estate planning 101
I attended an estate planning workshop last night. It was actually part of another function that I had to attend, but in light of my recent musings on my and my family members’ eventual deaths, the timing was great. All the great buzzwords were there - insurance, will, trust, tax - and so was one of my favorite financial phrases, "generational wealth." I don’t want to spread misinformation by getting the details of what I heard last night wrong. However, one thing I heard that is easily repeatable was as follows: Every person should, at the bare minimum, have three documents involved in their estate planning. These should be a will, a power of attorney, and a living will. The presenter, an attorney/financial advisor who I’ve met in a professional capacity before, and who will likely get my business, also mentioned that there are other tools, such as insurance policies and trusts, that can supplement these three basic documents in ways that can help families preserve wealth and ensure an educational legacy. It was an excellent presentation! I’m so glad that I was able to come away with a copy of the presentation for further study.
Don’t feel bad that you couldn’t be there with me - I found something online that might give you roughly the same basic information I received last night - maybe even more! Without further ado, CNN Money’s Top Things to Know about Estate Planning.
While I’m at it, if you’re in my state, Pennsylvania, here’s another invaluable source of information that I found a few weeks ago: The Pennsylvania Estate and Trust Cybrary by attorney Daniel B. Evans. If you’re not in my state, this is still useful information for you, because now you know that every state has its own rules. You can’t just pick up an Estate Planning for Imbeciles book out of the local bookstore and be assured that you can come up with something that will be enforceable in your state when you die or become incapacitated (though it might help you to understand general information about estate planning). I highly recommend that when you are ready to get your estate planning together, you consult with a professional to get help with considering your local laws, contingencies you might not think about on your own, and the financial and tax consequences of the decisions that you make.
