As of February 2008, I am bad debt free! So I was feeling pretty good about myself and my finances as I was reading through Suze Orman’s free ebook “Women and Money”. The first 50 to 60, were mostly padding as she talked about why she wrote a book specifically for woman and gave examples of some of the women in her life. Page 57 is where the ebook started to get interesting as she discussed the save yourself plan. She breaks the save yourself plan into 5 months of to do lists. Orman gives a pretty thorough to do list for each month and wraps up each individual month with what should have been accomplished. It was pretty awesome and pretty simple, so even a person with the most minimum finance skills could understand what to do.
Months one through three were geared towards finances and retirement. Most personal finance (pf) blogs I read on a daily basis, have covered these topics, so I skimmed over the material feeling good about myself as she reaffirmed what I already knew. Month 4: Must Have Documents, made me stop skimming and I started to pay attention. Must Have Documents are not the usual topic of pf blogs. I do believe Single Ma gave a short account of getting her will in order but that is all I’ve read on the subject. I’m also clueless on Month 5: Protecting Your Family and Home where Orman discuses the home and life insurance.
All in all, I’m glad I took the time to download the ebook. Given the chance I would have probably paid for it (if the library didn’t have it). But any who, by the end of March I want to have set up my revocable living trust and will as detailed below, but I have my Professional Engineering Exam in 1 month and all my extra time is going towards studying for that test so I’ll probably take two months to complete. Here is the action plan taken from “Women and Money”:
ACTION PLAN FOR MONTH FOUR
_ Create a revocable living trust.
_ Transfer all assets into the trust and appoint yourself
as the trustee so you retain all control over the trust.
_ Create a pour-over will.
_ Choose a guardian for your children who is truly prepared
and ready for the responsibility.
_ Choose an executor for your estate who is ready and
able to settle your affairs when you die.
_ Create an advance directive that spells out your health
care wishes.
_ Create a durable power of attorney for health care
that will allow your appointed agent to speak on your
behalf with doctors and family if you become too ill to
speak for yourself.
_ Designate beneficiaries for all of your assets held in
your will and trust.
_ Review your will, trust, and beneficiaries once a year.
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