I would appreciate some input for estate planning.
Do you expect to pass any inheritance assets/money to your kids? Any conditions your kids have to meet? Do you intend to give some/all to charity? Who gets the pets?
What am I missing?
My husband and I recently updated our will. We structured it so that 10% of our estate passes directly to named charities upon the death of the last one of us to survive (this 10% will come directly from our 401k’s due to tax implications - the charities are named as secondary beneficiaries of each of our 401k’s.) The remainder is than split 45%/45% between our 2 sons and a charitable remainder trust for the named charities. The trust pays our kids the earnings for 20 years at a rate of 6% and then the balance (plus any earnings over 6% go to the charities.) The 45% going directly to our sons is also in a trust. At a certain age (I believe 35) they become the executors of the trust so they basically are able to control when they take distributions. It was established this way to protect the assets in the event of a divorce.
We don’t have any pets - so nothing in the will regarding that matter.
Our kids will get everything, equally divided between them…or perhaps I should say anything that is left when we are gone.
Our house is in such a state of disrepair that my daughters have asked that we not have a will; they prefer not to have to deal with it!
They do get the residual of our annuities, which at this point is our only asset. Being broke is so much less complicated than being rich.
This will be easy. Baby kiddo will get all of my shoes 'cause she wears size 40, big kiddo will get the clothes, 'cause she wears size 42. The house will rot away, and we will spendthrift all of the $$. 
No pets! 50/50 between our two kids, with separate trusts for eventual grandchildren. Specific details are to be worked out with estate planning guy in the next few months, now that tax season is over.
Haha! Thanks to you there will be a line item for the disposition of my sizable collection of designer shoes.
My will gives my property to my two daughters in equal shares. Right now, “my” property is half the marital property; after the divorce, it will be whatever I get in the divorce. My daughters will be beneficiaries of my IRAs and 401k. If both predecease me, my property will go in equal shares to my three siblings. I will probably get the house in the divorce and I’m not sure how to arrange for it in my estate planning. I don’t think my daughters would want to live here. I guess I’ll leave it to them in the will but separately give some instructions about how to sell it.
What’s with you and the money threads today, GMT?
We hope to die with a dollar which we will leave to our only child who has been well provided for otherwise (our kids got those fancy BS educations, right?) As for his cat, I’m thinking mittens…
Reading other people’s thread highlighted some interesting money issues. One thread lead to another…
Our kids get everything, equally split (of course), except for a small amount left to my sister and parents. I suspect we will outlive the doggies. Think we ought to designate a charity, but we haven’t found anything we feel strongly about yet. If we live a long time and our investments increase at a moderate rate, and if we draw down as little as we plan, the kids stand to inherit many millions of dollars. But we haven’t told them that. You don’t know what is going to happen in life, and I don’t want them to spend their life waiting for us to die so they can prosper. I want them to think they need to do it on their own, because they just might have to. And we plan on living a really long time!
No shoes to pass down, though. We wear ours till there are holes in them.
We’re cat people, and hopefully will have one or two kitties right up until we get carted away. At this point, there is no one in the family who could take them, so we’ve enrolled in the Pet Guardian program at our local SPCA. That requires that when we die, each kitty goes to the SPCA with $4K to cover food and care for the rest of their lives. For that fee, we get to have some say in what will happen to them after we’re gone; for example, we could stipulate that they be kept together, or that they be fostered instead of placed in the adoption center, or that they don’t go to a home with small children. The fee also buys us the assurance that the SPCA will keep them as long as it takes to find a new forever-home; they’ll never be euthanized except for medical reasons. So our wills contain a section stating that the local SPCA gets $4K for each pet that we own at the time of our death.
Other than that, D gets everything.
We will be updated the will soon…half to each of our 2 kids with no conditions.
I plan to outlive our 15 year old dog.
Yes, we expect to leave a substantial estate to our 5Ds equally split. However, we enjoy being able to gift them financially now, too so that we can see their lives being enriched while we are still here. All graduated from college and grad school/law school/med school debt free and all have good careers. All of our girls have pets and would happily take ours if something were to happen to us before these pets go. We have decided no more pets after the current ones are gone . We have made large charitable donations for many years and will continue to do so until we die, when they will stop.
As an executrix, pls express your wishes for your remains if cremated - wish I had that and didn’t have to discern wishes and then negotiate with 3 sibs over what they believe is what parents would want…at this rate, I will be leaving two boxes of grandparents to my children!
I guess the kids can sell the house.
I’m going to say something really, really daring: we don’t have a will. No one in our family since we’re adults who’ve died have had one; it didn’t seem to make any difference. By law, the kids will get 50/50.
i hope you have at least living wills / medical power of attorney with you and your spouse such that someone can carry out your wishes.
My situation is complicated by a second marriage. I have two kids from my first marriage and H has none. Ideally, if I died before H, everything would go to H, then 10% to charity and the remainder equally to my kids upon his death. For various reasons, including H’s belief that all money should either be spent or left to charity, I don’t see that happening unless I set up a trust.
As it stands, my estate would more or less be divided equally among H and my two kids. I need to make changes to beneficiary designations on 401K and IRA accounts though so the net ends up 1/3 each.
This thread is a good reminder that I should get my financial house in order.
My wife passed away recently and I was thankful we had wills drawn up years ago. I am dealing with Surrogate Court now instead of Probate Court and don’t need a lawyer. Once her financial matters are settled, I plan to have a new will drawn up.
After I’m gone anything that won’t fit in the dumpster can be divided equally between my two kids. 
I’m sorry for your loss,TonyK.