Category: Children

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How to Write and Update A Will

will1While you can’t take your property with you when you die, you can direct how your assets will be distributed by making a will. Unfortunately, some people never get around to the task, and instead die “intestate” – a legal term dictating how all property greater than the sum of your enforceable debts and funeral expenses, in the absence of a will, is distributed. Surprisingly, almost half of all adults die without a will, according to a 2012 Rocket Lawyer survey. In such cases, state law determines who gets what – including custody of minor children.
 
It is not just the poor and uneducated who die intestate. Celebrities such as Howard Hughes, Pablo Picasso, and Sonny Bono all failed to have wills, as did Swedish author Stieg Larsson, best known for “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” series of novels. As a consequence, distribution of their property to loved ones and business partners was delayed and expensive.
 
Unfortunately, even those with the foresight to prepare a will often forget to update its provisions as their circumstances change over the years—the birth and maturity of children, accumulation or divestiture of assets, or changes in personal responsibilities, for example. Therefore, the transfer of their assets may be inconsistent with their final wishes, overly expensive, and a source of emotional pain and frustration for their loved ones. In the worst circumstances, the estate passes (escheats) to the government, an undesirable result for almost all people.

Creating a Will

Some people elect to postpone or avoid writing a will because they falsely believe that taxes and administrative expenses may reduce the amount of funds (what lawyers call the “corpus” of the estate) that will be distributed to their heirs. However, a will does not complicate the distribution of an estate, but is intended to facilitate the passage of assets and maximize the benefits of the parties. Failing to write one only complicates matters for those who will be left to pick up the pieces.
 
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Lifetime Savings Plan – Principles for Every Age

save1Many Americans are now discovering that a comfortable retirement and adequate healthcare are beyond their means. As a consequence, we are working later in life, lowering our expectations, and going without not only luxuries, but essentials as well.
 
The decisions we make through our lives come with financial consequences. These choices include the careers we develop, the colleges we attend, the people we marry, the size of our family, and the lifestyles we adopt. While many of these choices may seem out of our control, it is possible to make adjustments along the way to minimize their worst financial consequences. The advantage available to everyone is time: The sooner we understand the long-term impact of our decisions and make the necessary changes, the more likely we are to reach our financial goals.

Major Lifetime Expenses

People incur common expense categories as they pass through different stages of life. However, the magnitude and timing of each vary from individual to individual. For example, one person may have $25,000 in student loan debt, while another has none. One person might get married at age 22 and have two children while another gets married at age 35 and has three children – another may not marry at all.
 
As a consequence, the following categories are necessarily broad, and a specific expense category may not apply to everyone. Nevertheless, a rough timeline projecting the cost of future expenses can enable you to save a portion of your income through each phase of life, helping you comfortably pay expenses when they occur, and ultimately leading to a substantial retirement fund.

1. Student Debt

According to a recent report by the Institute for College Access & Success, seven out of ten graduating college seniors in 2013 had student loans averaging $28,400. The median debt for those who earn post-graduate degrees is an additional $57,600, according to New America – one in ten graduate students owe $150,000 or more.
 
The cost of obtaining an undergraduate or graduate degree continues to escalate. While there are differences in everyone’s loan limits, interest rates, and repayment requirements, every borrower has to decide whether to focus on repayment as quickly as possible or make minimal payments and begin a savings program.
 
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Tell Your Story

write1During the last five years of my father’s life, he began a series of letters and memos to my younger brother and me about his life. Dad was not a famous man, nor a particularly accomplished man – at least, not by standard measures of success. Nevertheless, his letters chronicling a childhood during the Depression in the midst of the Dust Bowl, his experiences as a infantryman on the battlefields of Europe, and life in the 1950s were an incredible record of an extraordinary life and time in the history of America.
 
After his death, his writing was collected, organized chronologically for easier reading, and bound together for each member of the family, an incomparable legacy to his grandchildren and their descendants. As his son, I take great comfort in knowing that Dad will be remembered as a good husband, father, and friend for generations to come.
 
As my father used to say, “We come into and go out of this world alone, but the quality of our lives depends upon the people we touch along the way.” Blood and bones, and stones and steel eventually fade into nothingness, but the love between parents and children, siblings, and spouses endures forever. It is the stories of love that remind us who we are and why we are here.
 
Everyone has a story and an audience eager to read, enjoy, and remember the details of each narrative. Writing your autobiography is an opportunity to reach across the boundaries of time and space, set the record straight, honor the ones you love, and celebrate the journey you have taken. It is the chance to create your own time capsule; an opportunity to leave your handprints on the walls of human existence, and to shout to the world, “I was here and I mattered!”
 
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Are America’s Schools Failing?

students-classroomA headline in the December 2013 issue of The Atlantic claimed that American schools compared to the rest of the world—the members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)—were “expensive, unequal, bad at math.” Their conclusion was based upon American student performance in the Programme for International Student Assessment in 2012. Far East countries such as China, Korea, and Japan were top performers, while most European and Scandinavian countries ranked higher than the U.S. as well. Even the country’s former Cold War competitor, the Russian Federation, ranked higher than the United States in the assessment.
 
At the same time, Universitas 21, a global network of research-intensive universities, ranked the American higher education system—its colleges and universities—as the best in the world in 2014, a rank it has retained for years. It is also the reason that foreign students flock to the United States from around the globe.
 
So what is the truth about the American school system? Is it a success or a failure? What should we expect from our schools, and how can we improve them?

History of Public Education in the United States

Contrary to popular belief, the right to an “education” is not mentioned in the Constitution. In the early years of the republic, public education was considered important to the nation’s progress as evidenced by the granting of more than 77 million acres of public domain to the individual states for the support of public schools. At the same time, the responsibility for education was delegated to state and local governments. The Federal Government was not heavily involved in the administration of public education until the end of the Civil War, establishing the original Office of Education in 1867.
 
It was not until the 1960s and 1970s that the Federal Government assumed a dominant position in the administration of education, primarily stimulated by racial discrimination. A second driver for the Federal Government’s increased role was the perceived failure of the state-run schools, especially in science and math, compared to national rivals. The passage of the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) was in direct response to the Soviet launch of Sputnik as a consequence of the general perception that “American schools and colleges were not producing the quantity and quality of scientific and technical specialists necessary to keep pace with the Soviet Union.”
 
As a consequence, the first federal student loans capitalized with U.S. Treasury funds for college students in science, math, and foreign languages were instituted. Since that time, financial assistance has alternated between direct loans capitalized with U.S. Treasury funds and loans from private parties secured by federal guarantees.
 
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