The Retiring Sort

Future Challenge – So What’s the Plan?

Posted on August 29, 2013 by The Retiring Sort

Challenge #26

Everyone has a horror story of an estate (big or small) that wasn’t settled smoothly. Usually it’s because there was no will (or no updated will), or because the contents of the will came as an unhappy surprise to someone.

Squabbling over an estate or final arrangements has to be the one of the worst legacies a person can leave to loved ones. So…what arrangements will you leave behind – have you ever discussed this with your family or friends? Let’s make it a game, and give you a score:

Give yourself 5 points if you know how you’d like your property dispersed if you pass away, and who you’d like to oversee your estate.
Give yourself 10 points if you actually have a will
Give yourself 5 more if it’s up to date
Give yourself 3 points if you know where it is – make it 5 if both you and someone you don’t live with know where it is.
Give yourself 10 points if you have a medical proxy (advance care directive), and 5 more if you’ve actually discussed it with someone.
Give yourself 5 points if you have someone to handle your finances if you are unable to do that.
Give yourself 5 points if you’ve told your family what final arrangements you’d like (cremation, interment, special songs, big wake, no funeral, etc…), and 5 if you’ve written your instructions down so they can be located.

Alrighty, then… how did you do? Are you better or worse prepared than you thought you were?

0 – 15 points = You probably need to think about this…
18-35 points = You’ve given this some serious consideration
Over 35 points = Sounds like you have a thoughtful plan in place!

As part of my retirement theme, I offer this weekly Thursday “Future Challenge” to get people of all ages thinking in general about their futures and/or retirement. Each challenge goes with a post of my own on the same general topic. Hopefully we’ll start some interesting discussions!

If you’d like to share what you think, or post on it, that’s great – and I’d love it if you’d share those thoughts in a post or comment (please tag posts TRS Future Challenge and link to this post) so others can also see them.

If you choose not to share them, that’s fine too – but with any luck, you’ll still gain some insight on where you’re headed (or would like to be), and how you can get the most out of your own journey.

For my own take on this week’s challenge, see my post, Where There’s a Will….

Posted in Finances, Financial Issues, Future Challenges, Information | Tagged Estate planning, family, Financial Planning, Last Will and Testament, Legacy | 13 Comments

Where there’s a Will… Why Everybody Needs a Plan – Part 3

Posted on August 28, 2013 by The Retiring Sort

This month, a friend of a friend suddenly lost her husband. In the days that followed, my friend and another buddy circled the wagons and, along with the new widow’s family, offered their support to her.

Friends are wonderful at a time like this. They don’t have to say much, but they offer a little balance and a sense of normalcy to a sometimes surreal situation. As things unfolded, the new widow’s comrades reminded her that many decisions didn’t need to be made immediately – and, in fact, might better wait until her head had cleared and she had acclimated a bit to her new reality. As it happens, financial matters were well in hand, so she had this luxury.

But that brought up an interesting discussion among the ladies as to the status of their own wills and how recently they’d been updated, and it turned out the three women were all in different places. This isn’t the first time I’ve become aware of people who hadn’t necessarily kept their wills up to date.

Years ago, someone we knew well passed away unexpectedly. He had talked to his attorney about making some changes to his will, but since he thought he had plenty of time, he dragged his feet. When he died, a person he had apparently intended to include was not included. He had also neglected to explain the structure of his estate (and the reasons for it) to his stated beneficiaries, which resulted in hard feelings all around, and some ensuing bedlam – and that certainly wasn’t in his plan.

Another man we know, when the subject came up, mentioned that it had been a while since he’d checked his own will. When he pulled it out, it actually still had his prior wife as executor, and his current wife and children weren’t even in it – yikes!

So here are my thoughts, based on both sad and positive experience…

Get started – Everybody who has assets should have a will, because any of us at any age could have an accident – and without a will, the state decides where your assets go. There’s a variety of online help available, if you don’t want to start with an attorney.
Share – Once you have a will, somebody you trust should know where to find it, or you should let your family know how to contact your attorney if that’s who has it. After all, if you’ve gone to the trouble of thinking about this and executing a will, you want it to be available if it’s needed.
Update regularly – Things change – who you want as executors (are you still that close?) or beneficiaries (did you marry and/or have children?), the needs of your beneficiaries, what assets you have, where you live (states have different laws), all may evolve over time. So, make it an annual thing to look at your will to see if anything needs to be updated. Pick a date -Valentine’s Day, New Years Day. or the day you start your taxes… it really doesn’t matter when, just do it.
Don’t procrastinate – It never gets easier to think about these things, and the sooner you get this started and get into the updating rhythm, the easier it will be for you as time goes on. It becomes just like paying your life insurance premium – a routine and necessary evil.

My beloved and I started our wills when our first child was born. At the same time, we bought life insurance and made custodial arrangements in case we both passed away and our child (later children) survived. Over the years, as we moved, had more children, and the children grew up and finished college, we changed executors, custodians, and instructions as necessary and appropriate.

When they were old enough, we found an opportunity to let our children know who the custodians and attorney (people they knew and trusted) were. That way they knew what to do if anything happened, and they had the peace of mind that came with understanding we had a plan and had provided for them.

It will shortly be time for us to look at our wills again. When my beloved retires and we move to a new place, we will make the necessary adjustments and share the location of the new wills with our kids. Along with them, they’ll find other stuff, like our updated advance care directives and our funeral preferences. Stuff nobody wants to think about now, but will be priceless when decisions have to be made. We know that from the guidance we received from our own parents.

We certainly don’t dwell on this, but we’ve always tried to make sure we had appropriate arrangements in place. Because, after all, where there’s a will, there’s also peace of mind.

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So Big!

Posted on August 17, 2013 by The Retiring Sort

Sharing an old post in response to a new challenge!!

The Retiring Sort

We played a game with our children and grandchildren to get them to put their hands in the air when it was time to take off a shirt for bath time, or put on pajamas for bed.

How big are you? Sooooooo big! A laugh always followed as the tiniest person in the room felt much bigger for that moment, reaching up and dreaming of the time when all the big people stuff would be within grasp.

When you think of big, how big do you think?

Pumpkin, too big to lift, big?

Big Island of Hawaii, mostly two huge volcanoes, big?

Or Great Wall of China, visible from space, big?

When it comes to your dreams and imagination, think as big as you like and reach for the sky. After all, you might just grow into those dreams.

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This post was originally written in response to a Weekly…

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Posted in Retirement itself | Leave a comment

Weekly Photo Challenge: One Shot, Two Ways

Posted on August 14, 2013 by The Retiring Sort

There was an interesting photo challenge presented by WordPress this week – to take two shots of the same place, one vertical and one horizontal, to express two views of the subject.

I’ve been offline for a while, taking care of some “real life” stuff (when I get into the blogosphere I lose hours) but this was too nice to pass up. I picked two subjects from our trip to Montreal. Both show how a shift in focus can change how you look at something.

The first is the Notre Dame Cathedral in the old city:

The Long view

The more detailed and intimate view

When you first step into the cathedral, the striking color and size of the sanctuary are impressive, but there is distance between the altar and the entrance. Up close, the saints, the crucifix, and the flowers in memory of a personal event take the focus, and the other people in the church become insignificant shadows. A bonus perspective, focused on the pews, appears in the banner.

The second spot I chose is the Museum of Fine Arts in the new city. As I approached, I was struck by the stone work on the building and thought the statue was a nice, classical, touch – but when I was directly in front of the sculpture, a completely new dimension presented itself to me.

Approaching the Museum

A new view - only available from one stance

A new view – only available from one position

Everything changes when we look at things in more than one way – a small shift in our stance, or a willingness to investigate more closely, can reveal things we would miss with just a passing glance.

Perspective is everything.

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This post was written in response to the WordPress Daily Post’s Weekly Photo Challenge: One Shot, Two Ways. To learn more about this challenge, and to see other bloggers’ shifting viewpoints, click here.

Posted in Photo Challenges, Ruminations | Tagged Changing view, Montreal, Perspective, postaday, postaweek, Travel | 31 Comments

Future Challenge – Whether to Weather the Weather

Posted on July 4, 2013 by The Retiring Sort

Challenge #25

Are you a person who loves the heat, or one who needs it cool? Are you OK with air conditioning, or do you need your air to be fresh?

My beloved and I have spent a few weekends in the Philadelphia area recently. It’s where we grew up, and we love it there – so it’s on our short list of retirement destinations.

But… visiting and waking around in the summer has reminded us just how hot and humid it gets there. To add insult to injury, the air conditioning in my car started dying while we were there, and we were intermittently left with 85 degree fresh air while driving around.

This wouldn’t be so bad, but we both find ourselves less tolerant of the heat than we used to be – and we actually each have a different medical condition that is exacerbated by extended periods in the heat and humidity.

So my challenge to you this time is: how much will climate affect where to want to retire? A little? Not at all? What climate would you prefer? Why?

As part of my retirement theme, I offer this weekly Thursday “Future Challenge” to get people of all ages thinking in general about their futures and/or retirement. Each challenge goes with a post of my own on the same general topic. Hopefully we’ll start some interesting discussions!

If you’d like to share what you think, or post on it, that’s great – and I’d love it if you’d share those thoughts in a post or comment (please tag posts TRS Future Challenge and link to this post) so others can also see them.

If you choose not to share them, that’s fine too – but with any luck, you’ll still gain some insight on where you’re headed (or would like to be), and how you can get the most out of your own journey.

For my own take on this week’s challenge, see my post, Happy Birthday, USA.

Posted in Future Challenges | Tagged Air conditioning, asthma, climate, Health, lifestyle, retirement, Senior Health, weather | 23 Comments

Happy Birthday, USA

Posted on July 4, 2013 by The Retiring Sort

We’ve been travelling around our little corner of the universe (northeast US) quite a bit for the past month, looking for a place to retire, and I’ve been pretty much off-line. I’m trying to catch up a little on the blog posts that I’ve missed, and will start posting regularly again. Today seems like a perfect day to start – our country’s birthday!

Like the U.S., I was born in Philadelphia, Birthplace of Liberty, City of Brotherly Love (literal meaning of its Greek name), and for the past few weeks, vibrant, hot, and humid.

I remember this from my childhood – sleeping with the windows open in the hope of a random breeze, swimming every day in the spring pond next door to cool off – and making a killing at our lemonade stands in the days before cars had air conditioning.

Washington's Crossing Guide in Colonial garb

Washington’s Crossing tour guide in Colonial garb

The area I grew up in, northeast of the city, was steeped in Revolutionary War history, on the path between Valley Forge and Washington’s Crossing, near the Delaware River, and just a short train ride to Center City Philly. The house next door, when I was a child, was built in the mid-seventeenth century – more than 100 years before Washington’s march to Trenton.

I am no stranger to the wonderful lore surrounding the Revolutionary War, and claims that “George Washington slept here” on his trek. In fact, the Walker branch of my husband’s family has lived in the Philadelphia area since around, or before, that time – being Quakers, who came to this country to avoid religious persecution in Britain.

Elfreth's Alley in Philadelpia - homes built in the ealy 1700's, and where one of our family ancestor's lived

Elfreth’s Alley in Philadelphia – homes built in the early 1700’s, and where one of my husband’s family ancestors lived

Philadelphia, and the United States of America, have a wonderful history of multiple traditions. Within just our own family are immigrants from England, Scotland, Germany (and its predecessors), and Poland. There are Christians of several denominations, and there are Jewish antecedents as well.

We are a nation of multiple religions, nationalities, and ethnicities, which many of us continue to celebrate alongside our newer “American” roots. This diversity sometimes brings with it squabbles and dissension, much like the sibling rivalries within our biological families. Each of us wants the attention and ministrations of our parents in Washington, each wants to be recognized and appreciated, and sometimes we thoughtlessly and wrongly push one another aside.

But, let someone outside the family attack us, or let some internal illness or accident like a forest fire, a hurricane, or a tornado assail one of our own, and we are clearly one nation, one family. We rally, we contribute whatever resources we have, we pray, we join hands with the pesky siblings we were sticking our tongues out at only yesterday, and we move ahead as one.

Diversity brings with it disagreement, but it also brings multiple strengths and resources. It brings surprise and wonder, and sometimes the recognition that, in the end, we are more alike than we think. We are one family, one nation.