If you have stayed out of trouble and haven’t gotten caught speeding, there is a good chance that you have never been in a lawyer’s office.
Most people do not wake up in the morning thinking about dying. Preparing a will is something that you do when you get “older”. So, when do young people go to the lawyer’s office for the first time?
When my wife and I had our first child, we did not have a house or any “estate” that we needed to plan for. We did not have any money to worry about. But we did not want to leave our baby to fend for herself. We wanted to designate who she was going to grow up with in case we got killed in a car accident. Computers were new and we downloaded a free template for a last will and testament, filled out the form, and had it notarized.
Later on, we bought some life insurance. We were in the early stages of preparing to die. We did not think about it this way, but that is what we were doing. Buying life insurance triggered more questions about a living will, power of attorney, a living trust, and a last will and testament.
We had three kids and a house and we were in our middle thirties. The templates on the computer were not enough at the time. We wanted someone to sit down and discuss options with. This is the first time that we were in a lawyer’s office.
It is a dynamic process. We have updated our will, changed to a living trust, moved to another state, and updated the trust again. Our beliefs about death have also evolved and we have changed our living will at the same time.
Live each day to the fullest and live each day as if it was your last. But you are going to die someday and I think that you need to have a plan even when you are “young”.
Related posts: