“What-if” Planning Blog
Legal Preparation for Your People
This week our tip focuses on legal preparation for your people – making and communicating the appropriate legal arrangements that will allow your people to settle your estate quickly and efficiently in a way that provides for their needs according to your wishes.
Financial Preparation for Your People
In today’s tip, we focus on financial preparation for your people -- those family, friends, and associates who in some way depend on you financially, will mourn your passing, and will need resources and comfort to move forward in life without you.
Make this the Year to Act
Now that we’re into 2023, it’s appropriate to look forward to the year ahead. Our goal at Prepare Your Affairs is help you attain the peace of mind that comes with getting your end-of-life affairs in order. In this week’s tip, we offer some suggestions about how to go about accomplishing this task.
Grief Support Groups
If you know anything about our journey following the death of Dave and Kris and our struggle to move forward in life afterwards, you know that our widow and widower grief support group played an important role. In this week’s blog, we discuss how and why this helped us and where those in mourning might be able to find a similar type of group for them.
Is Preparing Emotionally and Mentally Possible?
No matter how prepared a family may be for the death of a loved one, grief will come, and it will manifest itself in different ways for different people. It’s hard to predict how one will grieve because so much of it will depend on your relationship to the deceased, the circumstances of their death, and even your own life situation at the moment your loved one dies. So that begs the question, how can a person prepare emotionally and mentally for the death of another?
Scams Against the Grieving
One of the most upsetting challenges we have discovered since joining the widowhood world is the proliferation of scams that target individuals and families in mourning. Loss is hard enough as it is, but to be violated by someone looking to take advantage of one’s vulnerable state is a cruel twist of the proverbial knife. This week in our blog we discuss scams against those who are grieving.
Where to Buy Life Insurance
Life insurance should be a key component in the financial plan for most families preparing for the death of a loved on whom they are dependent in some way. In this week’s tip we’ll discuss the pros and cons of the different ways to acquire life insurance.
Guardianship of Children
In a 2014 Survey of Income and Program Participation by the United States Census Bureau, 0.1 percent of children under the age of 18 had lost both parents to death. That's one out of every 1000 kids. So while the odds are still in your child's favor…
Gratitude through Letters
As we approach Thanksgiving, we encourage you to consider the important people in your life and take time to write them a letter or note of appreciation and gratitude. It doesn’t have to be long and sappy. Sometimes short and simple is enough.
How and Why We Grieve Differently
Grief is a complex word, which makes it the perfect description of the emotions we face when a loved one dies. Most of us can articulate a definition, but if you closely observe ten different people who are grieving, you’ll discover ten different types of behaviors, emotions, and attitudes. In this week’s tip, we’ll discuss how and why we grieve so differently.
Holiday and Birthday Traditions
Holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, and other special traditions are the worst for anyone who is grieving. These are painful reminders that a loved one isn’t around to help make the occasion special. In this week’s tip we’ll discuss what we’ve learned about preparing for and honoring these events after our spouses passed.
Survivor Financial Plans
Death is expensive. In addition to the hard costs of a burial or cremation, there is the cost of replacing the income and/or the services that the deceased provided for the family. There may also be costs to “settle” the deceased’s estate or to aid grieving family members. These and other unforeseen expenses make the creation of a “what-if” financial plan critical for the surviving family members…
In this week’s tip, we outline an important exercise to go through to make sure that your family is ready for when that time comes.