[Sylvanfan]

Well with the recent passing of my father I've had the joy of trying to help my mom deal with his estate and the like. Fortunately my dad did have a will, so things have been able to get done. Anyone who's in financial planning, will likely tell you a Will is one of the most important things. They're right, without one you can really leave people scrambling should something happen. My dad was 67, but his death was out of the blue and completely unexpected. Although he had a will, he had a lot of other things that could have been done differently that really could have made life easier for my Mom. He never stated any final wishes as to what he wanted done with his body. As a result we were left guessing, and things are hard enough after something like that so stating in a will what you want done will take the stress and doubt away from your family. He hadn't planned on dying just yet, and none of us do, but it happens and chances are we'll leave someone behind and a good will can make it easier on your loved ones.

I'll admit I don't currently have a Will, but am in the process of getting one done. I've known about this for like 8 years now, but kept putting it off thinking I have nothing. Well now with a wife, house, vehichles etc... I do have stuff to pass on and have come to realize that I need to get my house in order. Not only do you need the will but consider what you have, who you'd leave behind, and what you'd want to leave to them. For example, my wife and I do have a life insurance policy on our Mortage right now as we didn't have sufficient life insurance at the time we bought the house. Our mortgage isn't a year old yet, so right now we're getting good value on the insurance but the important thing is that our house would be paid off if one of us was to go. The other thing is that any debt I do have, usually goes on a line of credit I have that has life insurance on it. If I use my credit card for anything, and don't have the money to cover it in my regular account I instantly put it on my line of credit. Always did this due to the interest rates, but now I realize that the LOC is insured and the CC isn't. I also have nominal life insurance coverage through work that would cover final expenses type of thing too. But I realize now that she doesn't neccessarily know all this, and have since talked with her and shown her where everything she would need is as she wouldn't have known before, and likely wouldn't have known about everything we do have.

So thats my friendly advice for the day.