Seven Times You Need To Meet With Your Financial Advisor and Estate Planning Attorney

There are many different changes that can happen throughout the course of your life and some of these prompts setting up a meeting with your team of financial professionals. This can include an estate planning lawyer, your financial advisor, or even your accountant.

As these changes occur, it is crucial to consult with these experts about how adaptations in your life or the bigger picture such as laws can influence your strategies for your future. If any of these describe your current situation or an upcoming issue, consider setting up a meeting now.

  • You’re preparing to retire in the next couple of years.
  • You currently manage your own investments but could benefit from the insight of an unbiased third party as you may be overlooking opportunities in your portfolio.
  • You have recently inherited money and are attempting to determine the best thing to do with it.
  • You have children and are planning for their inheritance or saving for college.
  • You’re getting divorced and want to know how this will impact your finances.
  • You want to build wealth.
  •  You are concerned about future healthcare expenses in retirement and later years.

All of these circumstances merit a consultation with your team of financial professionals to determine whether or not your existing financial plan will help you to accomplish your goals as listed. Our office is here to help guide you through these steps in your life and empower you with the information you need to make informed decisions. Working with an attorney is helpful for understanding how these smaller pieces fit into the big picture.

When To Know It’s Time to Sell Your Business

Putting all of your effort into your business for many years is a common problem for entrepreneurs. They have a great deal of passion and excitement about growing their business, but there may be times when you need to think about selling. In today’s current economic climate, this could be a very important opportunity for you to evaluate your options to sell your business.

It may be in your best interests to sell your company if you are facing significant issues with current management or feel as though your business has outgrown you. It is the goal for many entrepreneurs to replace themselves in their business by building teams, systems and processes that can help to carry on the business without them.

During your working years, this might have been used to allow you to go on vacation, but as you get closer to retirement, you must think about the benefit of business succession planning. Business succession planning can help you see the talent bench you have that will progress your business in ways that you might not have imagined. This can factor into your decision about when to retire because based on your current financial goals and what you might take away from an exit of the business, you may have more assets than expected or need to stay a few longer years than you expected.

Consulting with the right team of financial professionals is instrumental in outlining your success when selling your company or making any other big transition in your life. Contact our team of dedicated professionals to help answer your questions today. We’re here to help you decide what this transition looks like and how to make the best of it.

Do Downturns Lead to Down Years?

Stock market declines over a few days or months may
lead investors to anticipate a down year. But the US stock
market had positive returns in 17 of the past 20 calendar
years, despite some notable dips in many of those years.

• Intra-year declines for the index ranged from 3% to 49%.
• Many years with large intra-year declines saw positive
annual returns. In 17 of the last 20 years, US stocks
ended up with gains for the year.
• Even in 2020, when there were sharp market declines
associated with the coronavirus pandemic, US stocks
ended the year with gains of 21%.

Volatility is a normal part of investing. Tumbles may be
scary, but they shouldn’t be surprising. A long-term focus
can help investors keep perspective.

Sources: Dimensional Fund Advisors LP is an investment advisor registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Can You Name A Beneficiary For Crypto Assets In Your Estate Plan?

Do you hold crypto assets or are you looking into owning some? You need a plan for how you’ll hold it during your life and what happens to it after you pass away.

Crypto is only becoming more possible but this raises plenty of questions for people who hold crypto assets about what happens to those assets when they pass away. If you do not have a specific plan for cryptocurrency assets in your will, these could all disappear permanently when you pass away. Crypto transactions live on a blockchain and are verified independently by a network of computers, which means they are assets handled and stored differently than those inside traditional banks.

Crypto is considered a probate asset because it will need to go through probate before it can be legally transferred to your beneficiaries when you pass away. A beneficiary is an organization or a person who you want to inherit a particular asset when you pass away. In order to make sure that the right person has access to all of these details, you need to list out all of the crypto assets in your estate plan, name where they are stored, and which beneficiary should receive them.

Furthermore, you’ll also need to appoint an executor as part of your will, and this is the person responsible for administering your last will and testament. A digital property executor may also need to be appointed and it may be a separate person who is familiar with cryptocurrency. For more support in drafting a comprehensive strategy for your cryptocurrency in your estate plan, set aside a time to meet with a lawyer.

Why A Will Isn’t Enough For Business Estate Planning

If you own a business, you need business succession planning and careful consideration about how to craft your estate planning to support your individual and company needs. Many business owners might only have the most basic of estate planning tools of a last will and testament.

If your estate plan only has a will in it, your estate, including all of the assets inside your business will have to go through the court supervised process known as probate when you pass away. It can take a few months for someone to appoint a person on behalf of you and your company to take action. This can significantly disrupt cash flow and operations. Furthermore, many people who have worked hard to establish a business want to maintain control over that and benefit from privacy. Remember that probate is a very public process, meaning that the affairs of your business could be open to your competitors or your neighbors.

Having the insight of an experienced estate planning lawyer is strongly recommended for every business owner who is looking forward to the future. Creating a business succession plan is one of the cornerstones of your estate plan because it allows for the transfer of the business based on decisions that you make now.

It can also include important documents, such as a buy-sell agreement, which allows certain other people to be able to step in and purchase your portion of the business if needed. Having these options is instrumental for keeping your company operating after you have stepped away, and it ensures that the right people have been tapped to step into leadership roles as necessary. Do not hesitate to contact an experienced business succession planning lawyer to discuss this option more.

What Expenses Are You Potentially Leaving Behind?

A recent study by Empathy.com has shown that the average family incurs over $12,000 in unexpected expenses after a family member passes away. Every year, 3 million individuals pass away in the United States, some of whom have estate plans and others who leave all the questions to be answered by their family members. Funeral costs can be extensive and expensive.

Many people do not realize the comprehensive aspects of planning ahead for a funeral, and failing to plan is still a plan because it leaves your loved ones in the difficult situation of making these decisions after you pass away. This doesn’t incorporate your individual wishes and intentions and could even put them in a financial bind. Some of the average costs for services spent by family members around the country include:

  • $3,910 in attorney fees
  • Over $7,000 for funeral or memorial expenses
  • $2,456 for accountant support
  • $4,461 for real estate professional help
  • $1,637 for social workers or therapists

Approximately one in seven families had a little bit easier road with these expenses because their loved one had paid in advance for those costs. Set aside the time to meet with an experienced estate planning attorney to make sure you have thought of a way to help plan for these potential expenses and make things easier on your loved ones.

Most people want to, at a minimum, make sure there are no burdens or messes left behind when they pass away. This means thinking about what advanced planning you’ve done and how it can help your family members during an otherwise difficult time.

What Are The Most Common Reasons That A Trustee Is Sued?

A trustee is an important person who has a great deal of responsibility assigned to them in the management and administration of a trust. Unfortunately, suing the trustee of a trust can happen, and it can put the trustee as well as beneficiaries in a very difficult situation.

Proactive trust planning can help to minimize the possibility of dealing with problems associated with suing the trustee of a trust. It is important to decide who you will install in this role, since they will need to communicate effectively with all beneficiaries on the trust, comply with all the terms of the trust and adhere to the law.

Although plenty of trustees work efficiently and diligently to carry out all of their tasks and will treat every beneficiary equally and fairly, this is not always the case. In some situations, when a trustee crosses the line, they can be held personally accountable and removed from their role. Trustees can be sued both as the trustee of a trust and in a personal capacity.

Any trustee can be sued personally for improper or illegal administration of the trust, and minors can sue trustees so long as an adult files the lawsuit on their behalf. Common causes of action for lawsuits against trustees include self-interest fraud, conflict of interest and embezzlement.

Lawsuits against trustees are typically brought in probate court and can impact the overall value of assets inside the trust as these funds will need to be used to handle the legal claim. Be proactive in your trust planning by choosing the right person to serve in this role and in minimizing the possibility of problems. Schedule a time to meet with an experienced attorney today.

Are You Falling For This Living Trust Myth?

A living trust, when used properly, can be an important component of your estate plan. In some cases, it may help to ensure that all of the wishes that you have regarding how your assets pass is covered accurately. However, it can be a big misconception to assume that a living trust negates the need for a will.

It is unlikely that you will put every item that you own into your trust and there’s also the possibility that you could include additional assets between the time you draw up the living trust and the time you pass away. Your lawyer might recommend something that is known as a pour over will, which essentially allows for the transfer of anything that you have excluded. You may still need a will to help incorporate all estate planning concerns since a will is the only place you can name a guardian for your minor children, for example.

When drafted together, your living will and your trust can cover a lot of bases in the estate planning process and can combine with other things, such as a medical power of attorney, a durable power of attorney and a living will to ensure that all of your wishes are followed to the letter. If you have concerns about making sure that your loved ones are put in a good situation when you pass away in terms of the appointment of an executor, the transfer of assets and more, it is important to work directly with an estate planning law firm.

A living trust works well as part of your overall estate plan based on your personal goals. Let our estate planning office help you put it into action.

Meme Investing? Try Human Ingenuity Instead

What do mean stock investors and Wall Street have in common, and where are they different? How does humanity’s tendency to persevere show up in the market? I enjoyed the article below by David Booth from the Dimensional Fund Advisors website. I hope you enjoy it as well.

-Neel

We’ve all been conditioned to see meme investors and Wall Street in opposition, but it seems to me that they have a lot in common. Both believe in picking stocks and think they can beat the market. In my mind, the important distinction is that Wall Street stands to make a lot of money off meme investors, simply from trading costs. For those who say apps don’t charge for trading, think about it: When was the last time Wall Street gave away anything for free?

I think the best long-term investing strategy has little to do with prediction or stock picking, and everything to do with investing in human ingenuity. Human ingenuity is the engine that drives the stock market. The real anti-Wall Street revolution began in academia in the 1960s and evolved into the formation of index funds more than 50 years ago. The academics spearheading this revolution found no compelling evidence that any individual can consistently beat the market, but that the market itself returns, on average, about 10% a year.

Why do individuals have such trouble beating those returns?

In transparent public markets governed by the rule of law, enormous numbers of buyers and sellers come together to trade. Both sides of every trade must feel like they got a good deal. Otherwise, they wouldn’t trade. That’s what people mean when they say prices are fairly set.

When Wall Street or meme investors think they can capitalize on “mispricing,” they’re not betting against Wall Street so much as they are betting against human ingenuity.

So when you bet on individual stocks, you might win or you might lose, but over 10 years, you’re unlikely to harvest a better return than if you invested in the whole market. If you stop and think about it for a minute, this makes sense. Markets only work if they are unpredictable. After all, they are constantly responding to all the new information that comes in every day. If we could predict when the market was going to move, there would be no market. The fact is nobody knows when a certain stock will go up or down. Contrary to what both Wall Street and meme investors want you to think, there is no method of analysis, no matter how “proprietary” or sophisticated, that tells us what’s going to happen when.

So when Wall Street or meme investors think they can capitalize on “mispricing,” they’re not betting against Wall Street so much as they are betting against human ingenuity. I’m referring to the millions of people working hard to maximize the value of their companies, and millions of investors trying to make the best possible trading decisions based on all available information. Sometimes speculators get lucky, and sometimes they don’t. Regardless, I don’t call what they’re doing investing. I call it speculation—even gambling.

Buying the market is a totally different approach. It’s investing in human ingenuity. People working to maximize the value of public companies are innovative and resilient. They adapt to improve products. They create new processes to solve problems. While you can’t predict what any one person will do on any given day, you can predict that humanity will persevere. The market reflects this simple truth.

The market can reward us for having faith in our fellow human beings. Investing—like life—is full of uncertainty, but at the end of the day, it’s uncertainty that drives opportunity, and returns. Investing is not about trying to outguess Wall Street or meme investors on which stock will go up or down and when. It’s about choosing to side with human ingenuity and betting on a future that’s better than today—because of the hard work of everyone you know, and the many millions you will never meet.

David Booth
Executive Chairman and Founder

Sources: Dimensional Fund Advisors LP is an investment advisor registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Estate Plan Created Before 2010? It’s Time For An Update

Many things change in the state and national landscape over the years, and there’s a good chance that many things have changed in your life too. If you haven’t revisited your estate plan since 2010, it’s a good idea to set up a meeting with an estate planning attorney in your area for a review and an update.

Many things have changed in the last 10+ years, both at the state and national level and also likely in your life.

For example, have you:

  • Set up contingent beneficiaries?
  • Included all children and grandchildren in your plan?
  • Changed your marital status?
  • Acquired more property?
  • Got rid of some property?

You should probably hire a new attorney to do the updating but be aware that some lawyers may be uncomfortable being held responsible for a document they did not initially draft. It is essential to work directly with an attorney because there are many potential mistakes that could happen in the drafting or updating of your estate planning tools.

The more you’re familiar with some of these possible concerns, the easier it is to consult with an attorney and make sure you have covered all of the various bases. If you have gone through significant life changes since the last time you originally created your estate plan and, in particular, if you have acquired a great deal of property or adopted or given birth to children in this time period, you’ll want to have a lawyer who can help walk you through this process.

How To Take on The Hard Conversations with Family Members About Estate Planning

Are you worried about whether or not your parents have thought through and set up their estate plan? If not, you may be concerned that you and your siblings will be left to deal with probate on your own.

A big reason why many people put off the process of planning their estate is because they are concerned that they don’t need one. However, having an estate plan is an important way to help support your loved ones, and you can greatly reduce their confusion and frustration after you pass away by undertaking these important steps. It’s not always or ever an easy conversation to discuss end of life planning, or what happens after you pass away.

There is a great concern that talking about death will upset your spouse and family, and although it is true that this can be an uncomfortable conversation to start, knowing a loved one or parent’s wishes about everything from medical care they do and don’t want to receive to potential funeral plans can be reassuring. It can give family members a sense of relief to understand what to expect and what important decisions they should take on behalf of their loved ones.

This is also a good opportunity to discuss your individual legacy, such as the values you want to pass down to your other family members. This can be a much easier way to broach the subject of estate planning and to encourage your loved ones to undertake their estate planning as well.

Ready to set up your own estate plan or review an older one that needs some updates? Contact our office today for personal support with a NJ estate plan.

Do Real Estate Assets Go Through Probate?

If you own any kind of real estate, including a home, you should include these in your will because there is a high chance they will pass through probate. There are some options for keeping real estate outside of your probated estate, such as transfer on death deeds, joint ownership or trusts. It is usually less avoidable for valuable possessions. When determining how your beneficiaries could be affected by the transfer of assets, such as real estate, first think about the number of beneficiaries that you intend to name.

If you are naming multiple people as beneficiaries to a piece of real estate, you may need to think about titling complications such as titling each of those to beneficiaries separately or having the property sold and the proceeds divided. Do not forget to think about potential tax and financial implications of passing things on in this way either. Your beneficiaries may have to pay capital gains taxes as part of a possible sale. You can also use tools such as a qualified personal residence trust to protect real estate. This pulls the property outside of your probate estate and helps to avoid federal estate taxes, which will also allow you to continue to live in the residence for a predetermined period of time.

You must outlive the term of the trust, however, to see the tax benefits. You can also name a joint owner on the property now so that it passes directly to the second owner which is allowed via a transfer on death deed. The property then passes immediately to that person who is usually a spouse outside of probate relatively quickly.

 

 

Who is Responsible for Administering My Trust or Will in New Jersey?

The administration of a trust and will likely fall to two different people in New Jersey, depending on how your estate plan is structured. The executor that you name in your will is responsible for carrying out those instructions inside your will. A trustee, however, plays a similar role, but typically until all assets inside the trust have been distributed to beneficiaries.

This means that a trustee might serve in their role for a much longer period of time. A child, financial institution, friend, family member, or other professional could also be named as co-trustee or co-executor. While both the titles of trustee and executor might sound relatively simple, these are substantial responsibilities, and it is important for the person who has been chosen to serve in these roles to understand this position and to feel comfortable serving in this role on an ongoing basis.

A trustee, in particular, is especially important because they are usually given some discretion over trust funds and when distributions should be made to beneficiaries. Only a trusted individual should serve in this role and someone who is comfortable communicating with any and all of the beneficiaries on your estate. The support of an experienced and knowledgeable estate planning lawyer can help to create a strategy to encompass the appointment of an executor, as well as a trustee.

Contact an experienced New Jersey estate planning lawyer for further support as you create these documents and name the important people to serve in these roles.

How to Recognize the Signs of Elder Abuse

Elder abuse is substantially under-reported, primarily because many people who are suffering as victims do not feel comfortable speaking up. Many others do not realize that they have potential legal recourse or may so concerned about backlash from the person perpetrating the abuse or the facility that they choose not to speak up. The most common warning signs of elder abuse are sudden and strange changes to a loved one’s financial, physical, or emotional wellbeing.

Watching for physical symptoms is an easy way to spot the potential for physical or sexual abuse. Symptoms and signs of elder abuse can include poor hygiene, unexplained weight loss, injuries such as broken bones, cuts, or bruises, unexplained loss of money or confusion around particular transactions, withdrawal from friends and family members, symptoms of depression, signs of confusion, and discomfort speaking around the person who may be carrying out the abuse.

If you find yourself in the position of dealing with elder abuse, particularly at the hands of someone in a nursing home, you should consult with an experienced attorney. You might also need to move a loved one to a new facility to get the peace of mind provided when you know they are being cared for well. There’s so much to think about when you have concerns over elder abuse, but their safety should be front and center.

Physical abuse is just one example. Financial elder abuse is a serious issue on the rise as well.

Having estate planning documents put in place sooner rather than later, can establish a power of attorney for an elderly loved one that can help to serve as an additional layer of protection. However, to avoid potential elder abuse by the person holding the power of attorney, it is important to select a trusted individual to serve in this role. Talk with an estate planning lawyer about how you can use certain tools like a POA to help reduce the risk of financial elder abuse.

Can I Still Plan My Estate During a Crisis?

A big reason why many people put off estate planning is because they’re not in a crisis. Without seeing an immediate need, it’s easy to write off doing the important planning to protect you in case a crisis does happen. While you’ll get the best results and avoid possible conflicts and estate disputes by doing your planning in advance, there might still be options to make headway when you’re facing a crisis.

Whether you or a loved one is looking at a serious health issue or other legal reason to do your estate planning, one of the first things to do is contact a lawyer. A lawyer can walk you through all the legal and possible options for planning your estate and getting your documents in order.

Here are some questions to ask when you contact a lawyer to walk through your crisis planning possibilities:

  • Do we have any options to take action now? For example, if a loved one now has serious dementia and no planning has been done, it will be harder to create legally valid documents if this person is unable to speak for themselves. Any signatures they add to documents could be easily questioned in the future. However, if the person is in early stages of dementia and is still capable of understanding their surroundings, creating powers of attorney is possible.
  • What’s at risk if we don’t take action now? When someone needs immediate help, such as a rush application for Medicaid, this should be pursued with utmost care.
  • How soon can we realistically accomplish these goals, and what roadblocks do you see? Depending on your estate planning question or concern, it’s important to know how long it will take to get strategies or documents in place as well as some of the common challenges.

If you’re ready to start estate planning now to avoid having to do it in a crisis, or if you’re currently facing a crisis and need help, reach out to our estate planning law offices now.

Is Active vs. Passive Actually Passé?

As a member of probably the last generation to grow up with a rotary dial phone in the house, I can still recall when there was clear distinction between phones and computers. Phones were utilitarian devices, while computers were gateways to limitless knowledge and entertainment.

Nowadays, that distinction has dissolved. For many consumers, phones arguably obviate the need for a personal computer.

Similarly, evolution in finance has etched away the apparent cut-and-dried distinction between active and passive investing. The current landscape suggests the characteristics implied by such traditional, binary labels may not be sufficient to describe many of today’s investment approaches. A more nuanced framework takes the spirit of active and passive definitions—betting against market prices vs. embracing them—and examines how it applies to an investment’s underlying philosophy and implementation.

DIMINISHED DISTINCTION

Index investing emerged amid a growing body of evidence showing that traditional active methods of attempting to select stocks and time markets were ineffective. Studies documenting underperformance by active fund managers supported the sentiment that market prices were largely fair and any attempt to find under- or overpriced securities was akin to flipping a coin. So, the arrival of index funds represented a shift towards embracing market prices—if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em!

Because early indexing didn’t spin its wheels in bottom-up company analysis or top-down economic trend forecasting, it became known as passive investing. However, this stretches the definition of “passive.” A sailboat without its own propulsion must still be actively manipulated to keep wind in its sail. Indexes are not perpetual motion machines free of maintenance, but require periodic management through additions, deletions, and security reweighting. Index construction rules are often designed to accommodate the mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) tracking the indexes, reducing index turnover, for example, by limiting the number of rebalancing events and imposing thresholds on security weight changes.

Also blurring the line between active and passive is the fact that some investors may use index funds to pursue an active investment approach. For example, the largest S&P 500 ETF had the highest average daily trade volume of US-listed securities in 2021, at $31 billion USD.2 It is reasonable to assume a portion of that trading activity represented asset allocation changes motivated by market viewpoints, rather than buy-and-hold position accumulation.

A more evolved process for categorizing investments applies the active/passive label separately for a strategy’s structure/implementation and its underlying philosophy. While some investment approaches still appear active or passive through and through under this framework, many investment styles have a foot in both camps.

Stock-picking and market-timing strategies would universally be described as active, and the 2×2 framework in Exhibit 1 shows how this label is earned. These approaches are rooted in an active philosophy that implicitly presumes mispriced securities or market segments can be identified. This philosophy is executed in an active structure that deviates from the market in an attempt to exploit mispricing opportunities.

Broad market index funds, on the other hand, fit a passive definition along both dimensions. The raison d’être of index funds is an acceptance of the market’s pricing power, a concession that trying to outguess markets is unlikely to succeed in the long term. The structure of the broad market index funds is true to that belief, generally holding the entirety of the prescribed asset class or market segment with no deviations motivated by expected-return goals.

Expansion of the ETF landscape has spawned a segment of index ETFs that do not track broad market indices, instead offering more targeted exposure for investors who are looking to time markets or concentrate on particular stocks. For example, you can find a social sentiment ETF that holds the top 75 large cap stocks based on investor exuberance measured through channels such as social media and news outlets. Another example is a millennial-themed consumer ETF that seeks to ride the coattails of companies benefiting from millennials’ consumption preferences. I hope its prospectus isn’t written in cursive!

These are but two examples of index funds that sit apart from traditional passive approaches. They track indices, so are passive in structure. But the philosophical underpinning of these niche ETFs would seem inconsistent with an acceptance of market prices. An investor who believes stock prices reflect available information about companies likely would not see the appeal of an allocation to trendy stocks based on a belief in their growth potential. Our framework assigns an active/passive designation to these index ETFs.

The final quadrant expresses Dimensional’s approach, which starts with a firm belief in the power of markets. In that sense, our philosophy is aligned with the industry’s original shift to passive. We use the information in prices throughout our investment process with an aim to increase expected returns daily, seeking to add value above markets and benchmarks. The implementation is therefore active—we are not beholden to the construction rules of an index. So, we land on passive/active: an approach that seeks to outperform markets without trying to outguess them.

By: Wes Crill, PhD
Head of Investment Strategists and Vice President

Sources: Dimensional Fund Advisors LP is an investment advisor registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

 

Nearly Three-Quarters of Older Workers Regret This Financial Mistake

No one wants to enter retirement only to learn that there’s a key step they could have taken to protect themselves years before. By then, it’s too late. In the best-case scenario, you play catch up. In the worst, you adjust your standard of living, sell assets, or make other difficult decisions.

Current retirees recently participated in a study indicating that 70% of them share a common regret. The research study completed by the Insured Retirement Institute has important implications for younger workers as well and younger employees can take positive steps in their financial planning to support it.

The data showed that nearly 70% of older workers wished they had started saving money for retirement earlier than they did. It’s much harder to hit your investment goals and to protect your interests in older years if you don’t start saving for retirement early. It is extremely important to find the support of a dedicated retirement planning advisor and other members of your financial team, such as an estate planning lawyer.

An estate planning lawyer can help you define how you want to align your retirement goals with your giving goals in later years and the possibility of long-term care expenses. Failing to think about retirement and estate planning holistically can have negative repercussions for you and the loved ones that you intend to support as beneficiaries. Set aside time to meet with an experienced estate planning lawyer today and to find the other professionals to help support your financial goals now and in the future to avoid making retirement mistakes.

New Jersey Hits Bottom Spot on States to Retire List

Do you plan to move to New Jersey to retire, or do you live there now? If so, you need to plan ahead to protect yourself and to make sure you have enough funds to support you and your loved ones.

New Jersey was recently ranked as the United States’ worst state to retire in, according to WalletHub’s annual list. Nearby New York did not score much better. This is the most significant impact that made New Jersey a difficult place to retire was that it finished 49th in the category of affordability.

Other factors that influence this high retirement cost include that it came in low in terms of having an elderly friendly labor market, that the taxpayer ranking was low and that the annual cost of living and in-home services were middling or towards the bottom of the list. Moving somewhere based on your preferences and your health status can be dangerous because it can overlook other important factors that may influence your ability to live the lifestyle that you intended to at the time of retirement.

Having a comprehensive retirement and estate plan are some of the most important things you can do to protect your interests and make sure that you have a strategy in place for moving somewhere that allows you to live this lifestyle. Being close to family members and whether or not there is a state estate tax or income tax are other issues to consider.

If you don’t have an estate plan yet, or if you haven’t yet discussed Medicaid for your long term care plan, contact our law office today for further help.

Study Shows Older Retirees’ Funds Took Big Hits In 2021

When looking to your own future, there are three big concerns: retirement, long-term care planning, and estate planning. In many ways, the plans for each of these intersect and influence each other. You might have funds set aside for your retirement that are also earmarked for a loved one.

New research from the Senior Citizens League shows that inflation is having negative impacts on retirement savings. In fact, more than 60% of retirees who responded to the survey indicated that their savings had dropped by 10% or greater in 2021. Medical services and health care costs have continued to rise, making this especially important for older adults to think about the possibility of covering long-term care expenses.

A February report indicates that the January consumer price index in the United States grew by 6%, which shows that inflation is still rising and causing negative impacts for consumers of all ages. The biggest increases in consumer prices were in gasoline, used trucks and cars and overall energy.

Although these issues don’t affect retirees as much, many people may be dipping into their savings for a variety of reasons, such as retiring early or spending greater funds on health care than anticipated. In order to create a comprehensive estate plan that protects your individual needs and helps provide for your loved ones in the future, you need the support of an experienced estate planning lawyer.

Although you can’t predict the future, you can pick a retirement and estate strategy that helps support you for many years after you leave the workforce. Get your questions answered by speaking with a NJ estate planning attorney today.