Awakened Planning: How to Talk About Estate Planning at Your Family Reunion

July is National Family Reunion Month and the perfect time to reconnect with family from near and far, share life’s updates, and reminisce about the wonderful memories you share together. If you’re getting together with family this month, it’s also a perfect time to talk to your loved ones about your shared goals, family resources…
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Vacation Ready: Essential Legal Preparations for a Worry-Free Getaway

Vacations are a time to relax, unwind, and create beautiful memories with your loved ones. But before you set off on your adventure, it’s essential to ensure that your legal affairs are in order so you can fully relax during your travels.  Can’t imagine doing one more thing before you take some much-needed time away? …
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Capturing the Stories of Aging Loved Ones: The Power of Family Wealth Legacy Interviews

May is Senior Citizen’s Month, a time to reflect and appreciate all the things the seniors in our lives have done for us. Whether they are our parents, grandparents, or elderly friends, our seniors have given us so much over the years. But sometimes seeing your loved ones aging or seeing how you’ve aged yourself…
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Want to Grow Wealth? Warren Buffet’s Unexpected Investment Advice

If you are going to take investment and estate planning advice from anyone, Warren Buffett is likely one you want to consider. As one of the most successful investors in history, his track record speaks for itself. However, his wisdom goes beyond picking stocks and making money.  At this year’s Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder meeting,…
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4 Ways to Use AI to Make Life Easier for You and Your Family

Whether you’re turning on the news or scrolling through Instagram, it’s hard not to hear about AI technology, so this week I wanted to take some time to cover what the buzz is about and how you can use this technology to make your own life easier.  AI (artificial intelligence) language models like ChatGPT and…
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4 Common Mistakes Made On Life Insurance Beneficiary Designations

Investing in life insurance is a foundational part of estate planning, and when done right it’s a primary way to say “I love you” to your loved ones after you are gone. However, when naming your policy’s beneficiaries, several mistakes can lead to potentially dire consequences for the people you’re investing to protect and support.…
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The right business planning

Why Every Adult Needs A Living Will

When it comes to estate planning and wills, you have a variety of options for legal documents. The most common of these options is a “last will and testament,” which is also known simply as a “will.” But you may have also heard people talk about a “living will” and wonder what that is, and…
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Green Funerals: 6 Eco-Friendly Options For Your Remains

The environmental costs of death are significant and constantly rising. With 8 billion people on the planet right now—all of whom have bodies that die and must be disposed of—we need to start seriously considering alternatives to traditional options for burial and cremation. Fortunately, more and more “green” options are being developed to reduce these…
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7 Issues To Consider When Purchasing Disability Insurance

If you earn a good living now, but you worry about not having enough money for a future time when you cannot work due to illness or injury, disability insurance is your answer. However, you need to make sure you are getting an insurance policy that will meet your needs and not waste your money.…
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5 Smart Ways To Pay For Your Funeral That Won’t Leave Your Family To Foot The Bill

With the cost of a funeral averaging between $7,000 and $12,000 and steadily increasing each year, at the very least your estate plan should include enough money to cover this final expense. And if you are thinking of simply setting aside money in your will to cover your funeral expenses, you should seriously reconsider, as…
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Life Planning

Special Needs Trust: Protection for Those Who Need It the Most

Families of those with disabilities – physical or mental – are typically concerned with the best way to fund the long-term financial and personal needs of their special needs loved one in a way that will secure a fulfilling life…

Senior Drivers and Safe Driving

One of the uncomfortable moments of life for many people is when they try to address automobile ownership and driving with their elderly family members. States have grappled with this issue over the years, considering driver’s tests for older drivers…

How to Reduce the Cost of Long-Term Care Insurance

A person who turns 65 today has a 70% chance of needing some type of long-term care at some time in their remaining years, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. On average, women will need 3.7…

The Final Log-Off: What Happens to Your Data When You Die?

Take a moment and consider how much of your life you live online. If you are like most of us, you bank, pay bills, make purchases, connect with friends and communicate with just about everyone you know online. Think about…

5 Reasons Why You Need to Review Your Estate Plan

Creating an estate plan to protect your financial future and that of your family is just the first step in the estate planning process. Once those documents are executed, you will still need to review your plan annually to ensure…

Leave an Inheritance for Future Generations with a Trusteed IRA

According to the Investment Company Institute, the use of IRAs for retirement saving has increased in the past decade, with $6.5 trillion invested in traditional and Roth IRAs. But how much of those assets will pass beyond the primary beneficiaries…

How to Create a Lifetime of Care for a Special Needs Child

Parents of children with special needs usually share one overriding concern: what will happen to my child after I’m gone? They also struggle with guilt for what they envision as an eventual destiny for their other children who might assume…

7 Things To Think About Before Making Gifts to Grandchildren

If you have grandchildren – or are getting ready to welcome one like political power couple Bill and Hillary Clinton – you know the special joy they bring. After all, you can now leave all the heavy lifting to the…

The 4 Key Life Skills Your Children Need to Have Before They Inherit

Inherited wealth need not be “an albatross around the neck of the children” as Sting so succinctly put it recently when asked if he was leaving his wealth to his children. His children will not see much of his millions,…

How to Prepare Your Heirs to Receive, Protect and Grow Their Inheritance

When we think of vast family wealth, most of us know the name Cornelius Vanderbilt, the railroad and shipping scion of one of the richest families in America in the 19th century. When he died in 1877, he left a…

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