Daily Life Planning
You plan daily work schedules, weekends, even your weekly grocery shopping and dinners. Many times your plans for one event can take a year or more to finalize. Extensive planning is involved to get married, have a baby, or go on vacation. Without the plan in place, you wouldn’t know what to expect or how to even go about your daily life.
Life Goes On
We all know the old adage “Life goes on.” But have you planned for when it doesn’t? There will come a time when life does not go on as usual and the daily expected plans will end. Eventually the daily plans will turn into something else: the unexpected illness, the accident causing life-threatening injuries, or the sudden death of a spouse. Life is always changing and we must be ready to change with it.
Seek Financial Advice
The only way to prepare for the unexpected is to sit down and think about what could happen and how it would affect you and your family. In the newest informative webinar by Hopler, Wilms, & Hanna, LLC, “Fundamentals of Estate Planning & Investing”, Adam Hopler discusses facing the unexpected with Maria Litzinger of Edward Jones in Apex, NC.
Personalize Your Strategies
Maria makes sure that her clients are ready for the unexpected. “We can’t predict, but we can prepare,” she says, continuing with the advice: “Develop a proactive strategy so that you have the financial resources to handle whatever comes your way.” Everyone needs to personalize strategies and partner with an advisor who understands the best ways to make more informed decisions about the future. One way to do this is to evaluate your goals and decide if there are new goals for your immediate future. Maria walks her clients through setting goals and preparing for the future by investing and saving.
Preparation is Key
Maria and Adam discuss that when you prepare for the unexpected, your overall strategy will not veer off course during a rough time such as the Covid situation that we are now going through. Life is full of the unexpected. An accident could leave you incapacitated or incompetent. A life-threatening illness could give you two months to live.
If the unexpected happens, do you have a plan for yourself and those you love? Are you prepared if you could no longer make decisions? Give your family the confidence to handle any medical emergencies you might face and to know how to handle your financial, business, and digital assets once you are gone.
A Good Estate Plan Includes:
A Will
A will is a legally binding document that lays out who receives your property and assets once you are gone. Without a will in place, the state will decide. In your will, you also name the person (or people) who would be responsible for your minor children if you can no longer care for them. If you are married and you and your spouse both die, it is important to have this designation in place so that their future is secure. Without a will in place, the state may place your children in foster care or with someone untrustworthy.
Power of Attorney
If you are incapacitated or declared incompetent, a power of attorney gives someone you trust the power to act as if they are you as they handle your financial decisions. Writing out a power of attorney for your estate plan prevents the state from appointing someone who may not have your best interests at heart.
Trusts for your Financial Assets
A trust is an account that someone you trust has control over during your life and after you pass on. Depending on the type of trust, you decide when, how, and under what circumstances the money is given out. When you die, the money in a trust does not have to go through probate and is available immediately to your beneficiaries.
Medical Directives
It is wise to choose someone you trust to make decisions about your healthcare needs if you become incapacitated and cannot make your own medical decisions. The two types of legal documents that reach this goal are called a health care proxy or a power of attorney for health care. You can also make a living will, a document that states your wish for life support to be withdrawn if you are in a vegetative state or in the process of dying.
Create Peace of Mind
Planning well can give you peace of mind in life’s storms.Take the time now to learn how to save and invest well. See a financial advisor to make your financial plan. Contact a knowledgeable attorney in estate planning law to help you draw up your legal plan. An attorney with specific knowledge in estate planning will know how to take next steps to prepare you and your family for the unexpected.
Give yourself the peace of mind to know that you are prepared. Give your family the certainty they need to make difficult decisions about finances and healthcare should the need arise.