Estate Planning in Retirement: Lessons from Handling My Parents’ Estate

07/29/20 • 35 min

Have you ever had to deal with closing an estate? Mark Ross happens to have the unfortunate experience of helping to close out 4 different estates in a short period of time. Since experience is the best teacher, Mark joins me today to discuss his experience with the probate process. He’ll share how he dealt with his feelings during the process, how long it took, how he managed, and what he thinks you can do to organize your own estate. Give your heirs the gift of an organized estate by learning all you can now to help ease the probate process.

Organization can be a gift to your heirs

In helping to close out 4 different estates in a short amount of time, Mark Ross learned a lot about the differing levels of organization in estate planning. Probate is a long and complicated process that can be even more challenging if you don’t have all of the pieces of the puzzle. Mark learned that when an estate is well organized the process is so much easier. He feels like that organization was a gift that helped him through the probate process.

How should you organize your own estate plan?

Mark’s main piece of advice in organizing your own estate plan is to get an attorney that is a good fit for you and your personality. He also recommends that you keep meticulous records of all conversations regarding your estate.

Since family dynamics can play a role when money is involved it is important to be clear about the flow of money.

One last piece of advice he has is to never be a coexecutor. He found that that situation could drag out the emotional journey even longer than it needs to be. An executor needs to be able to have the accountability to make difficult decisions.

How organized is your estate plan? Is it updated to reflect your current situation?

3 things you can do to gain confidence in your financial plan in retirement

If you don’t have confidence in your financial plan you won’t be happy in retirement. There are 3 things you can do to gain more confidence in your plan.

Understand how your financial plan reflects your personality. There are a couple of different ways that you can go about planning your finances in retirement. With a probability-based or investment based plan, you will have a portfolio that generates enough income to live on. The second style is the safety-first style. This means having your basic expenses covered by guaranteed income like social security or a pension. These two very different planning styles optimize for different things. Make sure the style you choose to follow reflects your personality.
Educate yourself. Many families have one who invests and the other doesn’t. Both partners need to be educated to have enough understanding to be confident in the financial plan. Hope isn’t good enough. Get a plan you are both comfortable and have confidence in.
Have an emergency fund and a “fun” fund. Sure, this is just a psychological trick but it could give you peace of mind.

How confident are you in your retirement plan?

OUTLINE OF THIS EPISODE OF THE RETIREMENT ANSWER MAN WHAT’S THAT MEAN?

[2:07] What is the difference between information and knowledge?

PRACTICAL PLANNING SEGMENT

[7:41] How do you balance the obligations of the estate with your feelings?
[13:04] They have been able to learn and prepare for the estate closure over time
[14:36] How should you organize your own estate plan?
[16:54] How to deal with differing interests?

COACHES CORNER WITH BW

[20:27] If you don’t have confidence in your plan you won’t be happy in retirement
[23:01] Paying off your mortgage can mean so much to some people
[27:45] Have an emergency fund

TODAY’S SMART SPRINT SEGMENT

[33:03] Think about the past year: what were the best and worst decisions you made

Resources Mentioned In This Episode

Rock Retirement Club

Roger’s YouTube Channel - Roger That

BOOK - Rock Retirement by Roger Whitney

Work with Roger

Roger’s Retirement Learning Center

Organization can be a gift to your heirs

How should you organize your own estate plan?

Since family dynamics can play a role when money is involved it is important to be clear about the flow of money.

How organized is your estate plan? Is it updated to reflect your current situation?

3 things you can do to gain confidence in your financial plan in retirement

If you don’t have confidence in your financial plan you won’t be happy in retirement. There are 3 things you can do to gain more confidence in your plan.

Understand how your financial plan reflects your personality. There are a couple of different ways that you can go about planning your finances in retirement. With a probability-based or investment based plan, you will have a portfolio that generates enough income to live on. The second style is the safety-first style. This means having your basic expenses covered by guaranteed income like social security or a pension. These two very different planning styles optimize for different things. Make sure the style you choose to follow reflects your personality.
Educate yourself. Many families have one who invests and the other doesn’t. Both partners need to be educated to have enough understanding to be confident in the financial plan. Hope isn’t good enough. Get a plan you are both comfortable and have confidence in.
Have an emergency fund and a “fun” fund. Sure, this is just a psychological trick but it could give you peace of mind.

How confident are you in your retirement plan?

OUTLINE OF THIS EPISODE OF THE RETIREMENT ANSWER MAN WHAT’S THAT MEAN?

[2:07] What is the difference between information and knowledge?

PRACTICAL PLANNING SEGMENT

[7:41] How do you balance the obligations of the estate with your feelings?
[13:04] They have been able to learn and prepare for the estate closure over time
[14:36] How should you organize your own estate plan?
[16:54] How to deal with differing interests?

COACHES CORNER WITH BW

[20:27] If you don’t have confidence in your plan you won’t be happy in retirement
[23:01] Paying off your mortgage can mean so much to some people
[27:45] Have an emergency fund

TODAY’S SMART SPRINT SEGMENT

[33:03] Think about the past year: what were the best and worst decisions you made

Resources Mentioned In This Episode

Rock Retirement Club

Roger’s YouTube Channel - Roger That

BOOK - Rock Retirement by Roger Whitney

Work with Roger

Roger’s Retirement Learning Center

Previous Episode

Estate Planning in Retirement: Organization and Communication

By now you know how important estate planning is in retirement. But what is also important is to organize and communicate your wishes to your loved ones. In this episode, you’ll learn how to organize and communicate your estate planning wishes. We’ll chat with Sarah Bunnell from Everplans who will let you know how and why organization and communication are so important. Listen in to hear her expert take on these matters. And make sure you are signed up for the 6-Shot Saturday email so that you can receive an essential document checklist. An estate plan that is not organized or communicated correctly misses the point

Let’s say that you have just finished your estate plan. Congratulations on putting that all together! Now that you have completed this first step it is imperative that you take that next step and communicate your wishes to your loved ones. Once you get your financial assets and legal records organized then you’ll want to ensure that your loved ones know about them. The probate process is very involved so the more information that you can give them now will save them time and worry during an already stressful period. Who should you communicate your estate plan to?

Once you get your estate plan set up you’ll need to think about who you want to share it with. Do you have a trusted financial advisor? A CPA? An attorney? Who will be your point person? You’ll also want to make sure that you tell more than one person in your family. What would happen then if the family member that has all the information was involved in an accident with you? If you are single you’ll also want to consider who your trusted team may be. What about organizing your digital life?

Almost everybody knows that you should have a will and a medical directive. But what about your digital estate? How will your family access your digital files? Is your digital estate a mess? In these modern times of paperless statements, your heirs may not know what kind of accounts, insurance policies, or even properties you own. Without the passwords to the myriad online accounts, they won’t be able to make the payments or changes that they need to in the event of your passing. A bit about

Everplans

Everplans is an online digital vault that we use in the Rock Retirement Club. This online organizational tool stores all the estate information you would need to have organized. Everplans allows you to share information on a piece by piece basis either now or after death to the important people in your life. You can store funeral plans, wills, trusts, financial statements, even recipes, and videos. Learn more about Everplans and organizing and communicating your estate plan on this episode of Retirement Answer Man. OUTLINE OF THIS EPISODE OF THE RETIREMENT ANSWER MAN WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

[1:50] What is an emergency plan?

PRACTICAL PLANNING SEGMENT

[4:18] Why is the organization of your financial assets and legal records so important?
[6:50] What are the essential elements of an organized estate plan?
[14:30] How important is it to organize
[19:45] A bit about Everplans

Q&A SEGMENT

[26:10] You can do qualified charitable distributions at age 70.5
[28:08] A state pension offset question
[29:38] Baby boomers retiring and taking money out of the market
[33:21] What did I end up doing for medical insurance?

TODAY’S SMART SPRINT SEGMENT

[39:20] Lessen the impact of loneliness in the pandemic by calling a loved one

Resources Mentioned In This Episode
EverPlans.com
Rock Retirement Club
Roger’s YouTube Channel - Roger That
BOOK - Rock Retirement by Roger Whitney
Work with Roger
Roger’s Retirement Learning Center

Next Episode

Better Retirement Decision Making - The Retirement Choices You Have to Make

I’m excited to share with you this next series of episodes. Over the next 4 episodes, we will explore how to make better decisions for yourself in retirement. Today we’ll examine what a decision is and think about all the different choices you have to make in retirement. Learn how to evaluate your decision-making process and discover how to make better retirement choices on this episode of Retirement Answer Man.

Decision fatigue can wear you down

Every day we are faced with so many choices. Have you ever looked at the number of different kinds of toothpaste there are to choose from? Even that small choice is overwhelming.

If you don’t have a framework in place to help you make decisions you can easily get worn down. This type of exhaustion is called decision fatigue. The more decisions you have to make the more your willpower becomes depleted. When decision fatigue sets in people often turn to the choices they have always chosen in the past. What do you do when you become overwhelmed by choices?

There are so many decisions you face in retirement

Think about all the decisions you need to make surrounding retirement.

When are you going to retire? Will you retire fully or ease into it? What will your spending look like? How will you create a paycheck for yourself? How will you protect against inflation? How will you pay taxes? Who will you spend your time with? Where do you want to live?

The list goes on and on.

And with each of those big decisions a decision tree with massive roots and limbs sprouts with new questions. It becomes easier to simply ignore all of those retirement choices and stick with the status quo.

Is there a better way to make decisions?

The goal of this series is to help you build a framework to harness decisions. You’ll learn how to make good incremental decisions so that you don’t become overwhelmed. You’ll discover how to focus on the right decisions, the ones that really impact your life. You will develop a structure to get to the result that serves you the best. As a result, this framework will help you improve the quality of your life in retirement.

Are you ready to learn how to start making better decisions? Don’t miss this series, it could change the course of your life in retirement!

OUTLINE OF THIS EPISODE OF THE RETIREMENT ANSWER MAN WHAT'S THAT MEAN?