When we set up our Trust our lawyer instructed us to change our children as our secondary beneficiaries to our Trust. I was just reading Ed Slott’s The Retirement Savings Time Bomb Ticks LOUDER, and he states that there is no reason to have your trust named as a beneficiary for most people unless you have questions about the recipients responsibility. Also notes that your beneficiaries may have to empty the trust in less than 10 years.

My wife and I just had our wills and POAs redone. We changed our domicile form PA to NJ a few years ago, and it was recommended we have them updated. I was surprised how different some of the documents were from state to state. For example, NJ has an 11 day period before a will can be probated, starting form the date of death. PA does not have that. The Medical POA and Advanced Directive was very narrative driven;

As I’ve written here before, my mother-in-law has been dealing with Alzheimer’s, and this last year has been a constant learning curve of navigating long-term care policies, trying out in-home caregivers (pretty major fail), and finally a memory care residential facility.
Well, this past week was a new challenge. My MIL passed away suddenly on Tuesday night. We got a call from the memory care facility that she’d fainted several times,  so they’d called an ambulance.

My wife and I moved from PA to NJ about 3 years ago. After we moved I looked into whether we should update our estate documents since we changed states. It seemed like a smart thing to do, but it took us 3 years to get around to it.
We recently met with a local estate attorney and reviewed our wills and POAs. There was some specific Pennsylvania language having to do with setting up a trust for contingency heirs – our grandsons – if one of our sons pre-deceased us.

A recent forum post explored the topic of how to financially protect a surviving spouse. Several commenters mentioned they either had, or were planning to, delay the higher earners Social Security (SS) retirement benefit until 70 to assure that the surviving spouse received the maximum benefit. This is the plan my wife and I are employing, delaying my benefit until I reach 70.
We are currently updating our estate documents, and during a discussion my wife asked me what would happen if I died before I turned on my SS benefit.

WHO HAS TIME TO die? I never realized death would be so busy.
I thought I had my financial affairs in good order. But in the two months since my cancer diagnosis, I’ve made countless financial tweaks, mostly with a view to making things easier after my death for my wife Elaine and my two children.
Here are just some of the steps I’ve taken:

I took my two checking accounts—my personal account and the business account for HumbleDollar—and made Elaine the joint account holder with rights of survivorship.

The last few days have been hectic, attending a funeral for a friend as well as an information session by a local funeral home.
I learned a lot from the presentation on funeral services. Pre-planned funerals can ease the burden on survivors. They claim it is cost effective by locking in current prices. Services these days can be extensive and cover death even on a cruise ship or a foreign country.  They also offer incentives (discounts,

IF YOU’RE LIKE ME, you aren’t eager to spend down your investments. What fun is that? Aren’t you curious to see how big your portfolio could grow? Of course, you are.
After my wife and I are gone, my son will have dibs on the money we’ve amassed. We’ve set up a special needs trust to provide him with income when we’re no longer around. My son has no siblings, so we needed the trust to make sure he’s taken care of.

My husband and I are in our early 70s and have been retired for 5+ years. Our net worth is significant and we are fortunate to have a generous retirement income and lifestyle.  Our adult children are in their 40s,  have good incomes and various retirement benefits. Is there a good, better, best time and way to share our estate plans, net worth or other details about our future plans with your adult children?

Below is a copy of a review I left on trust pilot. It’s hardly any consolation that I was not the only person to experience their deceptive tactics. See link below: (https://www.trustpilot.com/review/troweprice.com)
This review is in response to T.Rowe Price’s (TRP) concerted efforts to prevent me from getting access to my parents assets after their passing. As an executor and trustee I had full and legal rights to these funds. My estate attorney was “quite frankly ASTOUNDED” by their refusal to share information with me in spite of my status of trustee.

MY WIFE AND I HAVE divided household duties over our 36 years of marriage. I’m responsible for the upkeep of anything mechanical. Lori has the last word on almost everything else. In essence, my wife presides over functions that make the household a “home,” while I take credit and blame for keeping the nuts and bolts operational.
I also hold primary responsibility for trafficking the family’s money. I pay bills, ensure accounts are reconciled,

DURING A GATHERING of retired friends, the topic of wills came up. Many had completed their wills and had their finances in order, while others were working on updating their wills. But there were several who hadn’t even started thinking about it. One of them said, “As a retiree, I’m just starting to enjoy my freedom and have some fun. It’s too stressful to think about death. I’ll get to it someday.”
As you might imagine,

ONE OUT OF SIX of our nation’s children lives in a blended family, with 40% of today’s marriages defined as blended, meaning that one or both spouses had been previously married. I live in one of those blended households.
Three decades ago, the data on children from “broken families” weren’t encouraging. I can happily debunk that early data, which didn’t give our family much hope. My two exceptional stepchildren, and our biological daughter, are all productive and contributing adults.

MOM AND DAD WERE products of the Great Depression. I feel like it affected every single day of their lives. Despite their difficult upbringing, they made good financial decisions that allowed them to live comfortably. Part of it was because Dad worked for the same company for almost 42 years. His pension paid him more than I earned in my first job as an engineer.
When Mom died in August 2004, she was almost 84.

MICK JAGGER IS AMONG the most successful entertainers of our time. But despite his wealth, Jagger tells his eight children that they’ll need to make their own way. Similarly, Shaquille O’Neal tells his children that they can earn some of his millions, but it won’t necessarily be given to them. Actor Jeff Goldblum puts it more bluntly: “Row your own boat,” he’s said. Other public figures have echoed a similar theme.
Why do these wealthy folks take such a seemingly uncharitable view?