In my last post, I talked about giving your children the vast majority of their inheritance “early”–while they’re still in their 20s and early 30s, say–rather than later.

A few weeks ago, I was talking with a friend who has many years’ experience counseling and coaching wealthy individuals . . . as a wealthy person himself and a friend, not as a professional counselor. He made an interesting observation about a reason why you want to predefine for your heirs–and make sure they know–how much you intend to leave them: You want to remove every potential reason they may have (every potential conflict-of-interest) that may lead them to think that, by reducing cost of the care you receive toward the end of your life, they will benefit.

“I have seen it,” he said, “where the children say, ‘Y’know, if we put Mom in the _____ Village, we will be spending [i.e., they will be digging into Mom's nest-egg!] to the tune of an extra $50,000 a year compared to _____ Nursing Home. Why should we waste our money?’ “

Of course, they are not “wasting” money if the quality of service is significantly different (which it was in this particular case). And they weren’t about to “waste” or “spend” their money. It was Mom’s money they were talking about. But they were already anticipating it as their own. And so they withheld from their mother what should have been rightfully hers . . . if only she and her husband had done advanced planning that predefined for the children exactly what they could expect and demonstrated that there was no reason for the kids to modify their care plans in hopes of gaining advantages for themselves.

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Aging with Dignity of Tallahassee, FL, has produced a tremendously helpful document called Five Wishes that helps users think through the answers to key questions Living Wills are meant to answer, questions having to do with

1. The person you want to make care decisions for you when you are unable.
    
2. The kind of medical treatment you will want . . . or don’t want when in extremis (near death).
    
3. How comfortable you want to be when in extremis.
    
4. How you will want people to treat you when in extremis.
    
5. What you want your loved ones to know with respect to you wishes at–and after–death.

Aging with Dignity says, Read the rest of this entry »

I know Sarita’s mom has has been deeply concerned that she might suffer some kind of physical ailment–perhaps fall down the stairs, have a heart attack, who knows what–and no one would find her for days.

As a result, Sarita and her sister make it a point, between them, to call Mom twice a day–one in the morning, one in the evening–just to ensure that Mom is being well taken care of.

And then I read of Carrier Alert, a wonderful service from the U.S. Postal Service. Read the rest of this entry »