Hi, everyone. Welcome to our brand new show
called Stretching Your Dollar. I'm Christian Scher here at
the New York Stock Exchange. And during this half
hour show, we're going to give you everyday tips
to make the most of your money. So we'll
cover important topics like how to negotiate better in your
personal and professional life because both matter how to manage
money and how to save for the things that you
want. So each day I share my expertise from
Wall Street and I'll be joined by experts in their
fields to find out how we can make the most
of our money together. Well, Barbie is all
the rage right now, that's for sure. And
who could forget this iconic scene from the trailer.
Do you guys ever think about dying? Ok.
Yes. Even Barbie is thinking about what a lot
of people try to avoid and that's preparing for the
morbid but not properly planning a will for when you
die can cost your family a lot of money.
A A is a certified financial planner who is here
to break down how to approach planning your will.
AJ Thanks for joining. Thanks for having me,
when is the best time to start preparing a will
? Really, when you have assets that you want
to go to a particular person or a charity.
So if you don't have any assets, you probably
don't need a will. But if there's a specific
person or family member or friend, that's really when
you want to start thinking about having a will and
how do you get started? What are the first
steps, the first step to think of out who
is the best person for those assets to go to
? If you have kids, it's really important to
make sure that your kids go to the right guardian
. You know, you might want your kids to
be taken care of by your best friend and not
your mother. So it's really important to put that
in your will as well. Interesting. So obviously
the topics really range, what else can a will
cover a will, can really cover everything? So
a will is basically to avoid probate, which means
if you die without a will your assets and your
whole estate goes to the courts and it's up to
the court to decide which we want to avoid.
So, a will helps direct your wishes to your
loved ones to make sure they get what they want
. How much money could it cost? If you
don't actually put a will together, it can be
very expensive because probate costs can draw out for years
, we can have tons of lawyer costs. There
are certain estate taxes we got to watch out for
. So it could be very painful and also very
costly. Obviously, some of these are big picture
questions, conversations that you and your spouse, your
partner might be having. What are some of the
things that you should be talking about when crafting the
will definitely want to talk about, you know,
who does, who should be the next best person
to take care of your estate? So if you
have property, you know, is it your kids
? Is it your siblings? So it's really important
to have these conversations early. A will is the
last step in finalizing it. But starting those conversations
who is going to take care of your kids?
That's the most important one. Anything you should avoid
putting me your will? Great question, I think
being very vague is bad idea. Be very specific
about what goes to whom and you know, where
your prize possessions and your property is going to go
to. Do you need a lawyer to do it
or can you do it on your own? So
you don't need a lawyer if you have any complexity
like property or you know, assets in different states
, I definitely recommend it a state planning attorney,
but you can do it your own by yourself online
. Yeah, you get printed out. You need
a notary though. So, so another thing that
I want to ask is obviously attorney fees can be
expensive. Right. How do you shop around for
the right attorney negotiates? Make sure that you're getting
at the right person to craft this will. Yes
, it's a human relationship. It's trust. So
I just recommend starting with, you know, Yelp
or Google and actually interviewing a few before you settle
on one that really understands your wishes. What are
some of the questions you should ask in that interview
process? Great question. What's their, what's their
hourly rate? And what can you expect from that
whole process? And the state plan is not just
a will, it's also a power of attorney and
a health care proxy which will help protect you if
you get sick. So do you usually have both
a will and an estate plan? So a will
is kind of like one of the pillars of an
estate plan. So a complete state plan might include
will a few trust, a health care proxy and
a power of attorney. So those are usually the
four things that we see that make up a whole
estate plan. Any other tips? Let's see.
Do it. Now, folks, I know it's
hard. I know it's painful. No one likes
talking about death, but the more you talk about
it and the more you tell people that you love
what your wishes are, the better outcome will be
. So, what's a good age to start?
Obviously, it depends and your family and we,
and we discuss that. Right. But like by
30 is that a conversation? By 30 you should
be having that conversation. Yeah. If you,
if you, even if you're single, even if
you're single. Wow. Wow. We got a
lot, a lot about like, wow. I
mean, Barbie's right. Right. Is all around
us and, you know, it's, it's better
to face it. Head on. Ok. We
learned a lot, uh, from AJ A.
I was in this segment AJ. Thank you.
Thank you so much for having me.