Articles

Vacations and Holidays Are the Perfect Time for Families to Talk About Estate Planning

If you are spending the upcoming holiday with older family members, this is actually a great opportunity to talk about planning with them. While there are few “perfect” times to talk with parents about their estate plan, the relaxed times you spend together on vacation or downtime during the holidays can be one of them. You have the benefit of having everyone together sitting down in one place. So take advantage of that!

Here are some tips on how to bring up this critical conversation:

Find a good place to start.

One of the best ways to ease your parents into a financial discussion is to bring up your own.  Tell your parents that you were looking into your own estate plan and wondering if they had already executed their own.  You can let them know that you have learned that the different types of plans require very different levels of effort from the executor and cost from...

Many families choose to spend their Thanksgiving Holiday volunteering at soup kitchens, food pantries, or other shelters. While this is a great time of year to do so, we know that these facilities are overwhelmed with volunteers during the holiday season and then in great need of volunteer and monetary support the rest of the year when families have gone back to their day-to-day lives. Volunteer work such as this is such a great way to teach your children gratitude, financial responsibility, and to recognize there are many in need this week and all year round.

Volunteering and giving are great opportunities to build family unity. Bob Graham, Founder of the Namaste Foundation has discussed that in his career as a CPA he worked with clients who had inherited wealth. “I noticed the tremendous insecurities many had,” says Bob. “They lacked confidence in their ability to earn money on their own and were fearful of losing money – almost to the point of being...

With COVID-19 still raging, your 2020 holiday season may not feature the big family get-togethers of years past, but you’ll still likely be visiting with loved ones in some fashion, whether via video chat or in smaller groups. And though the holidays are always a good time to bring up estate planning, given the ongoing pandemic, talking about these issues is particularly urgent this time around.

That said, asking your dad about his end-of-life wishes while he’s watching football isn’t the best way to broach the subject. In order to make the talk as productive as possible, consider the following four tips.

1. Set aside a time and place to talk

Discussing planning while opening Christmas gifts most likely won’t be very productive. Your best bet is to schedule a time, when you can all gather to talk without distractions or interruptions.

Be upfront with your family about the meeting’s purpose, so no one is taken by surprise and people come prepared for the...