Estate planning may not be a fun thing to do on your own, but it is the responsible thing to do. It doesn't matter if you have millions or nearly nothing, you should do what you can to plan what is going to happen after you die. You aren't doing it for yourself, you are doing it for your children. When it comes to your estate planning, there are some steps that you need to take to make it easier for you to make sure that everything is taken care of.
Inventory
The first step of your process should be to make an inventory of everything you have, even if it is of little monetary value. Monetary value doesn't equal sentimental value, and you may have things that have a high sentimental value and a low monetary value. For example, if you have your grandmother's handwritten cookbook, that can be very sentimental, but it isn't worth any money. Making an inventory of everything you have, including insurance policies, will make it easy for you to decide what goes where and to who.
Guardianship
If you have children, you need to make sure that you have guardianship set up so that your children are going to be taken care of after you and your spouse, partner, or co-parent are gone. When you look at your guardianship options, make sure that you talk to the people you are interested in so that there are no surprises to anyone after you are gone. When the person you ask to be the guardian for your children says yes, make sure that you put that in your will and other estate planning papers. Ideally, you should check with your guardianship options every so often to make sure that they are still willing to take care of your children if you die.
Powers of Attorney
There are a number of kinds of powers of attorney, including limited, which only gives the person the ability to make certain decisions; financial, which lets the holder make decisions about your finances; and medical, which lets the holder make all the decisions about your healthcare options. Part of your estate planning should involve who you want to hold your powers of attorney in case it's necessary, and what kind of power they are going to have. You can give all of your PoAs to one person, or split them up.
Estate planning may not be something that you are really looking forward to doing, but contacting a local general attorney who can help you get it done — such as https://wolfleyandwolfley.com/ — will make the process much faster and easier for you.
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