Life events · Guides
Plain-language financial checklists: what to do, in what order, and what it costs to skip. Every one is a guided project inside Astra, run with your real numbers.
Having a baby: the money checklist
Nine financial moves in the year around a new arrival: insurance windows, leave math, childcare, and the accounts worth opening early.
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Buying a home: the money checklist
From credit prep to closing costs: the financial sequence of a home purchase, and the expensive steps people skip.
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Getting married: the money checklist
Merging two financial lives: accounts, taxes, insurance, beneficiaries, and the conversations worth having before the paperwork.
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Losing a job: the money checklist
The first two weeks after a layoff: severance, unemployment filing, health coverage options, and making savings last.
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Starting a business: the money checklist
Before the first sale: entity choice, separate accounts, quarterly taxes, personal runway, and the coverage a new owner gives up.
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Turning 65: the money checklist
The Medicare enrollment windows, the penalties for missing them, Social Security timing, and the budget math of the retirement years.
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Caring for aging parents: the money checklist
The documents to sign while it's easy, the care-cost math, the benefits most families miss, and the line never to cross with their money.
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Going through a divorce: the money checklist
Separating two financial lives: the account inventory, credit separation, QDRO paperwork, beneficiaries, and the tax status reset.
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Facing a medical crisis: the money checklist
Itemized bills, billing errors, appeals, out-of-pocket maximums, hospital assistance programs, and protecting income during treatment.
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Losing a loved one: the money checklist
The paperwork after a death: certificates, survivor benefits, probate basics, retitling, inherited accounts, and what can wait.
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Sending a kid to college: the money checklist
FAFSA timing, net price versus sticker price, 529 withdrawal order, federal-first borrowing, and the tax credits families forget.
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Inheriting money: the money checklist
Step-up in basis, the inherited IRA 10-year rule, what debts do and don't transfer, and why the first move is to park it and wait.
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Special needs planning: the money checklist
ABLE accounts, special-needs trusts, protecting means-tested benefits, the letter of intent, and alternatives to full guardianship.
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Relocating to a new state: the money checklist
Domicile, state tax differences, the insurance re-shop, estate document review, and resetting the budget to a new cost of living.
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Planning for early retirement: the money checklist
The FI number, the healthcare gap before Medicare, penalty-free early-access rules, sequence risk, and withdrawal ordering.
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More on the way: turning 65 · caring for aging parents · starting a business · sending a kid to college · inheriting money · and the rest of life's big ones.