When it comes to managing your personal affairs, estate planning is a crucial process that often gets overlooked until it’s too late. Planning for the future isn’t just about ensuring financial stability; it’s about providing for your loved ones, making your medical wishes known, and minimizing the legal hurdles your family might face after you’re gone. This article covers the importance of these documents, the potential consequences of not having them, and the essential components of an estate plan.
Understanding Estate Planning
Estate planning involves preparing for the management and distribution of your assets after your death. It encompasses a variety of documents that specify your wishes and ensure that your assets are handled according to your preferences. Key estate planning documents typically include wills, trusts, powers of attorney, and healthcare directives.
The Importance of Estate Planning
- Asset Distribution: Without a will or trust, state laws may dictate how your assets will be distributed. This could lead to outcomes that do not align with your wishes. For instance, if you are unmarried or have minor children, state laws may distribute your assets in a way you wouldn’t prefer.
- Minimizing Probate: Probate is the legal process through which a deceased person’s assets are distributed. This process can be lengthy and costly, often taking many months or even years. Estate planning documents like living trusts can help bypass probate, allowing for quicker and less expensive distribution of assets.
- Protecting Your Family: If you have minor children, estate planning is crucial for appointing guardians. Without proper documentation, the court will decide who will care for your children, which may not align with your preferences. Additionally, estate planning helps ensure that your spouse or partner is financially protected.
- Healthcare Decisions: Healthcare directives, such as living wills and durable powers of attorney for healthcare, provide guidance on your medical treatment preferences if you become unable to communicate them. These documents can alleviate stress for your loved ones during difficult times, ensuring your wishes are followed.
- Tax Considerations: Proper estate planning can help minimize estate taxes, ensuring more of your wealth is passed on to your beneficiaries. The current federal estate tax exemption is over $12 million per individual, but this threshold can change. Depending on your state’s laws, additional estate or inheritance taxes may apply, making planning essential.
Common Estate Planning Documents
- Will: A legal document that specifies how your assets will be distributed upon your death. A will also allows you to appoint guardians for minor children, which is crucial to ensuring their care aligns with your wishes. Without a will, the state’s laws will determine who inherits your assets and who is responsible for your children, which may not align with your intentions.
- Trust: A legal entity that holds assets for the benefit of your beneficiaries. Trusts can potentially provide important tax advantages, help avoid the lengthy and costly probate process, and allow for greater control over the timing and manner in which your assets are distributed. They may be especially valuable for protecting assets, managing complex estates, and ensuring privacy in estate matters.
- Power of Attorney: This document grants someone the authority to make financial and legal decisions on your behalf if you become incapacitated. Having a power of attorney in place is crucial because it ensures that someone you trust will manage your finances, pay bills, and handle legal matters without needing a court-appointed guardian, which can be time-consuming and stressful.
- Healthcare Directive: This includes both a living will and a medical power of attorney. A healthcare directive allows you to outline your healthcare preferences in case you are unable to communicate them yourself, and designate someone to make medical decisions on your behalf. This is essential for ensuring that your medical care reflects your values and preferences, and it relieves loved ones of the burden of making difficult healthcare decisions without guidance.
Beneficiary Designations: Some assets, like retirement accounts and life insurance policies, allow you to name beneficiaries directly. These designations can bypass probate, ensuring faster distribution to your beneficiaries. Regularly reviewing and updating these designations is vital to ensure they remain consistent with your overall estate plan, as life events such as marriage, divorce, or the birth of children can affect who should inherit these assets.
Consequences of Not Having an Estate Plan
Failing to establish an estate plan can lead to several negative outcomes:
- Intestate Succession: If you die without a will, your assets will be distributed according to state intestacy laws, which may not reflect your wishes.
- Increased Costs: Without a plan, the probate process can become more complicated and expensive, reducing the overall value of your estate.
- Family Conflict: The absence of clear instructions can lead to disputes among family members over asset distribution, potentially resulting in prolonged legal battles.
- Burden on Loved Ones: The emotional and financial burden on your family can increase significantly if decisions are left to the state or the courts.
Conclusion
In summary, estate planning documents are essential for ensuring that your assets are distributed according to your wishes, protecting your loved ones, and minimizing potential complications after your death. While many may believe estate planning is only for the wealthy, it is crucial for individuals of all financial backgrounds.
If you haven’t yet established an estate plan, consider consulting with a qualified estate planning attorney to discuss your options and create a plan that fits your unique needs. It is also important to coordinate your financial accounts with your estate plan. We are happy to work with you and your attorney to make sure your beneficiaries align with your plan.
We are here to answer any questions you may have about estate planning and help you navigate this important process.
For further insights on financial planning read Wealth on Purpose by Bryan Ballentine.
Sources: Located at the bottom of the article
Golf Tip of the Week:
There’s a trendy new swing move at the PNC and older golfers should take note
As we get older, our body naturally sheds two things: muscle mass and flexibility. By some estimates, by the age of 70 we lose, on average, about 30 percent of the range of motion. And worse yet, not each area of our body is affected equally. Some muscles, like our shoulders and hips, tighten up even more.
Given that those muscles are crucial in generating the kind of backswing turn that creates powerful drives, it puts older golfers in a real predicament.
But true to form, the legends in the field have figured out a way of staving off the effects of tight hips: dropping their right foot back at setup.
Nick Price is among the players in the field doing it. Looking at his setup, you can see that his right foot is more behind him than his left. This has the effect of sending his footline out to the right, relative to where his clubface is aiming, as you can see below.
Trail foot back for more hip turn
By positioning your trail foot like this, you’re opening your hip joints in the opposite direction, the 65-year-old says, which will make it easier to turn your hips. You’re effectively giving them a head start, so you have to do less work when your swing actually starts.
“It gives your hips a little kick start,” Price said. “My ability to turn with my hips has gotten so much less over the years. I need that extra power, and this helps.”
For Price, it also helps him get his swing back into a position where it was in his prime.
“I always felt I hit the ball at my best when my upper and lower body were moving in unison,” he says. “When I couldn’t make a full turn with my hips on the way back, they would spin out on the way through. My upper and lower body weren’t working together.”
Price is far from the only player in the field doing it. Tiger Woods will drop his trail foot more behind him when he’s reaching for a little extra distance. Nick Faldo has been practicing the move, too, as has Lee Trevino.
“I’m like a lot of the older guys. We drop our foot back to get a bigger turn,” he says. “We start hitting draws. I abandoned my fade a long time ago.”
It’s a means to an end, Trevino says. A simple solution to a problem plaguing their distance. And one which, perhaps, will give us a glimpse of these legends swinging back to their very best.
Golf Tip adapted from golfdigest.com i
Recipe of the Week:
Hearty Sirloin Chili
Ingredients
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 cup flour
Salt and pepper
2 pounds sirloin, bite size chunks
2 large onions, chopped
1 green bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
2 jalapenos, seeded and chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 tablespoon cumin
1 teaspoon oregano
12-ounce bottle ale
2 cups low-sodium beef stock
4 cups crushed tomatoes
2 cups canned black beans, drained and rinsed
2 cups canned kidney beans, drained and rinsed
Garnish: Shredded Cheddar, red onion, scallions, sour cream
Directions
- Heat oil in large heavy pot over medium high heat. In a pie plate combine salt, pepper and flour with a fork. Toss sirloin cubes with flour to coat. Shake off excess flour. Brown sirloin in pot on all sides and remove meat to a plate. If necessary, add more oil to pan and add onions. Cook onions over medium heat until they begin to soften. Stir in green, red and jalapeno peppers and cook for 3 to 5 minutes. Add chili powder, cumin and oregano. Return browned meat to pan and pour in beer and beef stock. Bring to a boil and cover and reduce heat to a simmer. Cook for 45 minutes or until meat is tender. Add crushed tomatoes and cook for 20 minutes. Stir in black and kidney beans and gently simmer for 10 minutes. Garnish with Cheddar, onion, scallions and sour cream.
Recipe Tip adapted from foodnetwork.com ii
Travel Tip of the Week:
How to Make the Most of Eating Out With Kids While Traveling
A flexible mindset — and proper preparation — can help parents and children make the most of a food-focused trip.
If, like me, you’re a parent who enjoys a fancy dinner out while traveling, you have no doubt faced this dilemma: either leave the kids in a hotel with a babysitter you’ve only just met, or schlep them along. I’m here to advocate for the schlep. And that’s despite the fact that my two children aren’t the best companions at a pricey multicourse meal.
My wife and I choose to live on this edge because, sometimes, we can’t miss a certain restaurant. Sure, the artistry behind a perfectly plated dish may be lost on our little ones, but my five-year-old still talks about a “gelato cake with a cherry” from one of the many Roman trattorias we dined in last year. I’ll admit I have no recollection of that particular dessert, but I’m grateful that she will remember it forever.
Now that our kids have met more sommeliers than the average elementary schooler, here are a few of the lessons we’ve learned — and some tips from other parents — on making the most of eating out while traveling.
Rethink big-city dining.
Not long ago, restaurants in major European capitals had a reputation for being very kid-friendly, says Daniella Hunt, an American who runs Mirabilia Urbis Tours in Rome. These days? “Many restaurants here have gotten clinically precise about getting you in and out,” Hunt says of the new no-lingering paradigm. Instead, she recommends saving those big nights out for when you visit smaller cities — places like Orvieto or Trieste — where restaurants still dote over young children.
Skip the kids’ menu.
North Carolina’s High Hampton Resort is one of a growing number of venues scrapping this old-fashioned concept. Executive chef Scott Franqueza puts forth a more thoughtful “family menu,” with elevated versions of classic dishes. The chicken tenders are brined and soaked in buttermilk; for the fish-and-chips, he uses the day’s catch, whether that’s grouper, snapper, or wahoo. “When a parent takes a bite to see if a dish is too hot,” Franqueza says, “we want them to want another.”
Dress (and act) the part.
Even the simple step of putting on a dress or a collared shirt can help signal to children that a meal out is a special experience — and calls for special behavior. For our family, preparation also includes grabbing a couple of fresh coloring books and having a well-timed pre-dinner snack. (We also make a point of visiting the bathroom upon arrival, so everyone can enjoy sitting down together.)
Once in our seats, there’s a quick discussion about what might happen if someone crawled under the table and pulled on a tablecloth. Laughs ensue about the potential chaos, but the point is made.
Find middle ground on phones.
Many families turn to screen time as a way to find peace at mealtime. But Rick Simone, the president of Federal Hill Commerce Association, in Providence, Rhode Island, has reached a compromise with his four kids. When at a restaurant, he’s okay with the kids using their phones until the meal arrives. “But as soon as the food drops,” Simone says, “everybody automatically knows it’s time to put phones away.”
Rethink menu speak.
For us, creative rewording goes a long way. Our son loves soup, so at a restaurant, we might pitch him on a root-vegetable curry by calling it “coconut carrot soup.” Or, we might say that butternut squash is “basically a sweet potato” to encourage him to try something new.
Don’t forget.
A few little things can make a big impact: a crumb-catching bib for toddlers was a lifesaver for us when our kids were younger. These days, we ask for a corner table — or even better, one on a patio — where our family can have more room and avoid any tsk-tsk glances from other diners.
Travel Tip adapted from travelandleisure.com iii
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Sources:
- American Bar Association: Estate Planning
- IRS: Estate and Gift Taxes
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ihttps://www.golfdigest.com/story/pnc-legends-swing-move
iihttps://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/hearty-sirloin-chili-recipe-1957806
iihttps://www.travelandleisure.com/fine-dining-with-kids-tips-8689592