Category Archives: Estate Planning
Credit Insurance as an Estate Planning Tactic?
Debt is a source of worry for almost everyone, and once you reach a certain age, you start to worry about how your outstanding debts will affect your family after you die. If you do a Google search for ways to protect your estate from creditor claims, the first results will be about establishing… Read More »
Do You Have to Withdraw Money From Your Retirement Account as Soon as You Retire?
If you are worrying about when to start withdrawing money from your retirement account, this is a good problem to have, because it means that you have a retirement account, and it means that there is money in it. Agonizing over when to retire is more of a fun rite of passage than it… Read More »
Estate Planning for Physicians
Medical doctors are in the habit of assessing risk; they do it at every appointment with every patient, sometimes without even realizing it. Everyone needs an estate plan, but getting started on yours is an especially urgent matter if you fit into one of the major risk categories. Financial advisors quickly swoop down on… Read More »
Are You Too Bougie for Medicaid?
If you have read the news anytime in the past few years, you can easily get the impression that the only people who qualify for Medicaid are desperately poor. Even in blue states like New York, the number of people who are too poor to pay for healthcare and other necessities, but not poor… Read More »
What Would Happen If an Irrevocable Trust Owned Your House?
Trusts do more than make monthly payments to spoiled children and to spoiled adults whose trust fund payments prevent them from having to grow up. The main purpose of trusts is to keep assets out of probate, so that your heirs can inherit them directly, without creditors getting first dibs, which is what happens… Read More »
Inheriting a 401(k) Account, What To Expect
If you have a 401(k) account, count your blessings. Homeownership is the most visible sign of financial stability, but 401(k) accounts count for a lot, too. A 401(k) account is an employer-provided retirement account; many employers match the employee’s contributions to the account up to a certain amount per year. Therefore, you can accumulate… Read More »
A Simple Estate Is Not the Ticket to Simplicity That You Think It Is
While almost everyone else makes themselves miserable trying to get rich, you have figured out a more certain path to happiness. Specifically, you have embraced the simple life, where you are content with your modest possessions, and you spend your efforts appreciating the things that money cannot buy. You might think that, by embracing… Read More »
3 Things That People Underestimate About Their Estate Plans
The biggest misconception about estate plans is that only rich people and those estranged from crazy, vindictive relatives need them. Estate planning is not just about writing a will and people fighting about it during probate. It is also not just about establishing a trust so that your spoiled children can continue living like… Read More »
The Afterlife of a Family Farm
Egomaniacs brag about the property that their heirs will inherit from them, and the biggest jerks boast about how clever they are in withholding money from people they don’t like, such as their ex or Medicaid beneficiaries, through crafty estate planning. Truly generous people think about the ways that the property they leave to… Read More »
What Does Divorce Monday Have to Do With Your Estate Plan?
Perhaps you have heard the news that the first business Monday of the year is Divorce Monday, the day when more people file divorce petitions and contact divorce lawyers than any other day of the year. What does that have to do with you? You and your spouse have been together for decades, through… Read More »