Thanks everybody for your inputs. We just signed our estate plan this week. WRT estate planning, The lawyer seemed to have similar thoughts as bsteiner and others; The future is unknowable, so keep things broad. Lawyer wasn’t up to speed with boglehead principles and all aspects of our values for AHCD, but that didn’t surprise me, and we worked through it fine. After this and other threads, i felt comfortably primed with questions to ask and a rough idea of what to expect. To work with this lawyer, we had to sit through a virtual estate planning course, have initial meeting, talk/email back and forth, and have a final meeting for edits/review/signing.
Some highlights:
Guardians: specified primary and contingent
Assets: we comingle funds and have joint accounts/titles, so use that when one of us passes. make sure life insurance & retirement account beneficiaries are correct
Trustee: if/when both of us pass, assets go into single common trust for all kids. I talked with Vanguard (sales/marketing) as well as a local trust company. Vanguard was cheaper, fit investing philosophy, advertises fast (24hr) disbursements. Local trustee a bit more bespoke, can handle weird requests, twice as expensive, similarly fast access. Both advertised a human touch. Went with Vanguard as primary and local as contingent
Disbursements: Trustee has sole discretion for releasing funds
Terms: when youngest child turns 30, trust auto splits into equal shares for each kid. Each kid has authority to add/remove trustees (inc themselves) and terminate their respective trust.
Some highlights:
Guardians: specified primary and contingent
Assets: we comingle funds and have joint accounts/titles, so use that when one of us passes. make sure life insurance & retirement account beneficiaries are correct
Trustee: if/when both of us pass, assets go into single common trust for all kids. I talked with Vanguard (sales/marketing) as well as a local trust company. Vanguard was cheaper, fit investing philosophy, advertises fast (24hr) disbursements. Local trustee a bit more bespoke, can handle weird requests, twice as expensive, similarly fast access. Both advertised a human touch. Went with Vanguard as primary and local as contingent
Disbursements: Trustee has sole discretion for releasing funds
Terms: when youngest child turns 30, trust auto splits into equal shares for each kid. Each kid has authority to add/remove trustees (inc themselves) and terminate their respective trust.
Statistics: Posted by flyboy07 — Wed Dec 03, 2025 12:56 am — Replies 20 — Views 2093