Estate Planning

formerlyGDaisy09 · March 2016

hoffse said:

One last thing I should add - anybody who has a will is ahead of the general population, regardless of how simple vs. complex it may be.

Not everybody needs a will, but people with minor children or significant assets all do. Given that you can find somebody who will do a basic will for only a few hundred bucks (which should, at minimum, designate a guardian for your minor child), everybody should have that done around the time they start having kids. If money is tight, then do something basic to start and maybe revisit it in a few years when your assets start growing. Wills should be revisited every 5-10 years anyway just to make sure nothing has changed.

This is a personal pet peeve of mine, but I get ragey when I see parents who "need" a $500 stroller, but they won't pay for a basic will or life insurance to make sure their kid is going to be fine if they die. It seems like every month I get a gofundme request to raise money for a family who lost a parent, and now the other parent has 2 or 3 kids and no way to pay for a funeral or their basic expenses. That's because they never bothered to get life insurance. I always feel really bad for them, but I also have this moment where it's like, "Well yeah, you planned badly."

**Stepping off my soapbox**

I've started unfriending people who post gofundmes; 99% of them would be unnecessary if planning had been involved (i.e. life insurance, and having max-out of pockets available)...as not MM as it sounds; had we been unfortunate enough to need our family max OOP when our DD was born I would have cashed the last bit that we didn't have in our e-fund out of our retirement accounts before I announced to the world through gofundme that we hadn't planned for that possibility, or I would have charged part of it to a credit card and sucked up the interest.

there are absolutely extreme circumstances when I might consider contrributing towards a gofundme...but I'd expect to see that the beneficiaries of that gofundme had truly exhausted all their options and hadn't just been negligent in protecting their family.

smerka · March 2016

This crap pisses me off. My kid had autism and gets a lot of therapy. We have hit our OOP max for the past couple of years. This year we are on track to hit our new HD plan max of $5200 by the end of March. But guess what? We planned for it. But we have no plans to take our kids to Disney. And some people react as if I am a bad parent because of it. I actually know some people who took out a student loan, decided to switch to a cheaper school, and are now planning on using the student loan money to take their kids to Disney because the interest rate is cheaper than a credit card. Talk about watching a financial train wreck about to happen.

hoffse · March 2016

formerlyGDaisy09 said:

I would ask if they have estate planners licensed in the state you may be moving to. If so, they will be equipped to update it after you guys move (if necessary). If not, then I would probably do a less expensive will as a stop-gap and then revisit it after you move. They rules can be very different between neighboring states.

Example: last I heard, GA was the only state where you can fully disinherit your spouse. Sometimes I give H a hard time that we might have to move back to GA...

EDIT: I'll add - often old wills are still valid if you move to a new state. The problem is that the will might contain a provision valid in state A (like disinheriting your spouse) that is not valid in state B. More advanced planning can work around a lot of this, but frankly, it's probably easier and cheaper to just address the new state's laws after you move.

Everybody needs to look at their will every 5-10 years anyway to make sure it still says what they want it to say and nothing is outdated (old addresses, people who are no longer living, etc.)

short+sassy · March 2016

formerlyGDaisy09 said:

hoffse said:

One last thing I should add - anybody who has a will is ahead of the general population, regardless of how simple vs. complex it may be.

Not everybody needs a will, but people with minor children or significant assets all do. Given that you can find somebody who will do a basic will for only a few hundred bucks (which should, at minimum, designate a guardian for your minor child), everybody should have that done around the time they start having kids. If money is tight, then do something basic to start and maybe revisit it in a few years when your assets start growing. Wills should be revisited every 5-10 years anyway just to make sure nothing has changed.

This is a personal pet peeve of mine, but I get ragey when I see parents who "need" a $500 stroller, but they won't pay for a basic will or life insurance to make sure their kid is going to be fine if they die. It seems like every month I get a gofundme request to raise money for a family who lost a parent, and now the other parent has 2 or 3 kids and no way to pay for a funeral or their basic expenses. That's because they never bothered to get life insurance. I always feel really bad for them, but I also have this moment where it's like, "Well yeah, you planned badly."

**Stepping off my soapbox**

I've started unfriending people who post gofundmes; 99% of them would be unnecessary if planning had been involved (i.e. life insurance, and having max-out of pockets available)...as not MM as it sounds; had we been unfortunate enough to need our family max OOP when our DD was born I would have cashed the last bit that we didn't have in our e-fund out of our retirement accounts before I announced to the world through gofundme that we hadn't planned for that possibility, or I would have charged part of it to a credit card and sucked up the interest.

there are absolutely extreme circumstances when I might consider contrributing towards a gofundme...but I'd expect to see that the beneficiaries of that gofundme had truly exhausted all their options and hadn't just been negligent in protecting their family.

Go Fund Me's irk me also. In my eyes, they should be for dire and totally unforeseen circumstances only. Like someone's child dies. A friend/family member develops cancer (or other extremely expensive medical condition) or is badly injured in an accident.

An adult dying? While I wouldn't side eye it, I probably wouldn't contribute either. To take an attitude out of @hoffse's post, that is what life insurance is for. And that is even coming from someone who doesn't have life insurance (outside of work and my Gerber plan) because it is very expensive and many companies just won't sell it to me. But it is a conscious choice I make because I don't have kids, I'd leave my H income streams, and he is perfectly capable of getting a job (even if it wasn't what he wanted) if he had to.

vlagrl29 · March 2016

hoffse said:

One last thing I should add - anybody who has a will is ahead of the general population, regardless of how simple vs. complex it may be.

Not everybody needs a will, but people with minor children or significant assets all do. Given that you can find somebody who will do a basic will for only a few hundred bucks (which should, at minimum, designate a guardian for your minor child), everybody should have that done around the time they start having kids. If money is tight, then do something basic to start and maybe revisit it in a few years when your assets start growing. Wills should be revisited every 5-10 years anyway just to make sure nothing has changed.

This is a personal pet peeve of mine, but I get ragey when I see parents who "need" a $500 stroller, but they won't pay for a basic will or life insurance to make sure their kid is going to be fine if they die. It seems like every month I get a gofundme request to raise money for a family who lost a parent, and now the other parent has 2 or 3 kids and no way to pay for a funeral or their basic expenses. That's because they never bothered to get life insurance. I always feel really bad for them, but I also have this moment where it's like, "Well yeah, you planned badly."

**Stepping off my soapbox**

I hear ya! My MIL and her husband just got their will done - she is 68 and they got married back in 2010. Really - they should have done it a LONG time ago. I told her they needed to do it and I got my first Will done when I was 27.

LillibetteV · March 2016

short+sassy said:
I can't stand GoFundMe! I have rarely seen worthy causes and many of the ones that are worthy are due to poor planning. I'm going to sound harsh but EVERYONE will have a funeral - the question is only when so have insurance for it.

Apparently I have my cranky pants on today between this and the other board. But I'm glad I'm not alone on my soapbox lol

short+sassy · March 2016

LillibetteV said:

short+sassy said:

I can't stand GoFundMe! I have rarely seen worthy causes and many of the ones that are worthy are due to poor planning. I'm going to sound harsh but EVERYONE will have a funeral - the question is only when so have insurance for it.

Apparently I have my cranky pants on today between this and the other board. But I'm glad I'm not alone on my soapbox lol

SITB

I just read your other post also. Sane and reasonable is NOT cranky. I think we are sharing the same brain today, lol.

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