Creating a Will and Trust

No matter where you live and earn, financial health is important for everyone. This post talks about my experience of creating a Will and Trust in my 20s and Why I did it.

What is an Estate Trust?

You probably know what a Will is! If not through your friends, parents or acquaintances then through movies where rich people have setup their ‘Will’ to share with their loved ones what they want to do with their money after they die.

Basically, a Will is a simple legal document that just states how you want your money to be disbursed (or what should happen to it) after you leave for the great beyond.

But what is an Estate Trust? A Estate Trust is a legal arrangement to manage everything (including execution of your Will) in one place by a third party. Plain and Simple.

Why setup an Estate Trust?

If you own a home, car, any property, investments, stocks, 401(k), life insurance etc., you need an Estate Trust. With an Estate Trust, you will be changing the beneficiaries in one place. Without it, with all health insurance, life insurance, job changes, you will have to add/change the beneficiaries all the time in all places.

How?

Step 1 – Find a lawyer

I had a legal plan through work. So I tried to find someone that accepts my plan. If you like a lawyer and they won’t accept your plan, you can ask your legal plan if they will reimburse your money. With someone who accepts the work legal plan, it cost us around $175. Without it, it can cost around ~$1,500.

Step 2 – Fill out the forms

The lawyers will share the forms they need filled. Once you fill it out, the lawyers will do the rest. But the life will be easier. Once you have the Estate Trust setup, all you have to do is update the beneficiaries in the trust.

Step 3 – Update Beneficiary as Trust

Once the Trust and Will is setup, from now on, Trust is the beneficiary. Update the Trust as the beneficiary everywhere – mainly in your life insurance, health insurance, etc. From there, you only update the beneficiary in Trust. For example, once I had second son, I only had to update it in my trust. But the trust is the beneficiary in all other places. The trust helps me setup my legal god parents for my children and the age at which my children will receive my inheritance.