Before you can create the documents, strategies and tools that form the basis of your estate plan or elder law plan, you need to know your objectives. This will help to guide your conversation with an estate planning lawyer and ensure that you select the strategies and tools most aligned with those goals. Some of the most common objectives include: Saving on income taxes right now. Providing for surviving family Read More
How to Plan Ahead for Family Belongings in Your Estate
The task of handling a loved one's estate can be very overwhelming physically and emotionally. Any of the heirs to your estate might have to take time away from work or even be involved in important planning tasks like the funeral. There is also all of the items that belong in your estate planning inventory that could be sorted through. You can do your due diligence and make things easier for your loved ones by Read More
Should Asset Protection Planning be Part of Your Estate?
Looking at the big picture of protecting your interests during your life and after, estate planning includes long term care planning and elder law issues, estate planning strategies, and determining whether asset protection planning belongs, too. Asset protection planning is not a strategy that you use to respond after a threat, such as a lawsuit, emerges. It’s best used well in advance of any threat to diminish the Read More
How to Use Goals to Accomplish Your Estate Planning
You can’t put together an estate plan to accomplish your intentions if you don’t know what those intentions are. While it might be hard to think through those issues for the very first time, it’s an exercise that is well worth it. The very first step in getting your estate plan in order is making the decision to move forward on this important project. It might not necessarily be completely easy or accomplished in Read More
When Should I Update My Power of Attorney?
Many of the same events that would prompt you to update your estate planning documents like a will should cause you to reconsider whether or not your power of attorney still makes sense. This can include recently having gotten married and wanting to designate your spouse as your agent, getting separated or divorced from your current spouse, a child or other family member who is grown in maturity and has shown they Read More
Does a Trust Take Care of Everything in My Estate Planning?
A trust is an important tool that makes a lot of sense in its various forms for the right person. However, it is a mistake to assume that an estate planning trust will accomplish each and every one of your estate planning goals. Most sizeable estate planning strategies incorporate a revocable or an irrevocable trust in some format and it's important to recognize what this process actually means for you as well as Read More
What Do Opportunity Costs Have to Do with Your Financial Plan?
Every time you make a decision in life, you’re choosing to say “yes” to one thing and “no” to all the other options available to you. That’s known as opportunity cost. There’s an opportunity cost with how you structure your financial and estate plan, too! With limited resources, you have to make judgment calls about what you do and who gets what. A comprehensive financial and estate plan includes many different Read More
October 19-25 is National Estate Planning Awareness Week
It is estimated that less than half of Americans have an estate plan. To increase awareness about the importance of estate planning, Congress adopted National Estate Planning Awareness Week in 2008, which is observed annually during the third full week of October. Why is estate planning so important? On the most basic level, it allows you to take complete control of your affairs and protect your assets now and in Read More
Is Spending Too Much Jeopardizing Your Retirement Plan?
There are many different mistakes that you could make in the wake of saving for retirement and ensuring that you have protected your interest as you get closer to 65 or your anticipated retirement age. As you get closer to retirement, it becomes very important to update your financial plan and ensure that you have a budget established to align with your income sources. As you get closer to your retirement, you'll Read More
What Is a Specific Bequest?
There are many different questions that can come up during the estate planning process and one of them can involve whether or not to use specific bequests inside your will. Some people have the perception that leaving behind specific bequests sets your other beneficiaries up for potential conflict over the contents of the will. Specific bequests refer to leaving a certain asset to an individual or multiple Read More
