Category Archives: Estate Planning
How To Protect Your Assets From Medicaid Estate Recovery
A popular saying in the world of estate planning goes that the goal of your estate plan is to ensure that you do not outlive your savings. In today’s economic climate, where most of us are in debt and those of us who have savings are unlikely to have them much longer, does this… Read More »
How To Protect Your Future Self From Financial Abuse
Last month, a court in Fort Pierce sentenced Sherri Lynn Smith, 52, to 51 months in federal prison followed by four years of supervised release after she pleaded guilty to bank fraud and aggravated identity theft. Between 2016 and 2019, Smith worked as a caregiver to an elderly couple in Broward County, and they… Read More »
Pets And Your Estate Plan
So many of your hopes and worries related to your estate plan have to do with providing for your children and grandchildren, or for seeing to the care of your surviving spouse and siblings in their old age. Meanwhile, your generosity toward family members, even while you are alive, is often met with ingratitude… Read More »
You Call That A Retirement Fund?
As the poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Elliot demonstrates in a most unnerving way, your worst enemy and the biggest obstacle to your happiness is indecision. If you read that poem in high school English class, as many members of Generation X did, you probably focused on Prufrock’s inability… Read More »
If Your Estate Plan Doesn’t Include A Power Of Attorney, It Needs One
Introducing the good enough estate plan. If you are old enough to be aware of your mortality, then you are old enough to put some instructions in writing about what should happen to your body, children, and property (no matter how meager that property might be) when you die. The rest can wait. If… Read More »
Protecting Yourself From Excessive Long-Term Care Expenses
Just as many couples promise, at their wedding ceremony, to care for each other in sickness and in health, you should design your estate plan so that it will take care of you in your old age, no matter your state of health. Estate planning involves hoping for the best but preparing for the… Read More »
Your Young Adult Relatives Need A Modest Cash Infusion Now More Than They Need A Big Inheritance Later
Even if you are so old that you do not know the difference between Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, and Tik Tok, certainly you have heard that young people are anxious and pessimistic about their finances. Yes, you can dismiss the aspirations of those teenagers who aspire to be social media influencers the way that you… Read More »
Should You Give Your Spouse Life Estate In Your House?
You can’t choose your family, and in many families, certain people only tolerate each other for the sake of a close relative that they have in common. When that family member dies, the animosity that stayed barely hidden for all those years tends to come out. If there are any ambiguities or surprises in… Read More »
What Causes Retirees To Run Out Of Savings?
The two goals of estate planning are to have enough money to support yourself in your old age and to be able to leave some assets to your family (or any other chosen beneficiaries) after you die. In other words, your goal is to avoid outliving your savings. Public programs like Social Security and… Read More »
Funding Your Revocable Trust
If you have established a revocable trust, you are probably feeling pretty chuffed with yourself. After all, revocable trusts are one of the most effective ways of keeping your assets from having to go through probate. You might not be rich, but at least you are not enough of a chump to let the… Read More »