...and The Topic Everyone Hates....

[tran68]

would your bills get paid, could your family be taken care of, do you even care? :-P I know most of us are pretty savvy on here and wouldn't leave our loved ones in a lurch but I've seen it happen in my extended family too many times. Calls have to be made across the US to get the funding to bury the recently deceased and don't go there with who will be the guardian of the kids who are left behind.... :sleep

Life insurance is all well and good but would folk even know where to begin to look for that kind of info? How will the family survive until a death certificate is issued, or even if you are disabled and have no access to your accounts/bills. I thank God daily that I was in good health up until 6 years ago when I got my first policy, prior to that my family would have had zero dollars and zero cents with which to raise my kids to maturity 8) ...I just figured I was young, would always be around you know the drill.....my insurance agent literally bombed me out as she was a single parent as well, I thought she was my Mama or something....

At any rate, I believe in planning for the unexpected, do you? And not planning in a vacuum, my family members and my back up executress have copies of errythang, including my pswds....now you can't be giving out this info all **** nilly, they have to be very trusted and I know all of us can't trust family. :smug If all else fails, hire a professional.

[gigglezk]

well the day i knew i was pregnant i started making these arrangements. i made a will leaving my child to the paternal grandparents, if they were deceased as well then to the godmother or godfather, or an aunt or uncle. but in no way was my mother to have custody. i got it notarized and gave a copy to my in-laws, our bestfriends(the god parents) and to the aunts and uncles that i also chose for custody. every year or if something changes i revise it to fit the current situations.

as far as money, i know this sounds pretty sad. but when i was younger i always thought my mom was going to kill me and so i started a runaway from home fund. i put $1 away every week until i was 16 and then i began contributing $20 a week until i turned 18. i ended up using that money for school, but did take some of it and open a life insurance policy. and i also have life insurance through my husband's job and i still put away money for just in case.

so if something did happen hopefully, people would follow the instructions i've given and would be able to access the money i've left for them. also i instructed to have me and my husband cremated and spread our ashes in the places we love the most (him-new york, me-the bayou by my aunt's house in new orleans). so that thye wouldn't have to make payments on a casket.

[Nymphe]

We have a will set up and a trust will be done later. We have let people know who will be the executor and caretaker of our children, so there will no drama or that person will be cut off completely.

Are any of you potential executors/caretakers? We will have one niece and I wish we could get the other.

[tran68]

I'm the back up to my gf's Mom and brother and she is for me, even if their father is living (whom she's divorced from) she still wants someone else to handle the finances rather than give him carte blanche. :tiptoe I guess I can see why folk put these kinds of things off it has to be WELL thought out for all involved.

It's always interesting to see these movies/shows of folk leaving their kids to their wealthiest relative, why I think Taye Diggs has a show coming out this Fall based on that scenario.

[mochacaremel]

If something were to happen to me, my family would be okay financially, because I don't actually earn income.

My husband would do fine as a single father (for however long).

BUT if my husband and I were to go and leave my daughter? Well that's where we could be in trouble because although we have a nice size policy, I don't have anyone I would trust with THAT amount of money to do the right thing...

I mean, the money we would leave would be enough to invest and pay for all my child's living expenses and in-state college bills...but it would have to be invested wisely and I already know nobody in my family would do that...they are very "right here and right now" when it comes to money...

*sigh* this worries me to the point where I am actually frozen in what I should do...I just pray nothing happens to BOTH he and I at the same time on a financial level because, I mean both sides of our family would raise her, it's just taking care of the money we leave that has me worried...

Mocha

[rozlips]

Mocha do you not have a friend you could trust to care for your child and handle the financial aspects? Folks do it all the time--leave the child in the care of a relative, but leave the money with a trustee to handle making investments and what not for the child.

[keiranzma]

In this process now, my son is 7 mos. old, and I am modifying our will to make provisions for him. I have asked a colleague/mentor of mine to be the executor of our will should anything happen to both of us. I just felt more comfortable than an impartial party be the one to make these decisions. As an attorney, I have seen the craziness that can ensure when families do not make provisions in the event of death, so I am trying to hopefully head that off at the pass. Now, if we could only decide who will be the guardian(s) for our son...

[Dolliesdaughter]

Most people don't like to think about that. I told my step children's mother to have an insurance policy on my DH in case something happens to him they could have some money to take care of the children. Well they looked at me like I cross eyed. I told DH if God forbid something happened to him they would be stuck because I took care of it on my end. I have the policy and it is too me and they wouldn't get anything because it isn't a policy that he pays into. Once he is gone child support stops and it is going to stop in 8 years regardless. No one is thinking of college or anything.

[jada1111]

At this time I do not have a family of my own to worry about or any tangible assets.

If I was to drop dead today my family knows to cremate me. :violin No sense in spending thousands of dollars for a casket just so I could be buried in the ground for all eternity. I'm just going to turn to ashes anyway in about hundred years.


Okay, I'll be serious. :razz Both Suze Orman and David Bach said life insurance is unnecessary if you don't have loved ones to take care of. Money can be well spent somewhere else.