Organizing and Storing Important Documents for Safekeeping
Acknowledging how tenuous any individual’s grip on life can be, it is crucial to be ready to transfer relevant personal documentation to your executor, and not wait until some emergency, or worse. In response to this sobering realization, I developed a list of important documents to help ensure all my family’s documents are readily accessible in case of need. I call the list “LifeDocs.” I considered signing up for a subscription service offered by a company, Everplans, to organize and store my family documents on-line in an electronic vault, but decided I am not yet ready to trust our documents ... Read More
Millennials and Finances
Millennials are known as fiscally conservative, savings oriented, and future planners seeking financial freedom as core attributes. A large part of millennials' formative years was influenced by the US sub-prime mortgage crisis beginning in 2007, shortly followed by an international banking crisis, which led to what became known as the Great Recession. The millennial generation would have ranged from ages 11 – 26 years of age when this economic downturn began. Living through this economic volatility, not seen since the Great Depression, gave rise to the fiscally conservative millennial mindset. The other socio-economic force that continues to shape the millennial ... Read More
Almost Everyone Has a Digital Footprint – Do you have a Plan?
In today’s world, there are very few individuals without a digital footprint anymore. From social networks like Facebook, Linkedin, Instagram, Twitch.tv and Twitter, blogs and licensed domain names, email, music, photos, seller accounts on eBay, Amazon, or Itsy, gaming accounts, even your financial, utility, and medical accounts are all part of your digital footprint. When most of us created these accounts, we blithely accepted the End User License Agreement (EULA) without much thought to when we would no longer be around to manage their content and activity. However, a EULA designates in detail the rights and restrictions that apply when ... Read More
Is Long-term Care Health Insurance on the Path of Collapsing?
Routine estimates predict that about 50 percent of older adults will require long-term care at some stage of their lives. If you are an adult 65 or more, the percentage moves up to 70 percent. However, the demand for long-term care far outnumbers an affordable or even existing supply. For years the private sector long-term care insurers have been fleeing the marketplace. Americans who currently carry long-term care insurance are a small fraction, about 7 percent, adults over 50 years of age. There is a private sector inability to meet Americans' overwhelming long-term care needs at an affordable price. The ... Read More
A Solution For Financial Literacy & Wealth
Financial literacy does not require a unique set of skills, specialized knowledge, or even excessive risks. You can choose a path that can, over time, make you a self-made millionaire, provided you are a millennial or younger. Americans who achieve millionaire and multi-millionaire status using the Saver & Investor technique took about 32 years to accumulate multi-million-dollar wealth. Some reached it as early as 18 years. These people are called saver-investors, and when you encounter one, they might not seem that rich at first glance. Saver-Investors typically are ordinary people without any particular advantages in life. They did not come ... Read More
How Do You Prepare For the Next Pandemic in Your Estate Planning?
The disease-causing the 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak got its name on February 11, 2020, by the World Health Organization (WHO). The coronavirus disease 2019 shortly after became known by its abbreviation, CO for corona, VI for virus, D for disease, and 19 for the year of the outbreak; COVID-19. This virus will likely become a milder illness in time because of vaccinations, pandemic controls, and naturally occurring herd immunities. Still, COVID-19 will probably be with us humans forever, endemic in large swaths of the world in varying degrees of intensity. According to National Geographic, COVID-19 may eventually transition into a ... Read More
When Might a Beneficiary Not End Up Benefitting?
EVOLVING CASE LAW IN CALIFORNIA IS OPENING UP A NEW FRONTIER IN ALLOWING AN ESTATE PLAN’S TERMS TO “TRUMP” A BENEFICIARY DESIGNATION ON A NON-PROBATE TRANSFER One of the most long-standing and seemingly “bulletproof” estate planning mechanisms – the direct designation of a beneficiary on an account -- be it a bank account, an IRA, a stock account or the like, is increasingly no longer as ironclad as both practitioners and their clients have long believed. A modern trend in California is gaining momentum in probate courts across the state whereby title rules are increasingly being bent to accommodate a ... Read More
5 Tips to Rethinking Your Retirement Plans
If you’re relying on a 401(k) or and IRA plan for your retirement, Kiplinger.com is suggesting it is time to rethink your financial retirement portfolio. You may have built up a significant nest egg with these plans, but it does come with serious baggage during your golden years. It is impossible to argue against the early stages of a 401(k) when employers match your contribution to the plan. You can take advantage of the tax breaks because contribution money comes out of your paycheck before calculating taxes and that money compounds every year. When you retire, however, the tax impact ... Read More
Retirement Planning for Gen X
There are many things to consider in regard to retirement for Generation X as they enter their 40’s and 50’s. It’s advisable to look at and understand your personal finances, investments, insurance policies, legal documents, living arrangements, and healthcare. Creating a detailed checklist within these categories and taking action on each item will help you plan for the future. Meeting with an attorney can help you establish overall goals for your retirement and legacy planning while ensuring the steps you take will lead you to retirement success. With regards to longevity, things may not be what they seem in the ... Read More
Do You Know How a Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust and Probate Law Can Help You?
A Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust and Probate Law that focuses on elder law can help you and your family plan for the future. Elder law encompasses a wide range of legal matters affecting an older or disabled person. Issues related to Conservatorship, retirement, health care, including Durable Powers of Attorney for Financial Purposes, Advance Health Care Directives, Long-Term Care estate planning, Social Security, Medicare and Medi-Cal, and other relevant matters to aging all fall under the umbrella of elder law. An older family member who legally prepares for their aging process helps their family members by addressing day ... Read More
How Turning 18 Means It is Time for an Estate Plan
In most states, when your child turns 18, it might be hard to imagine that little child who once needed you for everything has now become – overnight – an adult. Now your child is free to vote, marry, apply for a credit card, make medical and financial decisions, sign contracts, and live independently. No wonder the law calls this coming of age “emancipation.” But if your adult child is hurt in an accident and needs somebody to make critical medical decisions, you cannot be the one to do that without your child having named you as an agent under ... Read More
Social Security Funding is Now At Risk
The US Social Security Administrations funding trusts are known as the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) Trust Fund and the Disability Insurance (DI) Trust Fund. In their 2019 annual report to Congress, the Board of Trustees released some startling detail about projected insolvency for the Social Security Program by the year 2035. The Social Security Administration (SSA) has been dipping into its "trust fund" to meet scheduled benefit payouts. Social Security program costs continue to exceed non-interest income. The OASI has no authority to borrow money, and during the COVID-19 pandemic, the American workforce is severely reduced. Now there are ... Read More
