What are we doing all of this FOR?
Did you ever have one of those conversations that changes your life? How about one that changes the way you look at things so drastically, that you just can't believe what happened during the course of the conversation? One of my friends had a conversation like this recently. I talked to him about his experience the other day. I had talked to my friend a while ago, before I had started my law firm, about preplanning for his accidental demise. He's a married guy and had recently had a child. We're talking on the phone and I am telling him about how everyone needs a will, an advance medical directive, and some other documents for himself and his wife. And that all the documents need to be updated to include his new kiddo. And that he had to do some things to set things up for the child, too--things like a trust, joint bank accounts, next-of-kin notifications, decide who was going to be the long term guardian, and all that jazz. And then I dropped a bombshell on him: I told him he needed to make sure everywhere his kid went for activities, or school, or things like daycare, that ALL those places had an emergency contact who could come get his child until the legal guardian got there and established control. I explained that if he and his wife dropped the kid off for a date night, and then they were both killed in a car wreck, the place where the kid was would have to notify the emergency contact who would literally DROP EVERYTHING and assume control of the children until the next of kin arrived. It was like time stopped. He had not even thought of this eventuality. His kid's next of kin was an 8 hour drive away. His best friend (me!) was over 4 hours away. The gears started turning in his head, and he is working on planning for his estate--and his kid's immediate and long term care needs. I mentioned earlier that I talked to my friend about a life changing conversation he had. This was with another friend of his. The other friend was in a similar situation. Married, young kid. My friend and the other guy were talking, and my friend mentioned that he was working on his estate planning. They chatted for a while, and the other guy mentioned how he was so busy that he hadn't had time to handle this huge task. This huge important task. He was too busy providing experiences for his kid: swimming lessons, math classes, kindergarten, and on and on. So many different things were going on and life was busy, and who has time to think about estate planning and dying? And my friend says: "What are we doing all this for?" He's right. We are so busy providing our children with an interesting life, and taking care of our own lives (have you checked your bank statement? finished your taxes? looked at your 529? paid that water bill?) that we never think--what are we doing all this work for? If you are working a 40- hour-a-week job, and saving up all your extra money, and doing everything right, and you are so busy providing experiences for your kid that you cant spend a half-day planning for what happens when you aren't around--what are we doing all this for? I am not trying to scare you--just to make you aware. We can get a will done and some of the extra paperwork done to set you up with an estate plan in about the same time it takes for you to watch a football game (go Bills). In about the same time it takes you to do a yoga class and hit the coffee shop, we can help your kids make it into the future you are working so hard to provide them with. Call me today.
1 Comment
4/22/2019 01:27:14 pm
All excellent points! They also need life insurance, even if it is very affordable term life. There are also life policies that include living benefits. The death benefit can be accessed to pay for long term care expenses or to pay to replace a paycheck if the beneficiary gets a critical illness such as Cancer or stroke.
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AuthorJeff Sodoma, MPA, Esq. is a lawyer based in Virginia Beach, Virginia Blog!Hello, there! Welcome to my blog. I will use this blog as a platform for my writing. I will write about topics in the legal world, certainly, as well as everything else under the sun, because I have many interests (and viewpoints). All views expressed in this blog, unless otherwise noted, are mine alone. One of my interests is music--my wife believes that I should go on "Beat Shazam" because I know so many songs--and I will be, from time to time, analyzing song lyrics and how they relate to the legal world.
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