Not properly planning a will for when you die can cost your family a lot of money. Certified financial planner AJ Ayers is here to break down how to approach planning your will.

<div class="block">Not properly planning a will for when you die can cost your family a lot of money. Certified financial planner AJ Ayers is here to break down how to approach planning your will.</div>
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Stretching Your Dollar

What You Should Know About Creating a Will 

Everyone. Welcome to our brand new show called Stretching Your Dollar. I'm Christian Scher here at the New York Stock Exchange. And during this half hour show, we're going to give you everyday tips to make the most of your money. So we'll cover important topics like how to negotiate better in your personal and professional life because both matter how to manage money and how to save for the things that you want. So each day I share my expertise from Wall Street and I'll be joined by experts in their fields to find out how we can make the most of our money together. Well, Barbie is all the rage right now, that's for sure. And who could forget this iconic scene from the trailer. Do you guys ever think about dying? Ok. Yes. Even Barbie is thinking about what a lot of people try to avoid and that's preparing for the morbid but not properly planning a will for when you die can cost your family a lot of money. A a is a certified financial planner who is here to break down how to approach planning your will. AJ Thanks for joining. Thanks for having me when is the best time to start preparing a will? Really, when you have assets that you want to go to a particular person or a charity. So if you don't have any assets, you probably don't need a will. But if there's a specific person or family member or friend, that's really when you want to start thinking about having a will and how do you get started? What are the first steps, the first step to think of out who is the best person for those assets to go to? If you have kids, it's really important to make sure that your kids go to the right guardian. You know, you might want your kids to be taken care of by your best friend and not your mother. So it's really important to put that in your will as well. Interesting. So obviously the topics really range, what else can a will cover a will can really cover everything? So a will is basically to avoid probate, which means if you die without a will your assets and your whole estate goes to the courts and it's up to the court to decide which we want to avoid. So, a will helps direct your wishes to your loved ones to make sure they get what they want. How much money could it cost? If you don't actually put a will together, it can be very expensive because probate costs can draw out for years, we can have tons of lawyer costs, there are certain estate taxes we got to watch out for. So it could be very painful and also very costly. Obviously, some of these are big picture questions, conversations that you and your spouse, your partner might be having. What are some of the things that you should be talking about when crafting the will definitely want to talk about, you know, who does, who should be the next best person to take care of your estate. So if you have property, you know, is it your kids? Is it your siblings? So it's really important to have these conversations early. A will is the last step in finalizing it. But starting those conversations who is going to take care of your kids? That's the most important one. Anything you should avoid putting your will? Great question, I think being very vague is bad idea. Be very specific about what goes to whom and you know, where your prize possessions and your property is going to go to. Do you need a lawyer to do it or can you do it on your own? So you don't need a lawyer if you have any complexity like property or you know, assets in different states, I definitely recommend it a state planning attorney, but you can do it your own by yourself online. Yeah, you get printed out. You need a notary though. So, so another thing that I want to ask is obviously attorney fees can be expensive, right. How do you shop around for the right attorney negotiates? Make sure that you're getting at the right person to craft this will. Yeah, it's a human relationship. It's trust. So I just recommend starting with, you know, Yelp or Google and actually interviewing a few before you settle on one that really understands your wishes. What are some of the questions you should ask in that interview process? Great question. What's their, what's their hourly rate? And what can you expect from that whole process? And the state plan is not just a will, it's also a power of attorney and a health care proxy which will help protect you if you get sick. So do you usually have both a will and an estate plan? So a will is is kind of like one of the pillars of an estate plan. So a complete state plan might include will a few trust, a health care proxy and a power of attorney. So those are usually the four things that we see that make up a whole estate plan. Any other tips? Let's see. Do it. Now, folks, I know it's hard. I know it's painful. No one likes talking about death, but the more you talk about it and the more you tell people that you love what your wishes are, the better outcome will be. So what's a good age to start? Obviously, it depends and your family and we, and we discuss that Right. But like by 30 is that a conversation? By 30 you should be having that conversation. Yeah. If you, if you, even if you're single, even if you're single. Wow. Wow. We got a lot, a lot about like, wow, I mean, Barbie's right. Right. Is all around us and, you know, it's, it's better to face it. Head on. Ok. We learned a lot, uh, from AJ A was in this segment AJ. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.