back next week for a look at how students can access and leverage these valuable components of their education.

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Amy Lindgren owns a career consulting firm in St. Paul. She can be reached at alindgren@prototypecareerservice.com.