Estate Planning 101 - All the Docs
Not just for the rich
Estate planning sounds like one of those things that only the wealthy need to worry about. Lord Wellington Brunswick Livingston, III needs to figure out how to divide his collection of rare Dakimakura to his heirs and needs a detailed plan to do so.
Right?
Only rich people have estates?
Besides, you don’t really own anything rare or valuable…and your kids all get a long great anyway. There is no reason you need to go through and set up all that estate planning stuff?
Heck, you don’t even have rare Dakimakuras, you just have the regular cheap ones.
But there is a lot more to an estate plan than just splitting up your belongs.
And if you ever had the unfortunate circumstance of a sudden death in the family, you quickly see how much the lack of a detailed plan just makes for massive pain. I have first-hand experienced
Inability and confusion over who could make health care decisions
Slowing up the release of important medical data
Assets going to probate
Family fighting
Estranged family coming in from left field
Family stealing property and even in one case replacing a real diamond ring with a very poorly done ‘replica’ (in terms of it kind of looked the same)
At a minimum, realize that everyone actually does have an estate plan. It is either the one that you set up yourself that aligns with your values and desires, or it is the one that your home state has that is aligned with its (lack of) values.
Similarly, everyone also has an estate, regardless of wealth.
Don’t trust your state government’s estate plan. A little time today can help prevent a lot of pain later down the road.
Today’s post is going to go over all the various pieces in a good estate plan. This goes beyond just a basic will and into all the other legal documents you need, including some that are for your health care if you wind up incapacitated.
Even if you don’t have kids yet or don’t plan to have any money when you die or think you are young and invincible, estate planning is crucial.
Yet, it is often overlooked when people think of personal finance, so lets fix that today…
Also note, nobody likes thinking about their mortality which is a big driver for why a lot of people put off a proper estate plan. But we all are going to die one day, even the guy on twitter who is vampirically injecting his sons blood into himself, no matter how much oral he gives to a 1% microbiome cooter.
A proper estate plan makes all the decisions ahead of time to help ease the burden on everyone. So even if you are uncomfortable thinking about your own death, you need to do it.