Many people are confused about investment basics and this can cause problems when they approach financial or estate planning. Financial planning unfortunately, usually isn’t taught in schools and investing or financial management are not necessarily intuitive, but it is critical to know how to plan for your own financial wellbeing. Many people believe that they should be doing all of these various things related to their investment and retirement planning and often become overwhelmed by so much information. 
Learning about the basic types of investments and determining what you would like to achieve in your retirement, is a great way to begin with your end goal and then reflect backwards about the steps that you could take to protect your best interests.
Scheduling a consultation with a knowledgeable financial advisor and an experienced estate planning attorney can help you to understand all of the various assets that make up your current estate and how these should be considered together when you approach the future. The support of an estate planning attorney in particular, is very valuable because many people underestimate the volume of the assets inside their individual estate.
If you fail to include all of the necessary assets, you could expose yourself to unnecessary tax consequences and problems for your loved ones in terms of the state making decisions on your behalf because you chose not to engage in estate planning.