Trust Me Part I

I have lots of ideas for posts. Often, I am chauffering someone, somewhere, and I think, "This would be a fun subject to write about." But alas, by the end of the day, when I am done putting dinner away, bedding the children, returning phone calls, I just want to sit with my sweet Hubby and not be looking at a computer. Maybe Blogger will figure out some kind of voice recognition blogging device.

What are you missing? You must be wondering. For one, you are missing a good story about how I almost ran over the father of one of Aidan's classmates... (In order to get Aidan to school, I slug through traffic of 3 schools: our neighborhood school, the middle school, and finally, Aidan's school. The said father was on his bike, trying to cross a four lane street by the middle school, and I was trying to get Aidan to school on time. I slammed on the brakes at the cross walk, THEN he got on his bike and crossed the street. I didn't actually, almost, ran him over. However, as the whole car continued to move forward with the inertia, and all the bags fell onto the floor, Aidan said, "Hey! That is E's dad!")

What have I been doing, while not blogging, is setting up our our family trust. It is something we have been told to do, for a very, very, long time. When I started my private practice and bought my own life insurance, I was told to do this. Well, we didn't! (We had a will, no trust, from looonnng time ago.) Then our accountant got on our case, and I still procrastinated. It still truly bugs me, that I have to spend money on an attorney, to avoid probate costs, because attorneys made up the rules?! Seriously?! I should have gone to law school! But alas, the idea that A&Z could be in limbo with no milk money was sad enough to make us do it.

For our local friends, if you want a rec, Kimberley is great. She came to our house, for starters. (Although I am sure she charged us for coming to our house, but whatever, she came at NIGHT.)

The road to having a trust is long and arduous and obnoxious and annoying, even with a great estate attorney like Kimberley. We had to pick guardians, and backup guardians. We love these people, but we shudder to think of their complicated lives should we die prematurely. It is problematic, as we all have/will have at least two kids, that if we die, S&A could be parenting FOUR kids. FOUR. And our back up couple could have FIVE kids! Did I say that we love them?

Then there was the need to figure out how to give A&Z money. I tried to set it up so that I could control them from the grave, but Hubby talked me out of it. There was also this weird decision, that if all of us died, what do we want to do with the money? Do we want to give the money to our siblings? What if they died, do we want to give the money to our nieces/nephews? At what age? What if they are still very young? Seriously, too many choices.

There is also the stuff about what to do with my body if I become incapacitated. Everyone, I am game for being an organ donor, but definitely, not to be used for research, academics, or "therapy." Whatever that may be.

The "fun" part of the estate, is that we get to write letters to people to clarify this and that, to help people not to have hurt feelings. However, I think our letters to people will essentially be: "If you don't like this, suck it up. Too bad." I think it is nice that I get to tell people off from the grave.

I am so very, very, happy to say, that our trust is signed. There is just this obnoxiously tedious process of putting stuff in the trust...

By the way, did you know your life insurance policy (if greater than one million) is going to be taxed? I think most parents have a policy of at least that much, and just think, the government wants about 1/2 of it. So that your kids can starve. (Of course, our estate attorney devised some way to reduce such risks, of piling things in different piles...) Kimberley said, "You will always get taxed, whether income, gift, estate, or capital gains." Trust me, you need to get a trust in place.