Financial Planning Notes (cont'd)

Dear Friends and Family,

I'm taking today off. We have carpet cleaning coming in and I need a break from work. Mr. mouse successfully completed his mission yesterday. Our deck is now completely furnished.

So to continue on yesterday's monologue. I went to an estate planning seminar last Thursday. Estate planning seems to be a fancy word for what happens to your stuff once you're gone.

There are three important considerations:

• leaving as much as you can
• to the right people
• in the right manner

Leaving as Much as You Can

You want to minimize tax and other things if those things are particularly complex in your jurisdiction. Also, there's things people can do (can I be any more vague?) to speed the time it takes to get funds to people. And, there are more things those same people can do to keep some of the records more private so they don't become everyone's business.

To the Right People

Huh? Your heirs, right? Not so simple. Think a step out from that. Your heirs' heirs. These same people can set it up so that you control not only who gets your money, but who they're allowed to pass it on to. Don't ask me how, I don't quite understand that part yet. But, it makes sense.

For example, let's say I die. Mr. mouse gets it all. Okay so far. He'll probably keep it equitable between my folks and his because he's a good guy. Let's assume he does, to draw the example out. Let's say, my folks then croak. What'll he do next? Don't know. Let's say he leaves it all to his dad. It's in the realm of reason. Then, let's say Mr. mouse joins me and it all goes to his dad.

Well, from there it starts to roll downhill. It'll go to his step-mom and then his two step-brothers. And, here I am, a perfectly normal person, going HUH? I'm not sure that's what I want to happen. I'm not working my @$$ off to enrich his step-brothers. How about my siblings? I'm not sure I would want them to get it, but sure as heck they're as entitled as the step-brothers. Mr. mouse would agree, since he's not particularly close to the step-brothers. Better yet, we'd probably both prefer a charity over any of the siblings/step-siblings. So, how to do that...

In the Right Manner

If you're heads not spinning yet. This gets into how much you trust your heirs. Do they need to reach a certain age? Is it a lump sum? Is it an annual stipend? Is it a 1:1 match with their own savings? Is it a 1:1 match with certain expenses? All of the above have pros and cons and someone needs to sort through it and make a decision on how to do it.

Now you know what I know.

Right now, I got more pressing matters. Tea. Yoga. Feed Caesar, the fish. Carpet cleaning.


Cheers!
mouse