Joseph A Leonard - Wealth Management & Consulting

We have been busy preaching the benefits of estate planning. Our last post focused on elderly estate planning and now we are bringing our tips full circle with overall family estate planning guidelines.

Estate planning is a part of financial management. There is no difference in making wise financial investing decisions, paying your monthly bills and planning for your estate. In fact, you can often tackle some of the most difficult decisions of your life now, while you are young with a family so that later, your goals can be achieved. There are many things to look at, but some of those mentioned below are most important for the family unit.

Plan for Your Children

Planning for the care and well-being of your children is very important. If something, happened to you, who would care for your children?

• List a guardian for your children.
• Put in place a trust fund for each of your children to pay for their care should something happen to you.
• Ensure any wishes you have are clearly defined in your will and in the trust fund requirements.

This is something you need to do if you have children under the age of 18, under the age of 21 and you want to put stipulations on their access to money, or for any disabled children of any age.

Focus on Life Insurance

Life insurance is critical when you have a family. Right now, you may have a mortgage to pay. You may have debt and higher financial responsibilities then you will later on. If something happened to you, could your family continue with the lifestyle that they are comfortable with? A life insurance policy can pay off your mortgage and debts and provide your family with the money they need to make ends meet for several years.

Reduce Your Taxes

By establishing the right type of estate plan, you can take control over your financial investing and overall financial management after you are gone. One of the things you can do is to set up trusts that will shelter your assets from estate taxes, which are levied on virtually everyone when they die. You can reduce the amount of money that your family pays to the probate courts.

Make End of Life Decisions

Do you want to your life to be sustained through machines? If you become ill with a life threatening disease, do you want intense and invasive procedures to be taken to extend your life? Do you  have specific wishes about the medical care you receive such as surgical procedures, religious beliefs or others? Do you want your organs to be donated? All of these decisions only you can make, but you cannot make them later. These are decisions you can make now and clearly put in your will.

If you have a family, you do not want to leave them with these financial management decisions. Rather, if you start planning now for your retirement years and beyond, you will find yourself in a position to achieve the goals you have and to help your family to cope in one of the most difficult times of their lives. Make these decisions now before you cannot make them.

This includes providing this information on your pension, your retirement accounts, your investments and your life insurance policies. Verify that those beneficiaries are accurate.

• Do you need to appoint guardianship for anyone? If you have a disabled or minor child, this should be listed in your documents.

When you take the time to make these formal decisions now, you ensure that your estate planning goals are in line. Take some time to consider all of your options before making these decisions. To ensure that your wishes are legally provide, simply work with an experienced estate planning attorney to handle them.

Ask Joseph Leonard and Coastal Investment Advisors for additional personal finance advice or learn money management tips on financial management by downloading this free financial management guide.

Don't forget to see Joseph Leonard in person during an upcoming financial management seminar!