A few years ago, we did Wills and an Estate Trust or something... can't recall officially what it's called. The idea is to account for everything (house, money, policies, etc) and take the kids into account based on if one or both of us passes away... and where they go based on ages. These things can get tricky, but we wanted to leave nothing to chance. So, we have a number of contingencies built in based upon age of the children and who is alive (grandparents, brothers, sisters, etc).
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Originally Posted by Iowanian
We have one, prepared by an attorney. I have addendum pages with specific items listed (this gun goes to person A) type stuff, that can be modified by me as things or opinions change.
Once you have children, it doesn't matter if you have "stuff", the only responsible thing to do is get into writing what you want done with your children and any funds from your estate to help in their upbringing.
It's not really fun to think about and discussions bring up issues(whose family will raise the kids if you're both killed, who is best, why this sibling is or isn't)....but It's the responsible thing to do to make life easier on everyone else when that time comes.
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100% agree... we did ours when our first child was born and have updated recently to reflect the other kids and changes. Determining who should take care of them is the tricky part, but at least we made the decisions and we communicated to the families what should happen just so they know and there are not any surprises.
My grandmother went through Alzheimers a few years ago... it was sad, she had no will and my dad and uncle spent years in court battling over things, all because she never did a will before she started having hints of AZ and then it was too late.