I was looking through a list of posts for things I hadn’t updated on, and I realized this: I could stand to improve my post titles. I couldn’t GUESS what half of them were about, and I am the one who wrote the posts and carefully chose the corresponding titles. At the TIME, they seem right! I mean, some of them I KNOW aren’t helpful, like the last one I did, which I called “Wednesday” because I couldn’t think of anything else, and according to my archives that’s the fourth time I’ve done that. But MOST of them I think are quite fitting—until I’m paging through them later.
Well. In that Wednesday post (the fourth one), I mentioned I would be going to the doctor for discomfort/weakness in my hands. I was greatly motivated by Paul’s aunt, who told a story of letting carpal tunnel go on too long, past the point where much could be done about it. I suppose if I’d had to write down my guess of what the matter was, I would have first guessed carpal tunnel, and second some sort of arthritis, and third some sort of injury I’d gotten without realizing it. Actually, my FIRST guess would have been “Let me get you a referral form.”
What I did not expect was a diagnosis of “playing too much Candy Crush.” I will have to wear wrist/thumb braces for two weeks. People will say to me “Oh my god, what happened to your hands??,” and I will have to say “I played too much Candy Crush.” And it is not REALLY that I played too much Candy Crush, but more that I have flexible hand joints that make gripping things difficult (this post, barely readable since I switched blog platforms, shows how I hold a pen), and then I gripped a phone every day for many days in a row, playing Candy Crush and also Farm Heroes Saga, and gave myself tendonitis. Well, PROBABLY tendonitis. If two weeks in splints doesn’t help, I’m supposed to go back.
Second update: Trees that Cross Property Lines. I looked into the laws for my area, and the law says what most of you said, which is that the trunk-holder is responsible for keeping the tree SAFE, but then the branch-holders are responsible for their own cosmetic/convenience trimming. We wanted to get a couple of trees looked at anyway, and also we wanted to make sure the tree in question WAS safe, so we called in a tree guy. The tree guy says the tree in question should come down. His exact words: “This guy here is Done.” So! That tree will no longer be an issue with the neighbors, which is good news because my favorite outcome here is Never Having to Think About It Again!
Third update: Keeping a cello humid. I thought it was very, very charming how many people clicked through to the comments just to see how one WAS supposed to keep a cello damp, without having any need of such knowledge themselves. I have ordered a Dampit, and it is on its way.
Fourth update: The will/trust. I was very reassured by the number of people (including lawyers) who commented/emailed to say, “Yes, in this case you’d want a trust.” It took me awhile to understand why, but the gist is this: If you are just leaving your stuff to some grown-up people, you need a will. If you have minor children and want to leave your assets to be used for their care/upbringing and eventual inheritance (if there’s anything left after the care/upbringing), it works better to have a trust. Another thing a trust does is make your assets available much more quickly (almost immediately) to the people who need them, without a long court-system process to settle the will and unlock them. A trust SOUNDS like the kind of thing only richy-rich people deal with (because of trust funds, I think, and those big trusts that give out grants), but it isn’t.
Anyway, we set up a trust. Here is how many times we met with the lawyer: two (one for talking about what we wanted, and one for doing the final signing). In between those two meetings, the lawyer emailed us a draft and we went over it and emailed him back with the changes we wanted and questions we had. Here is how much time it took from start to finish: we had our first appointment with the lawyer in April, and we signed the final copy in October. Some of this was our delay (it took us a little while to go through the papers), but most of it was time the lawyer was doing his part, and so could vary depending on the busyness of the lawyer in question.
Here is how much stress was involved: HUGE. But then, when it was done, I found myself hugely less stressed than before we started. The stress of “feeling as if we ought to have a will” (to replace the one we made with will-making software back when Rob was a baby) was low-grade constant with intermittent high-stress attacks (especially after seeing the time-consuming and lawyer-fee-heavy and emotional mess that was involved in dealing with my late mother-in-law’s lack of will), and led to periodic lying awake at night; the stress of “trying to comprehend lawyer language” and “thinking through all the issues involved in setting up a trust” was fairly high, and led to steadily leaking tears and stressful indecision (“WHAT IF PAUL TURNS EVIL AND HAS THE DOCTOR PULL THE PLUG WHEN I WOULD HAVE RECOVERED??”) and periodic lying awake at night; but the relief of “having the trust set up and now we know everything is okay even if everything is not okay” was INCREDIBLE. It’s a trade: we started with a baseline of medium to significant stress, and then we traded a SHORT period of INTENSE stress for a LONG period of LOW/NO stress.
Also, there were a lot of things that seemed stressful when I was looking at them on my own (like with the will-making software, or when looking over the draft from the lawyer) that were MUCH LESS stressful when a lawyer explained them. For example, I got myself all worked up over what if I gave Paul power of attorney, and then he was going to leave me for someone else so he used that to take all our assets OMG I’D BE LEFT DESTITUTE AND POWERLESS TO PREVENT IT!! And the lawyer was like, “Er, he can do all that ALREADY, since you both co-own all your stuff. Plus, there are rules about how power of attorney can/can’t be used, so you’d take him to court and a judge would definitely disapprove.” Or, for another example, I was very upset about having to decide if I’d want a feeding tube if I were unconscious. “Well,” I thought, “Of course I do, if it will keep me alive until I recover consciousness!” But it’s not set up like that: the document says that if you will NEVER recover consciousness, THEN do you want a feeding tube. Really, it makes much more sense that way.
Glad to hear the updates!
Now… I should find a lawyer and make a trust. It sounds insurmountable even though I know I’ll feel better when it’s done.
I really felt beforehand as if I COULD NOT do it: that I didn’t know anything ABOUT making a will/trust, so how COULD I make one? One thing that was pleasing is how much of it we DIDN’T have to decide. That is, we had to say who would be guardian of the children and things like that, but I’d been picturing having to make a million decisions, but with a LOT of it there’s a standard option that almost everyone goes with, so you can just say, “Well, what do MOST people do?,” and the lawyer answers, and then you can say “Okay!” or “Actually, no.” Like, I found it overwhelming to choose what age our children should be given whatever inheritance scraps might remain, and I have NO IDEA, so we just went with the typical, which I don’t even remember now—something like half of it at age 21 and the rest at age 26 or something. Or, like, I’d thought we’d have to make an exhausting list of every single asset, but actually you can just say “all of it with these exceptions” (so that, for example, I could leave my grandmother’s china to Elizabeth). The worst part ended up being just having to read the thing and think about what it would mean the next time it was read. I recommend wine and a handkerchief and getting it over with quickly.
We just had a tree taken down and I was miserable and so annoyed to spend the money to do it, but it is the greatest feeling to look outside and not see/stress about the tree anymore. Highly recommend.
What a most satisfying post of updates! I have achieved almost nothing so far today, yet this post makes me feel very satisfied as if I had just checked a lot of big things off my list. Perhaps this week I will call the lawyer to start our own trust process. You have inspired me!
If it’s not too nosy to ask: what was the cost of setting up the trust? I don’t need an exact number, just a range. I think fear of cost is my biggest hurdle now. We’ve just got ourselves into solid financial footing and the though of spending $5,000 on a “just in case” document kind of makes me feel ill.
I don’t mind telling: it was $1800, and that included the trust, two sets of power of attorney documents, and two sets of whatever those things are called where you say if you want to be allowed to die if you’re brain dead. He said a set of two wills (with the POA and end-of-life also) would be about half the price—so, it must have been about $450 for each of us. But it varies tremendously, I think, from area to area and from lawyer to lawyer: I remember the comments on the original will post had such a wide range of price I could hardly believe it!
I understand the HUGE stress of going through all the decisions and paperwork for the will. We did that a few years ago and then never signed the final copy. That was because I can’t handle the choices I have for guardians of our minor children. There ARE choices but it would come down to the lesser of the evils and I can’t decide. How did you come to your guardianship decision? I am especially interested in hearing what people who have larger families did. I have five children and four of them are minors so it is hard to find relatives who would be willing to take a whole pack of children rather than just one or two.
Yes, that was a big one for us: how can ANYONE take FIVE children? Here is how I thought of it: I fervently hope, for many reasons, that it won’t come to that, and I cling to the statistically likelihood that it won’t. But if it DOES, everyone will just figure it out. We leave them ALL IN A PACK to one household, and if that household can’t handle it, our surviving family will figure something out. I think in an emergency, people DO figure things out. It also helps that time continues to pass: every year that goes by is a year less that anyone else would HAVE to figure things out.
I would also like to hear more about guardian choices. My husband and I are at a stalemate. We have twin toddlers and another on the way any day now, and both prefer our own parents as guardians (who live on opposite sides of the country!). But it is a lot to ask of anyone!
We had this a lot easier, because we both prefer my side of the family, and Paul’s parents have both died, and his sister is not set up to take children. I don’t know WHAT I’d do if we both preferred our own sides! That’s tough.
Oh that is a tough one! Neither of my parents (who are no longer together) are really up to taking on a set of young children – my mom isn’t particularly maternal and my dad is kind of getting up there, plus his wife has an arthritic condition that would make childcare difficult. My sister is not set up to have kids (and the entire family agrees that’s it’s best she doesn’t have them), and my husband’s sister already has 3 of her own and, while she’s very nice, we don’t see our philosophies aligning sufficiently to want her to raise our 2.
Fortunately, I have a dear friend who would is an honourary auntie to our kids and would be a wonderful parent, and after many years of her and her partner trying they have had to admit they probably won’t be able to have their own. They were the perfect choice to name as guardians for our kids. They are both loving, honest, and hardworking people and their beliefs and philosophies align almost perfectly with ours. I also know they would make a real effort to ensure the kids get to spend time with their blood relatives too.
We fretted somewhat over this question also, trying to get the order of people just right and make sure we had someone good as a backup for 10 years from now when my parents might no longer be capable and as we were fretting openly in the lawyer’s office, she said “I understand and felt the same way, but the ultimate thing you want to think about is, will these people, even the ones I deliberately left off the list for one reason or another, be better than foster care? Because the actual goal is really to keep the judge from making them wards of the state.” It sounds terrible, but it weirdly made me feel much better.
I would also note a few things here — one, you are listing “suggestions” in your will. You can list them in the order you prefer them and those wishes will likely be respected, but in reality the state can (in theory) decide that actually they WOULD be better off as wards of the state and make them such if, you know, your entire extended family has organized itself as a drug cartel since when you wrote your will and when you need it to take effect. This is also (and probably more relevantly) true for the guardians themselves — if you name e.g. your sister and she has since divorced and is single-handedly responsible for her own three kids, she can decline the responsibility of yours. This is a good reason to list multiple people (as alternatives) since assuming they all get along and are reasonable (OK, a rash assumption in some cases, sadly), they can assess their circumstances and abilities should the need arise and those listed higher-up can defer to those listed lower down if in fact the lower listings would now be better able.
Conversely I’m told you should not list couples as if e.g. they divorce it won’t be obvious who you really wanted. Always list just one person even if you list both members of a couple, list them in the order you’d prefer them if they weren’t still together.
Finally, note that you can lead guardianship of your children and guardianship of their money to different people. We have done this, as the person who would be the best guardian to our child knows little about managing trusts/investments.
And finally finally, note that I’m not a lawyer, even if I do sometimes play one on the internet. This is just stuff I’ve been told as a parent trying to make these decisions on behalf of my own kid.
I’m so glad to have your recommendation on the trust thing. I am *this close* to calling an attorney and finally doing it, and it’s good to have a tiny bit of knowledge going in. There is a lawyer in town who donates his time to the non-profit I work with, and that means he’s a good guy that will help us out, right? My biggest sense of dread stems from not having all our financial matters in order (where is the paperwork for my old 401k? Is husband’s old job’s pension different from an annuity? SHUT DOWN AND PLAY CANDY CRUSH). Hope your hands heal up. The wrist braces really helped me. Also, put your phone down on your table or thigh and just use your finger. Not that I’m enabling bad habits.
I was very worried about all that finances stuff TOO, but all our lawyer needed to know was a good estimate of our total assets. He gave us a list of common assets to put numbers next to, and I was dithering over whether I’d remembered everything, and he was like, “Will it bring your net worth over $5 million? Because otherwise it doesn’t matter.”
THIS. We don’t have that many assets, but what we do have is part house, bank account, ROTH IRA, 403B, state/union pensions, life insurance, etc. And just the thought of having to get it together and account for it all in a single document was like whoa. But, no, none of that WOULD bring the total over $5 million, so that makes the whole thing seem much more doable.
One question about the guardianship issue though, my parents (really the only good option, which makes them sound less than they are, they are actually a great option, and compared to the rest of the family, just the only option) are both a little over 60 now, and my youngest is 18 months, is there a provision to name secondary guardianship in case (hopefully not) something happens to the primary guardians, say 10 years down the road? I have always felt like this is the worst question. That whole Diane Keaton movie where she surprise! inherits her cousins’ daughter. I used to like that movie, until I had kids of my own. Now it brings on such a vast sense of despair and loss that I cannot even stand it.
Our lawyer made us choose alternates whenever we chose our parents for anything (executor, power of attourney, etc.). Where the alternate was the other’s parents, we had to choose a third alternate.
This is so good to know! In my case, my husband’s parents are never the alternate choice. We would have to go out of state and this begins the very fraught choices.
Yes: we named a second guardian in case the first was unable to take the children. I think we could have kept going, too, if we’d wanted to: third choice, fourth choice. But we only had two. After that, I have to breathe into a paper bag.
Right, the only really useful way I can even participate in most of this is simply by pretending it is all just a story. A story about someone else. Does the lawyer’s fee include wine and chocolate? Or something stronger than that?
Argh, the whole trust thing has had me antsy ever since you first blogged about it. I had seen a local lawyer offering free seminars but let my husband push them off until I after seeing your post. Now I’m even more gung ho to get it done because OMG-the-house-is-in-his-name-only-and-what-do-you-mean-we’d-have-to-go-through-probate-to-sell-the-damn-thing-if-he-died?! But he’s procrastinating on doing it because of the expense involved, $3k-5k here if I’m remembering correctly, which we don’t exactly have lying around, but see above mentioned freakout about probate and who the heck would take care of our daughter. Ugh!
Don’t even get me started on our tiny work-based life insurance policies.
OMG, going to stop playing candy crush immediately. I already worry about my hands and wrists since I am a computer programmer and a knitter.
We did our trust at the start of summer, and I felt immensely better, but there were a couple of assets we didn’t put in the name of the trust, because of confusion between what the lawyer told us and what the written instructions said to do. So I still have trust stress, and feel guilty about the possibility that we will die before adding all our assets and our children will be destitute and blargh. But overall it was a much less harrowing experience than I expected.
I don’t know if your trust is set up the same as ours is, but ours has a section that basically says “And any assets we didn’t put in the trust are also in the trust.” So the heirs would have to go through a certain amount of hassle (the same hassle we’ll have to go through to get those things into the trust, plus the hassle of proving they’re authorized to do so), but everything still ends up in the trust. Our lawyer said that’s supposed to cover situations where, for example, the people who have the trust naturally acquire more assets after creating the trust, but equally naturally don’t get around to putting them into the trust; but that it also covers the situation where people don’t get around to putting all their assets into the trust in the first place.
Actually, we DID have that, I just forgot about it. I feel better. The problem is that for retirement accounts, the lawyer said “Put this in the trust” but the documents she then gave us said “You probably don’t want to put this in the trust. Check with your lawyer.” It’s the “check with your lawyer” part we’re stuck on right now, but probably our kids would be protected by the other thing also. Just don’t get me going on the life insurance problem and how not straightforward the insurance company’s forms are.