Preparing for the Worst

If you are visiting today from Lazy Man and Money, who is hosting the 150th edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance, I say to you, "Welcome." Make yourself at home and feel free to look around and agree or disagree with anything you find here. I welcome your feedback!


Our priorities changed drastically when Little Nespy arrived 2-1/2 years ago. As with all families, our lives were no longer as important as making sure he was okay. This prompted us to prepare for the worst...and the inevitable.

Although it took us much longer to get around to it than it should have, we have now taken (almost) all of the right steps to ensure he is taken care of in the event that we should not be around his entire childhood to take care of him.
If you have not done so already, please do the following for the well-being of your family:


1.) Designate a Guardian for Your Children: Decide as a couple who you would hand-pick to raise your children if were not around to do so. Take many things into consideration including their parenting style, their current living situation, and their ability to provide for an additional family member. Contact this person and ask if they would be willing to be the guardian to your child/children in the event that both parents were no longer around to do so.


2.) Purchase Life Insurance for Each Parent: Take into consideration what you would want to address with the money if your spouse were absent. Would you want to pay off the house? Would you want to have enough to put children through school? Would you want a total income replacement? Decide what the needs would be. You can contact financial advisers or an honest insurance representative to help you figure this out if you are a big overwhelmed. Put each other as the sole beneficiary. The will you are going to create can take care of further details.


3.) Put Together a Will: Of course decide how you want that money distributed. Spouse gets everything? Then what if the spouse dies earlier or at the same time? How would you want your child/children to inherit the money? Is it all theirs at 18? Half at 21 and half at 25? This is something you really want to think about and you want to PUT IT IN WRITING. LEGAL WRITING. Also put the information you decided about the guardianship of your child in this document.


4.) Who Controls the Money Until the Child Inherits: Do you want the guardian to have free reign? I would hope you could trust the people you entrust your children to do what is best with "their" (the kids') money, but does this work for your situation? Put this in the will.


5.) Draw up a Power of Attorney: This is a serious document. This gives your spouse the power to do anything in your name. Praying that you have this trust in your relationship, I would suggest you do this. If you needed this and did not have it, the courts can give you a real hassle to do some really necessary things with the other person's property.


6.) Draw up a Living Will: Please specify what you would want done if you were unable to make decisions about your health and the extension of your life. Don't leave this to other people to decide and pour their soul into wondering if they did the right thing. Write it down. Make it very clear.


7.) Keep a copy of all of the originals in a safety deposit box or a fire-proof safe. Do not ever remove them and notify the executor of the will where this is and how to access it. Our lawyer suggested that keep a copy of the will in a drawer so we could review it periodically (every 5 years) to make sure it still is appropriate for our circumstances. Do not ever remove the original though unless it is to be revised; as he mentioned, it would be easy to forget to replace it in its entirety and it is a HASSLE to process it if you ever lose the original.


We've done all of the above. My life insurance policy is still being processed, but all else is complete. It feels good. Not to think about death, but to know that when it happens--even if that is sooner than we would like--Little Nespy will be taken care of. He will not go into the care of the state before moving in with his new family. There will be no hassle in getting the funds needed to raise him. There will be no angst created legally on top of the emotional grief.


It only costs us $800.00 to do this for Mr. Nespy and me, and it could very well be the best money we have EVER spent.


Photo credit: Isabella Perry