Childfree Estate Planning - Childfree Wealth Podcast Ep. 70

Hey Childfree Wealth listeners. Today we are going to talk about one of Bri's favorite topics. I mean literally it is her favorite topic, I swear. Estate planning.

Bri

Yes, I'm very excited for this one today.

Dr. Jay

You are very weird that estate planning is what gets you very excited, but yeah. Why are you so excited about talking about estate planning?

Bri

Because to me, it is the biggest act of love you could do for people in your life is having all your stuff together so that they don't have to figure things out in the unfortunate event that something happens to you, which it will eventually.

Dr. Jay

Yeah. Yeah. By the way, the numbers is, at some point you're going to die.

Bri

Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Jay

Yeah. You can't escape it. I think the thing to keep in mind from an estate planning standpoint is as childfree folks, we don't have a standard next of kin and the government, financial system, health care, all assume you’re going to have next of kin. And if you don't specify that, the government’s making decisions for you. Bri, how do you feel about the government making decisions for you?

Bri

Not good. That is, I was gonna say something else, but I'll just say not good.

Dr. Jay

You know, like, I’m not even making a political statement. I'm just, I mean, do you trust the government to make decisions for you? And I just don't.

Bri

No. Not at all. Not at all.

Dr. Jay

And by the way, it’s not always the government. So if you have a health care issue and you don't have somebody appointed, it might be the doctor, be something like that. But I just, we we need to figure this out. Because…my wife, I get in a car crash. The question is, A, who makes medical decisions for us? B, who makes financial decisions for us like pays the bills?

And C, who lets her dog out? Now, it may not sound like much, but like, seriously, someone's got to let our dog out. You know, these are all things that need to be part of our plan. And it's, it's hard. You know, the systems are not meant to do this. You know, this is one of those things where, if you don't have paperwork in place, good luck. It can be like that.

Bri

Pretty much. Yeah, it really is, good luck.

Dr. Jay

All right, Bri, we're going to get into specifics of will, power of attorney, all that fun stuff. We’re going to go over all the legalese in a sec. But before I even do any documents I need to figure out, you know, who should make the decisions. Who's making decisions for you?

Bri

Number one is my wife. Number two is my mom, which will not be a forever thing, but it is for now.

Dr. Jay

Yeah. By the way, a lot of people have that where they have their spouses first, or if they're a soloist, you know, they might just jump to their parent. But the problem is your parents are going in the wrong direction. You know, statistically, they're older than you. I don't know. There's no way they're going to be younger than you. So, you know, let's just go with that.

You might be their executor or their power of attorney. And the executor’s, by the way, somebody who makes decisions for the will. Power of attorney, somebody that, while you're living. But if you don't have someone, kind of like, it becomes an issue. And I’m going to go through a little technicalities on this one for you. And this is one that keeps me up at night, is who's going to make decisions for the 50 million or so childfree folks in the United States when they can’t.

And the problem is, if you don't have a family member or friend that you trust to do this, then you run out of options. So we had actually gone through the book club, Sara Geber's book on Solo Aging, and she talks about building a community to help make your decisions. And I've seen this and I was just talking to somebody recently and they were in a group in the LGBTQ plus community that has like a friends watching out for friends, doing this for each other.

That's a cool idea. I'm okay with it in general. But the problem is, do I really want to count on my friend making decisions for me for 3.7 years while I'm in long-term care? You feel comfortable with that, Bri?

Bri

I would definitely do it for certain people in my life, but it doesn't mean that I want to do that. And, you know, caregiver fatigue is real. Taking care of people, even if it's just saying, hey, this is what needs to be done while they're in long-term care is still hard. And that's still a big responsibility.

In general, if I can avoid it, I will.

Dr. Jay

Yeah. So my realization on this, and this is just messed up in my head. It's okay. You get to come hang out in my neighborhood and you'll see how messed up it is. Now, I'd be perfectly fine making decisions for a friend or a family member for years when they're disabled. I would not be comfortable with them making decisions for me, not because I don't trust them, but because I don't want to be the burden.

Bri

Mm hmm. Yeah, that’s a fair argument.

Dr. Jay

I mean, it's kind of sad to say, like, I'm okay. Like, if somebody put that burden on me, I would go, all right, cool. Yeah, I'll take care of that for Bri, but I wouldn't want to have to turn around, and go Bri, you're going to take care of me.

Bri

Yeah, and I don't think that, I mean, one of us is dying first, so, yeah, like, it's not going to work out.

Dr. Jay

We're passing back and forth 50 bucks for a Christmas gift every year, and the last one to die is the one that wins, like.

Bri

Yeah, exactly.

Dr. Jay

And a friend they can share. Cool. I did have a really interesting discussion. Somebody’s talking about, like, a Golden Girl setup. And they were all each, supporting each other. But the problem is like, statistically, one of you is going to outlast the rest. And you're out of luck. If you're in California, you can actually get somebody called a professional fiduciary to do this service for you. I’ve also heard the same of Arizona.

Some states, not so much. Yeah, I know there's one attorney in Georgia that does something, called the aging ally. Attorneys in Texas would do the executor part, but not the medical part. Like, I've been working on this for clients all over. You might be able to get a trust company to do it, but really that's only if you got like 10 million or more.

So you have to have a bunch of money for it. And if you don't, the court will actually appoint a guardian or conservator. You know, it depends on the legalese terms of like, what they are, but they'll appoint somebody to make those decisions for you. Problem is, that person who doesn't know you from a hole in the wall. Like, literally, like they know you a court case number 12456 and are making good decisions as best they can.

But like, they don't know you.

Bri

Yeah. I have a question about this too, with the conservatorship. Is this, like the whole Britney Spears thing? Is it essentially that except for a stranger?

Dr. Jay

So, okay, two different parts. You can go in to court and say, Bri has lost her mind. I'm going to take over everything for her. That's actually the Britney Spears argument. So in order words, when she was young and then went beyond it. Then, essentially the person who has had a conservatorship pushed on them would have to say, no, I'm here.

I should make my own decision, which we saw, like, the legal battle of that. That often happens, like, end of life. Like, yeah, you can't make decisions, good financial decisions, no again next of kin. They will appoint somebody. Usually end of life, it's kind of like, you're not going to get it back. There's also voluntary conservatorships where you can say, yep, I'm good, Bri’s going to take care of this for me.

The problem is the legalese on this stuff and like the lawsuits and all that. I mean, it's a nightmare. And by the way, everybody's watched the movies where, you know, the conservator’s, you know, taking advantage of it, like, like unfortunately it’s kind of common, like. I don't really want to, there's not a great solution for this. And hopefully by the time this airs, I’ll have some better answers. We've been working on this, I’ve been working on this for two years trying to find better solutions, talking to everybody, companies, different things. The answer is, we may have to change some things with our company to be able to help people with it, like, it's a nightmare. Like literally, it’s the thing that keeps me up at night, because of exactly what you're talking about. It is that, Britney Spears. Now, by the way, we all don’t have money like Britney Spears or like, you know, doing a whole bunch of other fun stuff that got her into the conservatorship.

Bri

Yeah, that's true. But I don't ever want to be in that situation.

Dr. Jay

Yeah. So you’ve got to find somebody you trust to appoint into these positions. And I start with that because that's actually going to help us through the decision-making process for all the documents. You can actually have a different person for the executor than your medical power attorney, than your financial power of attorney. They can all be different people. And by the way, you need a person and a backup.

Bri

Mm hmm.

Dr. Jay

Because, like Bri just outlined, her spouse first, her mom is second. Well, the problem is, you know, if her and her spouse are in a car crash, mom is the only one on the list now.

Bri

Mm hmm.

Dr. Jay

That's where it starts becoming an issue. I've seen people say, well, I'm going to have my nephew do it, or, you know, whatever. And I do kind of like, okay, they’re my nephew, and I'm going to give him some money to do it. You can specify that in the will, or power of attorney, you know, you know, we’ll pay them for their time, but please have the conversation with them first before you put them on a piece of paper.

Like you literally can name anyone. You can, yeah, by the way, don't do this. But you could be like, Bri Conn is my executor on all the paperwork. Never met her in your life and she gets a phone call from the hospital and like, who the heck is this? Now, by the way…what's that?

Bri

I'm like, well, whatever your paper says, I guess is good.

Dr. Jay

And what actually can happen is if you name somebody and you don't tell them, they can just say: not it! And just like, go to the next person. This is where it becomes a problem. So if you're listening to this and you’re thinking about your paperwork, you’ve got to solve that question first. Everything else will get easier. You just have to like, figure out who you trust.

I particularly worry about this for the soloists. I’m single, no kids. I moved away from my family for whatever reason or have a bad history in my family, and I don't have any connection with them, and I don't want to have like my neighbor be my power of attorney. And I'm like, good thoughts. And then I'm like, what do you do next?

Well, that's where it becomes a challenge. And you have to, you could try your local attorney, you could try a local bank and trust, see where they fit in. But you need to start working on it now. If I didn't freak you out about finding out a person, let's go through the rest of the documents. All right, Bri, so what's a will?

Bri

A will specifies what is going to happen to your estate. So any money you have, any of your property and you're just your stuff too, after you die. It’s the legal document outlining all of that. Who is to get what.

Dr. Jay

Okay, so, Bri, you have your will. Who gets all your stuff?

Bri

My wife, and then, my mom.

Dr. Jay

Okay, once again, we're going the wrong direction.

Bri

I know, yes, I know it's the wrong direction, but I'm young enough that my mom is in good capacity for now. When that changes, it'll change.

Dr. Jay

By the way, this is where a great place is to put in and say, hey, you know, whatever's left over goes to my favorite charity or whatever else. How do you decide who to give your stuff to?

Bri

That really will depend on your relationships with people and what you want to do. Just because, just because I want to give stuff to my family doesn't mean that you have to. You can say, no, you weren't a good person to me. Adios. You don't get anything. That's totally fine. It's all dependent on your heart. And there's no good way to say, this is how you decide.

It's just, you have to take time to think about it.

Dr. Jay

Yeah. And by the way, keep in mind, we are not talking about the legalese of this, yeah. We're not helping you write a legal document. There's services, you know, you can use an estate attorney or fill your own services like trust and will. But we're really talking about the questions that go in it, and the question of who to give your stuff to, that's a tough question. 

My answer, by the way, is I’m going to die with zero. You know, I want to die with zero. Whatever is left over goes to my nephews. And we have three nephews, two on one side of the family, one on the other. And if my nephews get 10,000 or 100,000, I'm fine with it. If they get $1,000,000, I should have spent it or given it away before, is the way I say it.

But the question is, do I give half to each side of the nephews or does each nephew get a third? What do you think, Bri?

Bri

I’d just split in half personally, but if there are certain things that have come from family, that is all going to my sibling. They get that because it's from my family and certain things from my wife, that's all going to my wife's sibling.

Dr. Jay

And by the way, you can arrange it any way you want. We've decided, you know, we're going to split in half and then, essentially, two nephews get to split the other half. One nephew gets the other one. Just recently before we recorded this it was Thanksgiving weekend and saw my nephew and he's 11, and he says, well, I don't really want to be rich when I grow up, because, you know, that comes with a whole bunch of like, stuff.

Now I can now you know, we're around the dining room table, you know, having this conversation and I said, to them, okay. So you're okay, then I don't have to give you money in the will. And he's like, well, you can give me a little. All right, he's already put his order in. You know, like, it sounds silly. If you don't have family members you want to give it to, if you want to give it to your favorite charity, like I saw somebody, great will, they split it between four national parks that if those parks don't exist, it goes to some other group. And I’m like, that’s beautiful because they, that, you know, they love national parks, and I'm like, awesome, you can do whatever you want with your money. They don't get a vote in it.

Now, one little caution, if you have that crazy family member, now, I'm not using crazy as a specific term, but I’m just kind of working this through. If you have somebody where you think they might fight your will, the best bet is to give them like a couple of bucks in the will and then say if you fight it, then you get nothing.

It’s called a poison pill. All right, here's a thousand bucks. And if you fight it, you get nothing. Yeah, I was reading some of these wills the other day, and literally, like this lady wrote, it was like, if you contest this will, I'll treat it as you have pre-deceased me. Which is legal speak for, I’ll treat it as if you were dead. It’s like, all right, well, that’s one way to do it.

Keep that in mind. Now, also in your will comes a harder question. I'm going to ask Bri this one: who gets Lily? And if you haven’t met Lily, and heard of Lily, Lily's, you know, Bri’s pup. Who gets Lily?

Bri

My parents get Lily. And then, if they're not around, then my sibling gets Lily.

All right, so who gets your pets is actually a big question. Also, do they get money to take care of your pets? So we have a mastiff and a jerk cat. Those are big asks, so they get money for taking care of them. Okay. Just kind of how it works, but you want to make sure you specify that in your will.

By the way, you can also in your will specify like, you know, do you want to be cremated, or body donated, or whatever? You know, I said, I want to go on a Viking funeral and Bri's going to be the one shooting the arrow in there. But, you know, we'll see if she actually does that.

Bri

I’ll be ready for it. I'm a good archer if you didn’t know that. Fun fact about me. 

Dr. Jay

All right. I mean, you can also put in, by the way, wills, you know, do you want a funeral? Do you want a wake? Do you want all that? The best I've seen recently was, all those things are boring, I want to have a party. You are all to get kegs and get drunk. And I was like, all right, we're going to specify. And let’s do it.

Bri

There you go. 

Dr. Jay

So that’s you will. Then we get into like this living will or health care directive or health care proxy. What's that?

Bri

So living will says what to do while you're still alive and essentially giving directions as far as, do you want to be put on ventilators and machines like that to help sustain you, or do not want any of that? Do you want to be taken off of it? Do you want to be given nutrition like through a feeding tube and water or anything like that or just no to everything.

Bri

So it really allows you to give guidance for your medical decisions.

Dr. Jay

Yeah. And by way you’re going to specify somebody that's going to be the power of attorney making decisions for you if the paperwork doesn't like, have the answer. And you’ve got to be careful on that. My parents, my, my mother wants, like, none of the machines, my dad wants all of them. Well, reality check is if my dad's making the decisions he's going to say, put all the machines. Where my mom said ugh, I want to plug pulled.

That's why I’m actually listed as the power of attorney there, to pull the plug. You know, you’ve got to make sure that your family member or whoever is going to be doing this is willing to go along with it. Now, a little technicality on this. That only comes into place when you can't make decisions for you. Like, you know, hey, they got a breathing tube in you and you can't speak or whatever else.

Otherwise you're doing it, you're making it. You know, they'll step in when they, when they otherwise have no clue. The thing on the living wills, I had somebody the other day talk about, organ donation. Because that was actually a question that goes on our will. They're like, well if I'm an organ donor, they're going to like, kill me off faster so they can get my organs. I was like, yeah, no, that's not actually how that happens.

But you get to specify whatever you want, whatever you believe, or don’t, you put it in there. You can be restrictive based on religious beliefs or whatever else it is. You can put in there. Once you get your medical power of attorney, your living will, health care directive, which are all the same document. Just, different states have different names. You want to put it on file with your primary care doc so it goes to a electronic medical record like, if you happen to be living in another state, you’ve got one. Anything weird in your medical power of attorney or document?

Bri

Just let me go.

Dr. Jay

No machines.

Bri

No, I don't want that.

Dr. Jay

By the way, no judgment either way. It's just, it is what it is. It's up to you.

Bri

Yeah. My day will come and I will just want to be gone, thank you. Don't keep holding me on just to hold me on.

Dr. Jay

Is your wife okay with that answer?

Bri

Yeah, because we're the same in that.

Dr. Jay

Yeah. By the way, if you have questions on this, talk to your primary care doc because they can walk you through it. One of the things that people miss, so I worked as a paramedic for years. And one of the things you learn is that whole like movie thing, where like, they do CPR and then like, they’ll put the pallets together and shock you, and like, and, you come back and you’re like, hi, how am I doing? That’s not the way it actually happens, okay. The likelihood of that happening is very, very low. There is a point where it's like, yeah, it's not worth it. I will tell you one of the examples of the power attorney and how important this is, the medical power attorney. So I was, I was working as a medic and I go to this person's house and the guy’s, I don’t know, in his 80's, something like that.

And he's dying of cancer, has a whole bunch of family members around and they go, hey, he said, DNR, do not resuscitate, we're not going to do CPR. And I said, well, do you have the paperwork? And they said, no. Well, then, them telling me that means nothing. And I had to go start CPR until they found the paperwork.

And, you know, you got six family members around the bedside, you know, upset, fighting, all that, until we have paperwork in place. Because of the paperwork, very easy. But without it, you have to follow your protocols, you have to follow the process. And each state and area will have different protocols around that. But that's the way it works. You’ve got to have that paperwork.

And by the way, when, when do you need to have a will and medical power of attorney? Like, now. Whenever you listen to this now, whatever age. 

All right. Next up on the list, Bri, is, financial power attorney. Tell me about that one.

Bri

This allows other people to make financial decisions for you and control your finances. This can be while you're still in good capacity. So, for example, my wife's gone on a trip, and I need to do something. I need to sign some financial paperwork for her because we're trying to buy whatever, I have the right to do that using the financial power of attorney.

Dr. Jay

Now there’s two different types of this. There's the ones on file all time. That's what you got there. There's also one that is called springable, which only come to effect when something happens. Like when they can't make decisions or other things. The downside of the ones you're talking about, where they're always in place is like you give your neighbor, because that's the one you decide you trust, and they’re financial power of attorney, they can go in and sign as you and do whatever they want with the financial forms. And now, by the way, you get to specify, you, like, can they open accounts, can they close accounts, can they, you know, blah, blah, blah, whatever it is. But you are giving that power to act as you. And you've probably actually done this at some point without even realizing.

So for example, if you buy a car, often you have to sign what they call a limited power of attorney so they can fix like typos in the forms, or take your forms to the Department of Motor Vehicles, or something like that. That's a limited. Versus, we’re talking about a full financial power of attorney like, they're me. You know, they could, like, go buy a house under my name and take on a mortgage.

Even though I don't believe in debt, they could still do that. So you have to be careful about who you do that. The interesting thing is a lot of people I found have a different financial power of attorney than medical power of attorney. And part of it just has to do like family and friend dynamics, like I trust so-and-so with my health, but I don't trust them with my money.

Bri

Yeah, that is true. Some people do have that and that's totally fine because I know that my wife will just say whatever Jay says. If something were to happen to me and I'm good with that, I have made very clear the things I want done. So I'm not too concerned. But not everybody has that.

Dr. Jay

Yeah. And that brings me to my last part of this core stuff, which is that in case I die file, or I love you file. My wife, I fairly admit. She doesn't do the finances day in and day out. Probably doesn't know where everything is. Well, she knows she goes in the safe. There's a piece of paper that says, I love you and here's what to do.

And, you know, you just imagine the conversation, you know, Bri’s might say, call Dr. Jay, and he'll walk you through the next steps. I've got a friend's name listed there. If all else fails, call this person, and they'll help you through it. It literally has everything in it. So tell me about your in case I die file.

Bri

It starts out with specifying everything I want for my funeral and, very like, I even went so far as to take a screenshot of Google Maps and mark where I will be sprinkled.

Dr. Jay

Little controlling there, Bri. Just saying.

Bri

Yeah. And it's like, part of it is on like, our family land, and there's a lake like shallow one that's like. exists sometimes and it says if it doesn't exist, keep me hanging around on the shelf until it does. Then you can sprinkle me. So I put those things in there, the flowers I want, like, for example, I hate roses.

I think they're the most over or whatever. Like, I just hate roses. So I wrote in there, do not lay roses over my dead body and, like, just different things in there so it can be kind of nice and fun.

Dr. Jay

So everybody listening, send Bri roses, no.

Bri

Oh, my God. No, pink peonies. I love pink peonies. And then, it also has who the person that grooms our dog is, who is in charge of boarding our dog, where to contact people for insurance, different things as far as accounts and where our stuff is located in there as well. Different logins for my accounts on different various apps and websites.

So it includes all of that information in there and I didn't think about this till the other day. I found a really good one and I'll link it in the show notes. Also groups to notify that I'm part of like hey, you know, you got to end my membership with that group because I'm dead. So that's also going to be in there very soon.

Dr. Jay

Yeah. And by the way, all your accounts, your passwords, the best bet is actually to have like a password manager you share with the people that are, you know, your executor or power of attorney so they can have access to it. But like it's a dumb question, like who owns your socials and like, what do they do with that? Which actually has become a big issue, especially if you have a brand and other things, you know, like there's a value to them, who actually says I'm dead, are they allowed to post as me?

Like, it sounds silly, but these aren't, like tough questions at this point. I was in the conversation with somebody recently about their digital assets like, hey, can I specify that, they like, just destroy everything? Sure. You know, I had somebody else who's like, had like a two part, like somebody needs this password and somebody has that password, they have to put it together to come up with a password key.

I don't care. If you do have crypto. Big issue of like, whether you have a hot or cold wallet and who can get access to it. I mean, all these things need to be specified because you're imagining somebody taking over your stuff where you left off and like, are they going to be okay? Our rent is paid automatically. But if it wasn't, like, do I have to pay it right this second? Like am I going to be kicked out tomorrow?

Like, how does that work? And that's all got to go in your in case I die file and updating this once a year is really important, at least once a year. But you want to have that in a place where someone would get to it, which goes with all the paperwork. You need a will, power of attorney, all that. You need to have an electronic copy. You also need to have a paper copy.

You need to get it signed, depending on the state, you might need it notarized, and you need to keep it up to date. You can change a will at any time. Like, you can like, rip up the old one, put a new one. No big deal. You're not making lifelong decisions, but you need to have access to it. Like, you know, we're going to have a separate episode, talking about preparing for your parents.

My parents live 1200 miles away. If I don’t have a copy of their power attorney and I get a phone call in the middle of the night, I’m out of luck. To make sure you're, you're sharing this stuff. The nightmare is like, you keep the will in the safe deposit box, and then the person doesn't have access to the safe deposit box because they need the will to say they have access to it.

And that's in the safe deposit box. Now I need to go to court to get access to it. It's a nightmare, you know. All this paper needs to get done. The other one that needs to get done, it’s not necessarily in this paperwork set, but it is part of estate planning, is your beneficiaries. You need to update all the beneficiaries in your accounts and need to check them once a year.

Yeah. I just had somebody recently who got a document from finances that had an old address on from years ago. Where’d that come from? I don't know. Some system updated somewhere like beneficiaries, like your H.R. system updates something, or overrides your 401(k). Anything that’s to a beneficiary passes outside of the will. That's something that's important to put in place and make sure you update it, especially like, you know, have a life change. Hey, I got divorced, but my ex is still listed as a beneficiary. Insurance policies on the accounts, and all that. It becomes a big priority. 

Bri, in closing, kind of like, you know, I know this is your favorite topic, but what advice would you give somebody to do right now?

Bri

I would, we'll put an article in the show notes here, but take, read that article, sit down and figure out the answers to those, and get this stuff done right away, unless you’re good with your government making a decision for you.

Dr. Jay

And by the way, the government depends on where you are at that time. You might like your state right now, but if you're traveling, and, you know, you get in an accident in some other state, who knows? Now, by the way, just keep this in mind for the will. If you don't have a will, the government will try to find your next of kin.

But some states don't try so hard. You know, like, for example, Bri gets killed in some random state in a car crash. I don't know why I keep killing off Bri, but she's here.

Dr. Jay

And, they, some states will just put like, an ad in the paper saying Bri has passed. Do you know her? No? Okay, thank you. And if they don't find next of kin, the state takes the money for themselves. Guess what? They don’t look so hard if they can like, take the money, like. I hate to be jaded that way, but some states look a lot harder than others.

People are like, I had somebody say, well, x, y, z, state as a department that does it. Sure. For how many people are they searching for their next of kin? And at what point do they just give up and take it?

Bri

Very true. I mean.

Dr. Jay

Yeah. Get your paperwork in place if you, the one other one, I'm just going to make a caution. If you are a couple and not married, this all needs to be in place like, immediately because being married kind of fills in some of the blanks. So at least your spouse should get the stuff and should be able to make a power of attorney decision for you.

I say should because who knows some states are trying to like, have issues with marriage and different things. You need to have that in place so that if you're not married, your partner can make decisions for you. Particular issue of LGBTQ plus community. I was talking to someone the other day, and her partner, who've been together for years, had a heart attack and luckily the hospital was willing to talk to her. But the hospital by all rights could have went, nope, you're nobody, bye. So you’ve got to make sure that paperwork's on file. Get it done, get it done now.

Bri

Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed the show, please consider leaving a rating or review. We'd love to keep the conversation going. Follow Childfree Wealth on social media or email us at [email protected]. If you're interested in working together, book a free consultation call by visiting our website: childfreewealth.com. We'll see you next week.