Life on Jason's Terms

Jason Koslowski

Logistics Expert and Hiking Buddy

Jason knows how to network, connecting raw materials in Nova Scotia with factories in the Shenzhen Province. But what really gets him excited, is how his finances allow him to travel.

Jason, who hails from the Midwest, is the son of hardworking parents who took great pride in their ability to put their three children through college without taking on debt. Growing up, family vacations were usually spent camping or driving to visit relatives. While Jason has many fond memories of vacations with his family, he always longed to see more of the world.

This longing became a priority for Jason after both his parents died within three years of each other in their late 60s—one from heart disease and the other from cancer. The fact that his parents never had the chance to realize their own dreams of travel in retirement made a significant impression on Jason. He wanted to honor the legacy his parents left in a family trust for himself and his two siblings by using part of the money allocated to him to provide for his future, while realizing his dreams of travel now, and not waiting until it was too late.

As trustee, Jason is responsible for administering his parents’ trust which is challenging given his busy work and travel schedules. To help ease his burden, we met with all three siblings to determine their financial and cash flow needs. Once we understood the varying needs, including the timing of their distributions, we developed an investment strategy to target the rate of return for the trust required to sustain modest growth while making timely distributions. Because the other siblings did not require the distributions that Jason required, we created a tracking and accounting system to keep this simple, and allow for full transparency for all three siblings.

This meant Jason could spend more time enjoying his travels, confident with the knowledge that he had a strategy designed to help protect his principal and pursue his longer-term goals of settling down and providing for a family of his own one day.