Back To School Estate Planning Goals For Parents

Kids are bummed out that summer vacation is ending. They want to squeeze in as many trips to the swimming pool and as many games of mini golf as they can before the school bus shows up. For parents, though, the new school year brings relief. There is more structure and less screen time, to say nothing of fewer expenses on activities to keep children away from their screens. Even if your work schedule is the same during the school year as during the summer, it is less stressful to work while your children are at school than it is to work while your children are at home playing Roblox. During summer vacation, you spend your lunch break at work anxiously scrolling through social media for inexpensive activities to do with your kids, or else doing mental calculations to see if you can make it through this pay period. Now that school is starting again, you have enough clarity to spend your lunch break thinking about the future, and that means thinking about your estate plan. Before we get too far into the school year and you have to start worrying about how you will pay for the holidays, you should spend a lunch hour or two on your estate plan. For help getting started on an estate plan suitable for a parent of minor children, contact an Orlando estate planning lawyer.

Choose a Successor Guardian for Your Children

If you are a parent, you must write a will, even if you do not own any valuable assets. If nothing else, your will is the legally binding document that determines who your children’s legal guardian will be until the children reach adulthood if you and your children’s other parent both die when the children are minors. The guardian does not necessarily legally adopt the children, but the court appoints him or her to manage the children’s finances that they inherit from your estate. Minor beneficiaries of a will do not have direct access to the money they have inherited until they reach adulthood. Your will should also indicate a successor guardian who will fulfill the role if the originally designated guardian dies or becomes too ill to act as guardian when the children are still minors.

Buy a Life Insurance Policy With Your Children as Beneficiaries

A simple and inexpensive move that you can do as a cash-strapped, working parent of minor children is to buy a term life insurance policy with your children as beneficiaries. These policies are only available to young, healthy people who are unlikely to die before age 65, and therefore, they are dirt cheap. Most parents of minors live paycheck to paycheck, so your children will get a bigger inheritance if you have a life insurance policy. If you buy it and end up not needing it, it is still a win, because your children get to enjoy your presence on Earth even when they are adults.

Contact Gierach and Gierach About Estate Planning for Young Families

A probate lawyer can help you do just enough estate planning to get through this school year.  Contact Gierach and Gierach, P.A. in Orlando, Florida to discuss your case.

Source:

leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0700-0799/0736/Sections/0736.1106.html