Think you dont need a Will, read this and see

I don’t know of many people who like to think about death but it is something we can’t escape. There used to be an old saying about death and taxes, you can get around some taxes but not death. It can strike the very young as well as the very old. A drunk driver can smash your car when you and you spouse are going out to a movie or dinner. All you have to do is look at a paper and see how many young couples are killed in accidents all the time. Have you ever wondered what happened to their children or their assets?

Everything I am going to briefly write about is from first hand knowledge the most important thing to remember is that the laws very quite a bit from state to state. I realize this is old hat stuff for most of you but if can get the attention of one person it was worth my time.

Wills: I think everyone should have a will no matter how small their estate. If not when you die if a blood relative does not come forward or is hard to find the state gets to keep your entire estate. A will is also one way you can choose guardianship of your minor children if you are a single parent or in the case where both of the parents die. This choice must be done carefully and with much discussion with your spouse. You want to pick some one around your own age who has the same values as you do and if you are not leaving behind a sizable life insurance policy or a large estate that person will also have to be financially capable of raising your children. Don’t pick one of your parents, you may have liked the way they raised you but if you are sticking a 50 pus year old with a young child. That person will be in their 60’s raising a teenager. Always discus this with the person you pick before you do anything don’t just pick someone and hope it never happens to you. I know of two people that got 2 and 3 kids dropped on their doorstep and one of them refused to take care of them for finical reasons. If you are still awake don’t think that just because you are married and one of you dies and you don’t have a will your spouse gets every thing. If you have individual assets like so many young couples do now, in the state of Kansas individual assets are split between the spouse and blood relatives. One last thing on custodial issues if you don’t have this spelled out in a will or a power of attorney and both of you should die the children become wards of the state until a judge can sort through all of the relatives that want to claim your children. This usually takes months. A will normally takes between 30 days to 6 months or more to go through probate, it doesn’t happen overnight. If you have named some one to take you children the judge normally grants a temporary custody to that person within 24 hours until the will is probated. One last thing on wills you can download the forms online and do them for free, all you need then is two witness and a power of attorney. But all of the experts recommend if you even own a house spend a few hundred bucks and get one done by a lawyer.

I just got through telling you that everyone should have a will, guess what I don’t. I went a different way because all I have is two kids in their 30’s. Everything I own from my car to my bank accounts, cd’s and mutual funds are in my daughters name with the understanding that it be split with my son. This way when I die is is perfectly legal for her to close out all of my accounts since she is the joint owner and escape Uncle Sam and his taxes.

I apologize for the size of this and wanted to cover some specif power of attorneys but I will save that for the next post.

This and That

Am I The only one here who has troubles with their Gravatar. I have tried everything in the help section, I even ran that check my Gravatar program that says wait 5 or 10 minutes. I waited 20 minutes and got nothing. I have deleted the whole thing twice and started over, I just can’t link to anyone else. I finally put my WP link under mine if everyone did that it would make life easier for idiots like me.

I live close to the center of Kansas,for the last two weeks the weather has been in the 70’s and low 80’s. Yesterday summer arrived in full force. The forecast for the next 7 days is in the upper 90’s and 100 with the lows only about 75 and high humidity. This state is starting to have only two seasons summer and winter. I hate this place and still blame my ex for convening me to move back here for my last assignment when I was still in the Army.

The reason I am stuck here requires an explanation. This is not a pity post so please don’t go there, I despise pity and self-pity. I get all of my health care at the VA because I am a disabled vet and its free. I have been seeing this memory expert off and on for two years. She has done many brain scans and way to many 6 and 8 hour memory test only to come up with a diagnose of moderate memory loss of undermined cause. She wanted to do more test and my physiologist wanted to give me more drugs. I got fed up and told them both no I will just live with it. For the first couple of years it used to depressed me and I would get so mad I would trow or kick things to take my anger out on. Now I just laugh about it for the most part and silently call myself dumb ass. I lost my cell phone once for two days and found it in the freezer, now I carry insurance on my phone. I keep a navigation device in my car and have a navigation app on my phone as a back up. That’s so I don’t get lost in the city I grew up in. I have a bunch off apps on my phone to use as reminders and different colored stickups all over the house.

That is the reason I am stuck in this state. I know one person who is going to blast me for putting this on the web. My life for the most part is an open book and everyone I know has this information anyway. It’s not something I am ashamed of it’s just something I have to deal with. I look at it this way, it could always be worse. I could have cancer or be in a nursing home or have a host of diseases worse than this. Like everything else in life you either adapt to the situation you are in or you fall into a deep dark hole that is hard if not impossible to climb out of.