We don’t have a will.
There, I said it.
Chalk it up to denial about my own mortality, fear of thinking of the horrible possibility of my and my husband’s death and leaving our kids orphaned, or plain old laziness and not wanting to act like a grown-up.
But my only New Year’s resolution this year is to make a will. We have verbally asked certain family members to be the guardians of our children should we pass away, but nothing has been put in writing.
It’s not fun to think about, but it’s the responsible thing to do and I want our family to be as protected and prepared as possible in the event of the untimely deaths of me and Steve.
I am a little overwhelmed by the options, though: there are will kits you can buy, you can have it done by a lawyer and spend a whole schwack of dough, or a Notary Public can also do it, right? Clearly, I haven’t done my homework, but this is the week that I make those calls, figure out where we will have our will made up, and then just go and DO IT already.
Do you have a will? Where did you have it created, and how much did it cost?
Another blog just mentioned a site: http://getyourshittogether.org/ It’s american, but it has checklists of things you should do (wills, living wills, insurance) plus other details you probably haven’t though about (passwords, banking information). Worth a look to see what else you may want to do.
Do it.
I have a will and honestly – it was easy. A short and uncomplicated visit to the lawyer (same one who did the house purchase – it’s all family law, after all) and it was all said and done for only $400.
We have done our own. When we had to see a lawyer about other items, he took a look at it and said it was fine.
We used a template as a starting point (covers what you need to include) and modified it to our situation. We had it witnessed by friends of ours – notary not required.
A lot depends on how simple or complicated your circumstances are in addition to your comfort level with legal documents.
Oh yes – you must get one. Especially if you’ve already had the custody dicsucssions – that is the hard part.
I got the legal will kit. Then I balked. It’s just too important. I saw a lawyer – I have my two signed copies…AND i have yet to be billed – it’s been over a year. So wahoooo. But I still anticipated it would be under a thousand bucks. Money very well spent for the piece of mind.
I also did my requests for my own care – the DNR… all at the same time.
My mom died 2.5 years ago. I vowed to have ours made up right after that. I went so far as to borrow a DIY Will DVD from a friend…does that count? No, I suppose it does not. I will need to add that to my 2013 To-Do list.
Christine Duncan, the notary in Riverside Village, did ours and I can’t recommend her highly enough. She is very pleasant, very thorough, explained all the many options we had no clue about. It took about an hour to discuss then another hour after she had written it all up to go through it, discuss and sign. She was affordable too.
well, i hate to break it to you but we’re all going to die. you can make it easy on your family (get a will) or hard (don’t get a will), that is up to you. once you realize your impending doom, getting the will is easy 🙂
our lawyer (he’s sort of like a GP but for lawyers) did it for us about 10 years ago and it was the simplest thing. i honestly can’t remember how much we paid but it wasn’t the cost of a kidney or anything.
we got all of our documents, life insurance, property, investments etc. and brought them in, and he asked us a few questions, gave him a name for a trustee made provisions for future kids and it was all done in about an hour. we did have to think about where the kids would go if we both died or who gets to “pull the plug” …i gave that gift to my brother for christmas…but with explicit instructions that he can’t do it next time he sees me 🙂
but once it was done we felt really good knowing that everything we own and everything we hold dear will be taken care of. i can look at my kids and know they will be somewhere safe and i know that they (nor our families) will not bear the brunt of our fear of dying as all of our lives get tossed around and picked apart and fought over (not that we have anything to fight over…like the mccains!).
i think that if we didn’t have a will i would be more frantic…omg! what if we died today? what would happen to them??? does anyone know how to get our insurance? does anyone know how to divide our assest? who will look after them? to me, going through that _every day_ is worse than getting a will.
why do you need that stress? just get it done. a bikini wax is more painful.
We haven’t. We should. We need to… oh ack. I hate these parts!!
Let me know how it goes, please – I’d love your input, Amanda. For realz.
Neither do we. I have the 80 page fine print document sitting in a folder waiting for me to read it and fill it out…. But somehow something else always sneaks in front of that priority. I’m with you and your resolution docket, but add to mine passports and completing the fiscal books for our 3 companies that are behind a good 6 months at least! Somewhere in there I plan to keep house and raise children…. But the best laid plans often go astray! Good luck with your research.
We had ours done right after Camille was born and it was just done by a notary. It wasn’t particularly expensive and it was worded so all future children would be included as well. It’s actually quite a simple process as they have the forms and you are really just filling in blanks and signing. It’s not as intimidating as you think, promise!