The Selfish Mistake More than 50% of Americans Make

My friends, you are killing me with your inability to plan for your death. A new survey from caring.com reports that just four in 10 adults has either a will or a revocable living trust. Even more disturbing to me was the news that barely one-third of adults with minor children has either of these essential documents.

I think that's incredibly selfish. Don’t tell me you don’t have the time. And don’t you dare tell me you don’t need a will or trust. That is just ridiculous. At a minimum, dying without either of these docs—and especially without a trust-means you are setting up your heirs to have to wade through some time-sucking (and potentially costly) legal thickets to take care of your estate.

And any parent with minor children needs a will; that’s the document where you can designate a legal guardian to care for your kids. Don’t want to contemplate what that would mean? I agree. But how can you contemplate leaving your kids and your family in the lurch if there’s no legal guardian in place?

And a living revocable trust isn’t just about dying. It is a vitally important document that can take care of you, if god forbid, you become too ill to handle your affairs.

Please, please, please listen to me: Drawing up your MUST HAVE™ Documents is the most loving financial step you will ever take. You can hug your family forever. You can tell them constantly how much they are loved. But only if you have the documents in place can you lay claim to doing everything to make sure they will be okay.