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Get Your Shit Together

getyourshittogether.org

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Re: Get Your Shit Together

#31

Post by __z »

I doubt these documents would be worth anything without getting notarized. Among other problems. Getting something notarized runs from free-around $2 so it's hilarious they expect you to track down two impartial witnesses but don't even mention a notary public.

If you are familiar with the current pending Supreme Court case DeBoer v. Snyder (which for the Supreme Court was combined with 3 other cases) you'd know in many cases you can't just appoint any guardian for your children upon your death. Basically the facts are: a lesbian couple has 4 children - 2 adopted by one woman and 2 adopted by the other. All children have been raised together as brothers and sisters by both women. No children we ever being raised by only one parent. They found out that they couldn't guarantee that the other parent would keep all 4 children in the event of the death of one parent. Under Michigan law, in their case, the courts would be free to appoint guardianship of the deceased's two children to whomever they choose no matter the paperwork the couple drafted beforehand.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/25/us/one-couples-unanticipat...

>Their close call with the truck that day in 2011 led them to a lawyer, Dana Nessel, who advised them that she could draw up guardianship papers, but that they would be nearly worthless legally. She urged them instead to file a federal lawsuit challenging the adoption law in Michigan.

Re: Get Your Shit Together

#32

Post by mct »

Regarding a living will, one I've seen that I really like is Five Wishes (https://www.agingwithdignity.org/five-wishes.php). I have one filled out that I've been procrastinating giving to friends and doctors, which is a mandatory step for having it be an effective document. Thank you to GYST for reminding me I need to take care of this.

Re: Get Your Shit Together

#33

Post by pjungwir »

I'm using this book by Nolo and it's great! Covers the basics plus a lot more and comes with a computer program to generate the documents for you:

http://www.amazon.com/Quicken-WillMaker-Plus-2015-Software/d...

Nolo is a well-known established company, like LegalZoom for books, and I've also used their stuff for business setup and contracts.

Re: Get Your Shit Together

#34

Post by mct »

golemotron wrote: post #26

What they don't mention: * Document -all- of your bank accounts, assets and debts. * Don't die without a will. If you do and you appoint an executor, you are giving them a very dirty job. * Think twice about offshore accounts. They are a nightmare for executors.

Don't die without a will. If you do and you appoint an executor, you are giving them a very dirty job

This is one of the reasons I've been putting off completing a will :-( Is there a good option for going about this without naming an executor?

Re: Get Your Shit Together

#36

Post by mootothemax »

My father died in extremely unexpected circumstances, and as much as a will would've been handy (understatement of the year), there are other bits that save heartache and frustrated compromise.

For example:

- do you want to be buried or cremated? And where? Any thoughts on coffin design?

- do you want a church service or something else? What songs, how big, as many details as possible.

It's morbid stuff, but by writing it down informally somewhere, you lift the burden from your loved ones having to make unknown "it's what he would have wanted" guesses.

Re: Get Your Shit Together

#37

Post by stevewilhelm »

Another bit of advice, if you have prepared these basic documents, it is a good idea to review them periodically.

It is particularly important to review and revise these documents after life changing events: getting married, having children, or when parents or executor becomes elderly, incapacitated, or dies.

Re: Get Your Shit Together

#38

Post by thehoff »

pzxc wrote: post #21
courtewing wrote: post #13

This is great advice all around, but get a local lawyer involved to prepare your will. Even in US, there is not a single set of laws that apply to wills and power of attorney. It varies state by state. With a generic template pulled from the internet, you could just be doing a whole lot of work and ultimately be ending up with a document that has little legal basis. Do your loved ones a favor - hire a lawyer to do it…

There are a few grammatical errors in these documents as well that do not inspire confidence. Also, you better be damn sure that you can trust the person you give power of attorney to -- the document provided here assigns power of attorney immediately, not on incapacitation/death, and allows the person you designate to gift themselves up to $13,000 a year of your own property without your consent. Considering the law…

It's at least a checklist and covers stuff you should be thinking about but may not have thought of (even if not financial such as the Thoughts section).

For instance, my wife and I need more videos of us and not just the kid. If something happened to me tomorrow I would love it if my wife could show him videos of me when he gets older.

I agree that maybe the site needs a disclaimer that getting a lawyer is better but for some isn't a generic form better than nothing? Not a lawyer either so not entirely sure about that.

Re: Get Your Shit Together

#39

Post by vtbassmatt »

jobu wrote: post #30
pzxc wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a few grammatical errors in these documents as well that do not inspire confidence. Also, you better be damn sure that you can trust the person you give power of attorney to -- the document provided here assigns power of attorney immediately, not on incapacitation/death, and allows the person you designate to gift themselves up to $13,000 a year of your own property without your consent. Considering the law…

> Frankly I don't see why the HN crowd would upvote a site like this -- I'd bet it was ring votes that got it to the front page. Or maybe it was just the snarky domain, who knows. My guess is it struck a chord with people similar to myself - young family and minimal EOL planning. (although the snarky domain definitely helps) For us, the biggest problem has been deciding who should take care of the kids if something h…

Do you have any friends with kids of their own? We found in our planning that the people who had kids of similar age to ours were the best choice. They're already dealing with "kid stuff" and, other than finances, adding more kids doesn't totally change the nature of their life.

Make sure to have life insurance, and have your lawyer set it up as a trust for the child's well-being. You can designate someone other than the caretaker of the child to be the trustee of the trust if you want to decentralize responsibility, though in our case we found that unnecessary. In our case, we recognized that additional kids would mean our designees need a bigger house, so we took a very liberal view of what constitutes the children's well-being.

Also keep in mind that you may revise your choices over time. We reasoned that her friend is the best choice for this 5 years, but when our daughter gets a bit older, we can reevaluate and see who in our then-social-circle is the ideal.

Re: Get Your Shit Together

#40

Post by signaler »

Always loved this Twitter account. I use it now and then to remind my followers that my shit is not together https://twitter.com/ismyshittogethr

Also there is no silver bullet for the maze that is life other than all the usual methods that the old masters laid out, like meditation, compassion, empathy, and logos/love/balance

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