Category Archives: Estate Planning
In Praise of Trust Fund Kitties
If you want your beloved pets to benefit from your generosity after you are gone, that is your prerogative. What you do with your estate is your business. Since animals cannot be beneficiaries of a will in their own right, you will have to word your will in such a way that your pets… Read More »
Is Delaying Retirement a Good Estate Planning Strategy?
Everyone’s bucket list is unique, but it is unlikely that anyone’s bucket list contains an item that says “outlive my savings.” Monthly Social Security checks are getting smaller for subsequent classes of retirees, and many middle-aged adults have little or no retirement savings, despite having been in the workforce consistently since they were in… Read More »
Yikes! Maryland Is Among the Top 5 Most Expensive States to Retire
Unless your goal is to create generational wealth or to use it as an income-generating asset, then selling your empty nest and moving somewhere more affordable makes the most financial sense. There is no reason to live inside the Beltway, where the housing prices are astronomical, once you have retired from your inside the… Read More »
Skilled Nursing Facilities and Your Maryland Estate Plan
If you have never had to think about the differences among a nursing home, an assisted living facility, a memory care facility, a skilled nursing facility, and hospice care, consider yourself lucky. It means that you are young enough and healthy enough not to have suffered a medical issue where the best-case scenario is… Read More »
The Estate Plan Backup Plan
Wishes are an effective way to start a long-term project. Watch any episode of Shark Tank or any documentary about a successful artist or innovator, and you will hear stories of how someone wished to follow the example of a particular extraordinary person or wished to invent something that did not yet exist but… Read More »
How Much Does It Cost to Retire in Maryland?
A lot of things lose their mystique as you age. When you were a child, and you saw a pint of ice cream in the supermarket, having enough money to buy the pint of ice cream and no one to stop you from eating it in one sitting seemed like the coolest thing in… Read More »
Seniors Need a Plan for Dealing With the Maryland Winter
Early career professionals, as well as older folks in truly high-powered jobs, tend to come and go from the Washington, D.C. area with every change of presidential administration, but those of us who have lived here since our college days, or even longer, consider it home. The idea of retiring somewhere that is more… Read More »
Estate Planning With an Abundance Mindset
The estate planning advice that is most visible to Google is geared toward people who are much wealthier than you will ever be. The amount of money you would have to give away before maxing out your annual gift tax exclusion eligibility, and the amount of money that would still have to be in… Read More »
Life in an Alzheimer’s Disease Hot Zone
Retiring to Florida is not for everyone. No matter the season, it is obvious that Maryland is home. The beach isn’t far away, but neither is the Kennedy Center. A hurricane or tropical storm comes our way approximately once per decade, whereas in Florida, people are boarding up their windows and evacuating from multiple… Read More »
How Much Care Do You Get in a Maryland Nursing Home?
Building your estate plan means acknowledging the possibility that you may one day require residential care in a nursing home. Nursing homes are designed to provide care for people who require help with two or more of the activities of daily living, namely eating, mobility, dressing, bathing, using the toilet, and personal care such… Read More »