A will and a way

[gwyn]

I have put off doing a will now for a ridiculous number of years, even though I've owned a house, car, IRAs, etc. for many years. Everyone assumes this is because I'm afraid of talking about death; au contraire, it's that I'm afraid of talking about ... money. I do not understand money, business, financial, or investment stuff. When people owe me money, I forget that they do unless I'm broke; when I owe someone money, I forget that I do unless they tell me they're broke. I get these reports now about all the weird investment things I inherited from sis_r and I understand nothing about them. I try, I really do. I'm an editor, for god's sake, I can read and figure out anything, right? But non. I never do. I have the most cursory understanding of it, but if my dad kicks before I do, I'm screwed -- I stand to inherit tons of money (at least, it's tons to my eyes, but to most people it's probably not that big a deal), and I will have to figure out what to do with it. Financial advisors give you options and expect you to figure out what you want to do. They give me paper, and I stare at them, and they say, So! What would you like to do?

Um, let me ask my dad, I always say. And then we have these absurd conversations where he gets exasperated with me because I can't understand what he's telling me. When I was a kid, he kind of would knock me around when I didn't get the math lessons he was teaching me that I couldn't get in class (I was failing algebra and the teacher had to kind of step in). That was not exactly encouraging to my numbers sense. (Funny, huh, that one of my fandoms is Numb3rs!)

But today I finally bit the bullet and took all my info that I didn't understand to a lawyer to get a will, power of attorney, etc. He'd ask me all these questions and I would go, uhhhh, and then my little internal voice would kick in going "Self! Don't panic! You're paying him a gajillion dollars to do this, he's not going to hit you if you don't know!" Fortunately he was very gentle in his prodding. But now I'm on the way to finally having a will. The hard part is that I had always expected to leave everythng to my sister. It's been tough figuring out what and who to give things to. But going into surgery with a general anesthetic, no matter how "simple," without a will is just stupid, so I couldn't put it off anymore.

And it's also why I can't afford the S2 and 3 Wire discs to watch during recovery! The law really, really costs, yo. I guess as does peace of mind.

Comments

[zebra363.livejournal.com]

It's been tough figuring out what and who to give things to.

I've been thinking of posting on just this topic. My will is 12 years out of date and desperately needs revising, but it's hard to decide what to do. Leave it all to charity since my family doesn't really need it? Set something aside for my sister's children even though she and her husband can provide for them and maybe my money should go to people who need it more? List specific items for specific people, or just keep that part informal on a separate piece of paper so it's easy to change? At the moment my mother would have to deal with it all, and that's not something I should be burdening her with.

Financial advisers should sort things out for you. That's what you're paying them for. Give them very general guidelines and get them to make the decisions if you don't want to.

[kadymae.livejournal.com]

{weg}And you're leaving it all to me, right? ;){/weg}

Go you on getting a will done. I did a very basic nuts and bolts one about 18 months ago, and it was a very wierd experience.

[jcalanthe]

The hard part is that I had always expected to leave everythng to my sister.

I so totally hear that. There's so much random crap that's only meaningful to family, and I've no idea who to leave it to without my brother.

Go you for sitting down & doing a will (and for getting help doing it) - it's something on my list that keeps getting put off too.