Posts filed under 'Estate Planning'
By CK Wilde for 3GenFamily Blog.
Congratulations, graduates and parents!
You have successfully navigated the sometimes stormy waters of K through 12 schooling to reach that long hoped for goal — High School Graduation Day. And, you have been accepted to a fine college. Now, you need to start buying those key personal tools that a Freshman will need for success in college.
At the top of every new college student’s list is a sleek, new desktop computer or laptop. After a cell phone (and perhaps a beloved mp3 player), the computer is one of a college student’s most coveted pieces of gear.
Which Kind To Buy - Desktop or Laptop?
Unfortunately, there is no “one size fits all” computer. For some students, a laptop is a necessity. For others, the desktop is better.
Answering these questions can help you make a decision:
1) What do the college and current students say about computers?
Every college wants their students to succeed. Every campus has some public use computers. Those that have too few public use computers to accommodate every student at peak times will recommend that you bring a computer to campus.
If you didn’t ask when you were touring the campus, email your college to ask how students use computers on campus. Do most students bring a laptop? Does the campus offer wireless connections throughout or just in certain areas? Do students collaborate online regularly as part of classes? Do most of the classrooms accommodate laptops with sufficient desk space, electrical outlets and wired or wireless connections?
If most course materials are online, email is the primary mode of communication and everyone works together using wikis rather than whiteboards or paper notebooks, a laptop is the way to go.
If computer use is mostly for online research, or the student needs lots of computing power for graphics design, video gaming, computer programming or high level science and math, a desktop will offer the best value and be easier to expand as needed.
2) How does the student study right now?
Writing notes by hand in a spiral notebook is not the same as keying notes in a word processor on a laptop. Educators agree that many students perform better when they write drafts and edit essays by hand. It allows for total focus on the subject without interruption of email, social networking, blogs or videos.
Where does the student prefer to study — in the dorm room or somewhere else on campus? It is difficult to lug around a desktop to a quiet spot at the library or even just to the lounge when your roommate has invited all of his friends to watch South Park in your room.
Our college freshman discovered this past year that he really preferred to take notes by hand in a paper notebook. Most of the desks in his classrooms were too small to fit his big, shiny, new laptop. It was awkward trying to take notes while the laptop teetered on the edge of the desk.
Being an avid video gamer, our son chose one of the highest performing laptops that HP offered on its website. Shiny, black with a wide, high resolution screen, it was perfect for video games but heavy to carry as he walked around campus with his extra large backpack.
After running to class through a downpour on a typical New England autumn day, our son shockingly discovered that his expensive laptop backpack wasn’t totally waterproof! Even though the computer did not get directly splashed, moisture seeped into the laptop slowly changing irregular patches of pixels on the screen from bright white to leaden gray.
This is one of the major downsides of carrying a laptop–they are more easily damaged in day to day activities. Ruggedized laptops exist but are out of the reach budget-wise of most college students.
Fortunately, our son had purchased the extended warranty so he was able to get the laptop repaired by the manufacturer. His extended warranty saved the day. If you have the option to purchase an extended warranty with repairs for “accidents” by all means get it.
While the computer was at the factory, our college freshman discovered that there were plenty of computers on campus to get his work done. But, he was forced to leave his room every time he needed to use the computer.
Not so much fun during the winter.
The Computer He Would Have Chosen
Knowing what he knows now, our son would have purchased a blazing fast desktop rather than a high performance laptop. And, he would continue to take notes in class with a paper notebook — easy to do on those small student desks.
He has seen a few of the new ullra-small computers, like the Asus Eee PC, traveling with their owners around campus. This seems like the ideal note taking laptop for the always connected student whose budget will allow buying both a desktop and a laptop.
Mac or PC or Linux?
Despite Apple’s cute commercials featuring John Hodgeman (The Daily Show) singing the blues with a lovable hound dog yowling in the background, the PC running Microsoft’s operating system is not disappearing from the face of the earth. Which to choose is a matter of familiarity (which have you used before) and price. Macs often cost more than equivalent PCs. For example, an HP Pavillion dv6700t costs around $1200 while a comparably equipped Apple MacBook Pro 15 inch is $2050.
Macs get viruses (albeit fewer of them) just like PCs so whichever you choose you need to protect your computer from them. Even Linux computers come with anti-virus software because it is the realistic and prudent thing to do. You can help keep your PC trouble free with Windows Live OneCare.
Macs have always been “cool”, but PCs are catching up on style. Linux computers are rapidly emerging from experimental to mainstream.
The tiny Asus Eee PC has been selling like hotcakes since it was introduced last year. Last week, our high school freshman bought one with money he had saved up. He got the Eee PC 900 running Linux. It came with a complete desktop suite just like you would expect on a Mac or PC for a price that’s as small as the Eee PC itself.
Out of the box, it was ready for basic work. The screen was a reasonable size for Internet browsing or writing an English essay. My high schooler’s slender fingers have no trouble with the small keyboard. He tells me that someone who is Linux savvy can find almost every kind of software for a Linux computer online but it takes a bit of experience to get a really satisfactory result. So a Linux computer may not be the perfect choice for someone who is shy about technology.
Before you venture on the Internet or to the electronics store, spend some time figuring out how and where the new college student will study and what the technology culture is like at the school. You will get a better idea of what kind of computer you need before you get to specific models.
For more help on choosing a particular desktop or laptop, CNET has comprehensive reviews to help choose a particular machine.
© 2008 CK Wilde. All Rights Reserved. Please feel free to link to this post but you must have prior written permission to reproduce this post either whole or in part. Please use the comments to request permission.
June 9th, 2008
By CK Wilde for 3GenFamily Blog
110 Tips for Getting Into The College of Your Choice
Today is April 20th. There are only 10 days left for high school seniors to decide which college they will be attending in the Fall of 2008.
If your high school senior received the perfect offer, you and your student are preparing to visit the school for “New Admit Day” or are making a list of all of the personal items that need to get shipped to the dorm before the first day of school.
Or, if the perfect school did not say yes, your son or daughter is doing much nail biting trying to decide among the acceptances that you have.
And, if your student didn’t make it into any of the colleges that he or she applied to, Tip 90 of 110 Tips For Getting Into The College Of Your Choice by Sandra and Ian Griffin offers hope. There are colleges that offer “late admissions” and others that have “rolling admissions.” Your high school’s college counselor may have lists of these colleges or can get them from the National Association of College Admissions Counseling.
Where to Start in Preparing for College
This tiny gem of a booklet offers 109 other sound tips for actions students and their parents can take starting in middle school and continuing all through high school until your student is ready to board that plane, train, bus or car to begin a new life at college.
Having been through this process with my first son who is one month away from completing his Freshman year at college, I was delighted to discover that Sandra and Ian Griffin cover all of the most important topics our family discovered with our son.
Starting in middle school?
Yes!
Just as learning basic reading and math in 1st grade are the building blocks for your child for higher grades in elementary school, reading and math in middle school prepare your child for high school. It is also a time for your child to start exploring interests that may be come life long passions.
Tip 103: Keep An Open Mind About Your Student’s Interests
I could never have imagined in my wildest dreams that my older son’s hours of Gameboy and Game Cube playing would help him get admitted to college. In fact, my husband and I used kitchen timers to limit our son’s game time. When the timer went off, it was time for him to read, do homework or go outside to play.
Even so, our son pursued his passion, eventually landing a volunteer coding job with an open source online game. That led to becoming a team leader on the open source game project.
When it came to writing the essays for college, our son had quite a story to tell. And, several of the colleges loved it. They saw his commitment and growth through the essays he wrote about handling the good and bad of being a volunteer on an open source game project.
You could say he got into college by playing video games.
110 Tips for Getting Into The College of Your Choice has many more tips about middle school preparation, high school courses, writing essays and choosing colleges. It’s easy to read and very easy on the budget — just $5.99 plus tax and postage. You can order the slim, hardcopy version to keep as a handy reference.
In my last post, Was Your Son Or Daughter Rejected By A Top College?, I talked about what to do if the perfect school didn’t materialize for your high school senior. There are a lot of steps to take before that day comes. Sandra and Ian Griffin’s handy little book is a great place to start.
110 Tips for Getting Into The College of Your Choice
Please check it out.
© 2008 CK Wilde. All Rights Reserved. Please feel free to link to this post but you must have prior written permission to reproduce this post either whole or in part. Please use the comments to request permission.
April 20th, 2008
My father only had a couple thousand dollars of life insurance in force by the time he turned 83. He outlived the term of one policy, so the insurance company paid him the cash value and terminated the policy.
As someone who was deeply affected by the Depression, Dad would probably have jumped at the chance to sell a life insurance policy for more than the cash value. But, as someone in the early stages of dementia, he was vulnerable to being swindled. We had one close call with his investments.
I want to alert you to the booming business in life settlements that is still largely unregulated.
Help for the Terminally Ill
It started out as a compassionate way to help someone who has large medical bills to pay. It’s called a viatical settlement. It gives a person, typically with less than two years to live, who owns a large cash value life insurance policy but does not have a spouse or children, a way to get cash out of the policy.
Cash value insurance policies (also called whole life) have provisions for the owner to cancel the policy and receive the “surrender value”. But, this amount is usually very small compared to the total amount of insurance. The settlement company is usually willing to pay much more. The viatical settlement became popular during the 1980’s as a way to help terminally ill AIDS patients deal with the high cost of medical care.
A New Investment is Born
The purchased insurance policies from those early viatical settlements were sold to individual investors. Because this new investment was unregulated, it attracted some unscrupulous dealers. Salesmen were paid high commissions to sell the policies to investors who did not always understand what they were buying. The investment community soured on buying settlements.
In 2001, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners released the Viatical Settlements Model Act which established guidelines for ensuring sound business practices and avoiding fraud. It was about that same time that settlement dealers began purchasing policies using institutional capital. The demand for settlements as an investment began to increase.
Better Than Mortgages?
From an investor’s standpoint, buying insurance policies is even better than buying mortgages. Everyone dies! As long as the insurance policy was written by a company that is solid, the investor gets paid.
Investing in mortgages, once considered much safer than stocks or bonds, is not as predictable. People can get sick or disabled, lose there jobs, or have other life events that prevent them from paying the mortgage. US economic problems today were caused in part by defaults on mortgages — many made by unscrupulous brokers who bent the rules.
Most mortgages today are combined into packages that re-sold to large institutional investors. It wasn’t long before some enterprising folks figured out that they could package these purchased policies, now called life settlements, and sell them to institutional investors for generous commissions.
Easy To Be Taken In By Easy Money
It happened to Larry King, CNN’s famous talk show host. King alleges in a lawsuit filed recently that he was the victim of a scam to buy and sell life insurance on himself, also called “flipping” policies. While King made $1.4 million on the deals, he now realizes that he would have been better off if he had kept the policies. He feels that he was cheated.
An insurance company owns the $15 million in policies, a company by the name of Coventry Insurance. Coventry was sued last year by the State of New York for alleged predatory practices.
Yesterday, our local newspaper, the San Jose Mercury News, reported that flyers were circulating at a San Luis Obispo, California senior center telling seniors they could get as much as $50,000 from “investors that want to speculate on our life expectancy.”
Although the NAIC issued the Viatical Settlements Model Act in 2001 and amended it in 2007 to strengthen consumer protections for “Stranger- Originated Life Insurance” only 35 states have officially adopted the guidelines. California, where I live, has not yet adopted any guidelines.
What’s The Harm?
If Larry King, who is a reasonably intelligent 73 year old, could be duped, anyone could be. Particularly someone in the early stages of dementia.
Life insurance is just one part of a total financial plan. Selling a life insurance policy really needs to be evaluated in terms of the person’s overall needs and financial status. These life settlement companies are not doing that.
So we caregivers need to be alert to these issues. If your parent tells you about a wonderful opportunity to sell an old life insurance policy, get to the financial planner or attorney to have the deal reviewed right away. Who is buying the policy? Will it be sold to a third party? Who is that?
The Mercury News article quoted Jay Adkisson, an attorney who writes a blog about financial fraud, “You ought to know who you are selling to. You don’t want Tony Soprano buying your life insurance policy.”
Good advice.
March 10th, 2008
The court reporter was readying her equipment while waiting for the next case to begin. The bailiff brought in the defendant. The court reporter glanced up to see the next man on trial. Imagine the her shock to see that the defendant being brought into criminal court was her mother’s court appointed guardian!
This man was accused of embezzling from his nephew’s trust account. Was this the same man who was managing her mother’s affairs through the county’s Public Guardian Office? Yes, it was.
This true story made the front page of our local newspaper last week. The woman’s mother has Alzheimer’s Disease. Unfortunately, the mother never completed a power of attorney or health care directive before she became ill and unable to speak for herself.
But that’s only part of the story. The other part, that the newspaper barely mentioned, is about siblings battling over what’s best for their parent. Mom has one son and five daughters. The son was taking care of his mother, but the sisters disagreed with what he was doing.
The adult siblings ended up in court fighting over who should care for their mother. The judge chose to place Mom under the care of the Public Guardian’s Office rather than with one of her children. It doesn’t make sense . . . unless you have been involved in a dispute among siblings.
Despite educational and career advancement after years away from the family homestead, brothers and sisters all too often fall back into the old roles they occupied at age 9 or 10 when they return home to help mom or dad. All of the silly, and ugly, unresolved issues begin to surface. Old behavior patterns and ways of communicating arise like time magically reversed itself.
Unlearning those old behavior patterns takes a lot of work. That work must be done together as a family as well as individually. Career, young families, and misunderstandings occupy brothers’ and sisters’ lives, too. “Why do we need to re-hash that old stuff?” someone questions.
So the old patterns persist. And a judge, seeing dissention that may never end in the siblings lifetimes, chooses a neutral party to manage Mom’s affairs. The county didn’t know about their employee’s little problem.
I can’t say who was right or wrong. But, I know that these are gut wrenching experiences. Hurtful comments from siblings about actions, or lack of action, can leave you feeling incredibly wounded even retaliatory. Siblings may stop speaking to each other altogether, retreating to the safety of their own lives.
You can’t always make the other person understand what you were trying to do, but there is something you can do to heal the hurt.
Jack Canfield, creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, in his all encompasing book, The Success Principles
, offers a 6 step process for getting rid of those negative feelings.
“The following steps are all integral to forgiving:
- Acknowledge your anger and resentment.
- Acknowledge the hurt and pain it created.
- Acknowledge the fears and self-doubts that it created.
- Own any part you may have played in letting it occur or letting it continue
- Acknowledge what you were wanting that you didn’t get, and then put yourself in the other person’s shoes and attempt to understand where he or she was coming from at the time, and what needs the person was trying to meet — however inelegantly — by his or her behavior.
- Let go and forgive the person.”
You may be wondering why anyone needs 6 steps. Why not just jump to the last one?
If the hurt goes deep, your inner self won’t be able to ”just let go”. It is most important to go through each step and acknowledge all of your feelings not just ignore or suppress them. Take as much time as you need.
You can write out your feelings and thoughts for each step, or pretend you are talking to the person. What you don’t have to do is actually confront the other person. Your job is healing yourself.
Interestingly enough, when you heal your hurt, your relationship with the other person may actually get better. I’ve seen that happen in our extended family.
The newspaper story ended on a happy note, by the way. The court reporter and her family reached an agreement wth the county Public Guardian’s Office. Their mom is safe, now being cared for in a facility not far away from her family. She’s not really aware of what has happened. And that may be a blessing.
October 9th, 2007
Is your family like most others? Have your parents (or you) done some estate planning (see below for resources) and then filed the documents away to gather dust and cobwebs until they are needed?
Why do I ask? Because if an illness or accident suddenly happened, you just might discover that those documents are out of date and don’t do the job they were supposed to do!
In spite of the changes that my Dad made in recent years to his documents, he didn’t update all of them. Now as his executrix, I am discovering that some of the documents don’t do what he and my mom originally wanted.
As you may know from my previous posts, my father was frugal beyond belief. He never understood why attorneys got paid so much and tried to avoid using them whenever he could. But, he didn’t totally ignore estate planning.
Urged on by my mother, he got the requisite documents done. And, life events (my mom’s death, remarriage, divorce) forced him to update his will, financial power of attorney and medical power of attorney several times.
But, he never got help with the total picture. So now, I’m looking at estate taxes that wouldn’t have to be paid if Dad had just gotten someone to review his entire estate periodically.
No, not Federal Estate tax. Congress changed the law to increase the amount that is exempt from tax. I’m dealing with NJ Estate tax.
You see, when Congress changed the the federal tax, it threw the states into a tizzy at the prospect of losing desperately needed tax revenue. Every state has dealt with it differently. NJ did something unique — kept the tax rules that were in effect in 2001.
So what should my Dad have done?
Sit down every few years and double check that all of these estate planning documents still met his needs. And, he really should have had an attorney look at them.
What documents am I talking about?
1. Your will - Everyone should have one even if you think you don’t have many assets. The laws of Intestacy (dying without a will) in your state will dictate how your property should be distributed. But, it may not be the way you would want it. Why chance it?
2. Name beneficiaries for all bank accounts, IRAs and securities — The accounts will go to the person you name rather than into your estate and may save grief later. My father had several accounts that did not have beneficiary designations. Bank employees seem to be totally clueless about this.
3. Buy life insurance if people depend on you for support — Keeping small policies in force for elderly parents could help pay the funeral and other expenses if they are paid up policies. Accident policies are a waste of money for most seniors because the majority of our elders die from medical problems, not accidents. My father had 3 accident policies that were worthless.
4. Make out a Living Will or medical power of attorney — I discussed the importance of this in my previous post about getting a Living Will.
5. Make a financial power of attorney — When my father was rushed to the hospital and bounced in and out of rehab for 3 months, I was able to step in to pay his bills and handle his affairs because the power of attorney was in place. It’s a good idea to talk with your parent about bills and taxes before a crisis happens. Know what’s due when and where the banking records are.
6. Plan for children with special needs — Along with the will, you may need other arrangements to care for a special needs child. Don’t assume that the executor will know what you intended. Few of us read minds very well. Siblings don’t always get along. Spell it out.
7. Let your executor know where everything is located – Whether you use a specially designed estate planning organizer or just a spiral bound notebook, mark down where all of the documents are. Organize and label them. Write down the names and addresses of your attorney, accountant, banks and other key contacts. Document everything that is pertinent to your finances and life.
Here are a few resources to help
Wills and Estate Planning Information at NOLO.com
“Get Organized Now” on the Nolo Press website
Find an attorney who specializes in Elder Law
Estate Planning 101 from FindLaw.com
Don’t put off asking your parents about this. You aren’t prying. You are helping them achieve their final wishes.
Do be respectful if you are not designated to handle their affairs. Circumstances change. Your aging parents may need your help in the future if the other person can’t be there. You want to remain on good terms with your family.
Most important, toss away the urge to daydream happily about your future inheritance. If you are in charge of the estate, your elders come first. You may need to make decisions to spend that money for home health care, assisted living or a nursing home. Your focus must remain on doing your utmost to meet your parents’ needs.
After it’s all over, you’ll be very glad you did. (more about the tough decisions I faced in the next post)
August 5th, 2007
