May just may be my favorite month.
Not too hot.
Flowers blooming.
My grass hasn’t been scorched yet and my yard looks pretty good with only a few weeds poking out.
I haven’t messing things up… yet.
Speaking of not messing things up yet… here’s the agenda for this newsletter:
- Will or Trust?
- 📖 Book Recommendation
- Words of Wisdom ❤️
Estate Planning and a Warning
I apologize in advance.
You’re going to get a wide-open look into my real life, so if you want to continue on with the belief that everything about me is sunshine and rainbows… just skip to the book recommendation.
I learned the importance of Estate Planning first-hand during the last months of my mom’s life and the subsequent months following her death.
Luckily she had a will and trust in place… because we needed to use them.
She put together a will about 30 years ago when she got cancer the first time, but a lot changed in those 30 years.
For one, she and my dad got divorced 10 years after her first diagnosis.
Two of my siblings got divorced and their respective spouses were in my mom’s original will.
She went from 3 grandkids to 16 grandkids… and then 3 great-grandkids.
Her assets and financial situation had changed quite a bit over 30 years.
When she got her most recent cancer diagnoses last April, she and us kids went to an attorney to update her will, set up a trust, establish a financial power of attorney, and put together her medical directive on how to handle her care should she become incapacitated. There were a lot of updates made and some errors we discovered in how she had her assets papered and organized.
It was a great exercise and it seemed like we were all on the same page of what to do leading up to and once she passed.
I was wrong…
The Worst Experience of My Life
In more detail than you probably want, my mom was miserable her last month.
Cancer is a terrible thing.
She got to stay at my house for a week and she would beg me to just let her die as she got worse and worse.
The circle of life is an interesting event. I would lay in her bed and snuggle her when she couldn’t warm up, just like I know she used to do for me when I was little. I’d tell her stories about what our kids were up to and good memories, just like she would tell me stories when I was a kid to help me fall asleep.
What put her in the hospital the last time was sepsis.
She was on life support and her body was shutting down.
She was fading in and out of consciousness over her final two days.
My oldest sibling was the one in charge of her medical directive, and he had a tough time dealing with this.
I don’t blame him. It’s our mom. He held onto the hope that she would be able to win the fight one more time, because she had won every fight before. He had a difficult time accepting the fact that this was the end, and that it was time to let her go.
It was emotional. It took difficult conversations from the nurses and doctors to help him feel comfortable honoring her end of life wishes.
If we did not have her medical directive, I fear that her pain and suffering would’ve lasted much longer than it did.
Instructions to her kids
After her passing, she had specific instructions about her funeral wishes and how her assets should be distributed.
Even though we were all present and involved as these plans that we put together while she was alive… people handle emotional times like this differently.
Here’s how seemingly every discussion about a major decision seemed to play out:
“Mom had conversations with me privately and I think she would’ve wanted us to do change her funeral wishes.”
“Well… mom had conversations with just me and I think she would’ve wanted us to split the estate differently than her trust indicated…”
“Mom told me…” and “I think mom would’ve wanted…” followed by things that were the exact opposite of what her estate plan instructed us to do…
As the youngest kid, by far (my closest sibling is 12 years older than me) my opinion hasn’t ever carried much weight with my siblings, but what seemed to become my mantra during this time was repeating, “What do her will and trust say? Let’s show her we love her by honoring that.”
It was nice to be able to just pull out the organized will and trust, point to the section in question, and we could read it together.
There were still disagreements, but most of the final resolutions were already there for us to respect together.
Learning More About Estate Planning
Our website has some articles, but I want to point out some other resources for you in this newsletter if estate planning is on your mind.
- The Financial Call
My good friend and fellow Retirement Nerd – Zacc Call – has an awesome podcast called the Financial Call.
You may have seen him as a guest on the channel on several occasions.As part of this podcast, he put together The Guided Path here:
https://www.thefinancialcall.com/guided-pathSeason 5 is all about Estate Planning.
Listen to all 8 seasons, they are great, but make sure to listen to Season 5. - Potential Partnership
I hesitate to include this section in the newsletter, because the last thing I ever want to be in this is “salesy.”
So, if you already have an estate plan or you know you want nothing to do with one… please skip now to the book recommendation.Zacc and I are working through a potential partnership with a company that offers an estate planning tool that is sort of like the Turbo Tax of Estate Planning. This means it is online, it guides you through exactly what you need to put in your estate planning documents, it can be accessed and updated at anytime, and it puts everything together in a simple, well-designed package that makes it easy for you, your spouse, or your kids to know exactly what to do.This partnership allows a certain number of estate plans available to Capita (Zacc’s company). There is a chance that Zacc and Capita will allow a limited number of people who are part of our newsletter access to this tool at a discounted rate. To give you a quick idea of costs, a discount estate plan with an in-person attorney in our area is between $1,500 – $3,000.With this tool, it would be in the $800 range and again, it is online and easy to update whenever you need.
I will keep those of you who are interested in this topic in the loop on what this all looks like over the next month or so as we figure out what the partnership will entail. I don’t want to bug those of you who are not interested, so I made a page on my website where you can put in your name and email address if you are interested. Only those who put their name on that list will get updates on this estate planning opportunity rather than everyone having to hear about it next month.
Here is that page to put your name on the list – putting your name here does not obligate you to anything:
Estate Planning Tool ListIf you are not interested… super easy… just don’t click that link, and let’s move on 🙂
Book Recommendation
This book was recommended to me by countless people on our YouTube channel over the past couple of years.
I was able to grab it and give it a read.
My philosophy after reading most books is that there are things I agree with, there are things I need to think through more deeply to figure out how I feel about it, and ideas I can’t fully accept into my life.
This book had a lot more in the “agree with” and “need to think through” categories.
I can’t say that I would live my life 100% by this book, but as you are thinking about retirement, or maybe you’re already in retirement, the author’s ideas based on real data and numbers help make retirement finances less daunting.
My dad laughed when I told him to spend more on kids now rather than when I’m older and don’t need the help 🙂
I would argue that the main point of this book is that we get this one life to enjoy.
Protecting ourselves and our loved ones financially is important.
Hoarding money and never being able to enjoy the memories and experience money can enable would be a tragedy.
Give it a read. I think you’ll enjoy it.
Words of Wisdom
My new schedule and ability to work from home now allows me to walk my kids to school every day.
I have loved this opportunity to be with them, talk with them, and see them go play with friends before school.
My two older kids (11 and 9) usually take off to their grade lines and go play with friends as soon as we step foot on school grounds.
My youngest (5) likes me to stay with her until the bell rings and wait until she’s all the way in the school before I leave.
This means that I get about 7-10 minutes each day to stand on the kindergarten playground and see all these little kids run, play, pick up worms when it rains, and say goodbye to their parents.
The Red Head
I have nothing against red heads, it just the way I’m going to describe this individual because he has long, strikingly red hair.
He isn’t in my daughter’s class, but he’s in her grade. I’d seen him before because, again, his hair is impossible miss.
One morning, he is playing with two of his friends on a hill next to the playground.
He accidentally steps on his friend’s foot, trips, and falls… bonking his knee on the ground.
It was one of those slow build ups where you can see a meltdown is about to happen as he realizes:
- He fell and his knee hurts.
- His friend was the cause of his fall.
- He is about to cry in front of his entire grade and he can’t stop it from happening.
His emotions boil over and he starts yelling/crying.
First, he yells at his friend, “You tripped me! Ahhhh!!!”
Next, he gets up and starts running toward a secluded corner of the playground behind a bunch of bushes.
During this dash to a more private area to release his tears, an odd thing happens…
He starts ripping off his clothes.
It was an odd moment.
I felt bad for him and his hurt knee.
I also couldn’t help but laugh at his way to cope with this situation.
He throws his hat on the ground, he rips off his jacket, throwing it as far as he can, and then strips off his shirt and throws that on the ground, too. All while sprinting to this secluded part of the playground.
Friend 1 – The Observer
The Observer the friend who was just a witness. He didn’t trip anyone, nor was he tripped by anyone.
As soon as The Read Head starts running away and discarding clothing items, The Observer follows him and starts picking up each clothing item, carrying the pile of clothes back to the corner to give to The Red Head.
Friend 2 – The Tripper
As soon as The Red Head fell, The Tripper reaches out and asks him if he’s okay, followed by, “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to trip you.”
It wasn’t this kid’s fault at all. His foot was firmly planted and it was all just a clumsy accident caused by 5-year-old little humans not being in full control of their motor skills.
Once the screaming, the sprinting, and the clothes shedding commences, I could see that The Tripper was genuinely sad for his friend, and he apprehensively starts following The Observer picking up the line of clothes in the direction of the secluded corner.
I did not follow them into the corner, so I don’t know exactly how that conversation and series of events unfolded, but a few minutes later, they all emerged from the corner. The Red Head wasn’t crying and was fully clothed. The Observer was right behind him with The Tripper and they all appeared to be friends again.
My Thoughts on the Matter
For some reason, the idea immediately hit me that this little event is a microcosm of moments in my life.
There have been times where I’ve been The Red Head.
I’ve been hurt. I’ve been embarrassed. I’ve lashed out in strange and confusing ways, trying to find a private corner of the world to deal with my pain – away from others who could maybe use this embarrassing moment against me in the future.
I’ve been The Tripper.
Unintentionally hurting someone and worrying that they believed I intentionally did something harmful. I’ve sheepishly approached friends and colleagues to say sorry and ask for their forgiveness because of a moment of poor judgement, motor skills, or awareness.
Finally, I’ve been The Observer, but more importantly, I’ve had a lot of Observers in my life who, after seeing the wreckage of poor decisions and painful experiences, followed behind me, picked up the important pieces of me, and met me in my corner to put it all back together again.
I think that, for the most part, we are all making our way through life doing the best we can.
Our internal motivations are rarely (hopefully never), “let’s see how I can hurt someone today.”
Likewise, I don’t think our coworkers, friends, neighbors, or strangers wake up in the morning and think, “How can I make Erik’s life miserable…?”
I think we are doing things to make sure we and our families are okay, along with everyone else.
So… for this next month… consider looking for opportunities to Observe.
Notice those around you who may have dropped something along the way because of what they are going through, and let’s see how many people we can restore to being whole just by being willing to be there in a time of need.
I appreciate you making it this far and love hearing from each of you.
Until next month,
Erik
