Despite the headache and stress the holidays can bring, they are ultimately about family and the spirit of coming together to bring the gift of joy and good will to others. To preserve these feelings, there are some topics that are often taboo – politics, religion, and money among others. However, discussing estate planning shouldn’t be a taboo topic. In fact, family gatherings can be the perfect time to finally tackle that estate plan you, or your parents, have been putting off.

The Family is Home for the Holidays

The main advantage of addressing your estate plan during the holiday season is that the close family is likely all in one place now. Nowadays, it’s easy to have children or grandchildren scattered across the country whether it be for family, work, or school. Often, the only times the bulk of a family gathers in one place is for the holidays, weddings, and funerals. Thus, having everyone together will provide you with a perfect opportunity to discuss your estate and your legacy with those you need to in a one-on-one or a group setting.

New Years are for New Legacies

Taking the concept of a legacy further, the holidays are also where we often think on the past year and look forward to what we want to accomplish in the next. We’ve talked about this before, but one of the main goals of estate planning is to create a legacy that leads to generational wealth. By that, we mean enriching the lives of your children or beneficiaries in a meaningful way, ensuring they have the freedom and flexibility to go through life with some type of comfort or robust safety net, and to do so long after your gone.

As many of you might know, having a child radically shifts your priorities in life. My son is a massive blessing and have shifted the way I think about the future and what kind of legacy I’ll leave behind. I don’t just mean passing on the family name or even necessarily a family business. My wife and I try to prioritize creating a happy, healthy, and safe home environment for our son, while working in the background to build the generational wealth to hopefully enrich our son’s life long after we’re gone. All this comes together to create a legacy where our son will remember his mom and dad lovingly and be financially comfortable because mom and dad handled the planning, taxes, and asset creation. While my son is only about 2-year-old at the time of writing, you can be sure he’ll be involved in our estate planning once he gets a little bit older. The only way to create the legacy my wife and I seek is to plan accordingly, which is why we use a living trust, wills, and powers of attorney – the best way to plan one’s estate effectively.

Online Buyer Beware

One thing to note, while online shopping for that perfect deal, make sure to use caution when doing the same on your estate plan as, in many ways, you can expect to get what you paid for. There are a lot of online cookie-cutter estate planning solutions out there, along with in-person too-good-to-be-true deals. Watch our video on what to look out for there. Keep in mind, attorneys have gone through extensive legal education, are licensed after taking a rigorous exam, and have continuing education to keep on top of. You shouldn’t leave an important aspect of your legacy in the hands of the lowest bidder tip toeing around practicing law without a license. You should meet with an attorney with experience or who specializes in estate planning. Many, like ourselves, even offer free consultations, which you should take advantage of when you see it.

Making a List & Checking it Twice

With that, even if you already have an estate plan, you should review it every 4 to 7 years, on top of the many life events that may require documents to be updated to plan for or around. These include: marriage or divorce, moving to a different state, a significant change in the value or character of the assets in your estate, the birth of a child, a change of your intended beneficiaries, a change of law for estates, taxes or privacy (something that doesn’t happen all too often in the estate planning world), or unfortunately, death – whether it be the death of a spouse, beneficiary, guardian, trustee or personal representative named in your estate plan.

Waiting Only Costs More

Some consider outdated plans to be worse than having no plan at all. However, from our combined experience of over 50 years in the estate planning field has taught us that it is often significantly more costly to not plan, than it is to have an outdated or even subpar plan in place. 67% of Americans don’t have an estate plan. That means tens of thousands of dollars per American may be chewed up in legal fees, taxes, and worst of all, filing fees. Give the gift of a legacy this year. Make building a legacy a family tradition and don’t let your hard-earned estate amount to only a stocking stuffer.

BETHEL LAW CORPORATION
ESTATE PLANNING | ELDER LAW | BUSINESS PLANNING

CLICK HERE OR CALL US AT 909-307-6282 TO SCHEDULE A FREE CONSULTATION.