Curious what others have put (morbid subject)

[amaristella]

Well. It's time to do our wills. Yeah, we sucks for waiting until our kid is a year+ old. But, I'm looking at the form from JAG that gives you sort of a framework and there's an option on what age to allow your kids access to "access their gifts" (money). It lists various different ages starting with 21. It lists "some age under 21 (specify)" and a couple different mixtures where they get a portion released at different ages. Well, that's a complicated question especially when your kid isn't old enough for you to know much about their adult personality. Right now it's moot as any assets we currently have would be long gone by the time A hits 18 but I also don't know how long it's going to be before we update our wills. I think my parents only update theirs every 10-15 years.

I do know how I'm leaning but I'm curious what others have chosen and the reasons why.

Edit: I have another question, too. I have this idea in my head but I don't know if it's crazy or not. Is it a shit-brained idea to have one set of grandparents listed as A's legal guardian and the other set listed as custodians of his inheritance? Is it bonkers to split it up like that? They all get along and I trust they would have no trouble working with each other if that ever happened but I don't know if doing that makes it more difficult than necessary.

[cattledogkisses]

Jan 21, 2015 16:35:39 GMT -5 Stan said:

I would not do 21. Maybe 25 or 30. 21 year olds are dumb!

Agreed.  We don't have children ourselves, but my parents set up their wills so that if they died, my siblings and I would inherit a certain percentage at age 25, another portion at 30, another portion at 35, and so on.  I think that was a wise way to go about it, since it makes it impossible to blow through everything at once.  And I'm with Stan in that 21 year olds are still figuring things out, and that 25 is going to be a better age for most people.  The maturity curve in your early 20s is pretty steep. 

[audette]

I think my parents had their wills set up for us to gain our entire inheritance at 25. We're all well past that age now...

I wouldn't split the guardian and fund custodian like that. Too much of a pain in the ass, and too much of one set of folks having to request from the other set for money for basic needs for your kid... _Maybe_ if we were talking serious money, it might be worth doing something like that for checks and balances on the funds, but at that point, it would probably be worth hiring a financial person to handle it who could be held to ethical standards and who wouldn't create potential friction between two sets of grandparents.

[Deleted]

Yeah, we haven't done this yet. And we haven't agreed on who will care for our kiddo if we die at the same time. I think I would probably specify 21 or 25, unless the money is to be used for education (community college, 4-year institution, technical school, trade school, etc).

[beans]

Jan 21, 2015 20:47:12 GMT -5 Stan said:

We do have it in our plans to send our dogs to beans with 25% of our SGLI. i know she'll do the right thing by them, that they'll stay together even if it's not with her, and that money won't be an object in their life. I also trust her implicitly with life or death decisions when it comes to that. Even with all the money in the world, for example, she wouldn't prolong their life unnecessarily.

Man, Beans, can you talk to your H and see if you're down to raise our not here yet kids if we both die? I don't think we'd agree on a family member and you'd raise 'em right. Proper America loving feminist liberals. Glad you asked this Stella, now I can get my future ducks* in a row.


*My phone autocorrected ducks to dicks because I taught it to. I almost left it. Must get all the dicks in a row too! Lol.

Stan it would be an honor.

I already gave William a talking to about being nice to your dogs if they come- he'll have up be kind and share toys, especially because they'll be bereaved. So, I'll just add future Stan Jr., et al. to that chat with him.

[amaristella]

See, verbally we agreed on who should raise A, but suddenly I'm having second thoughts now that it needs to go down on paper and here's why.

Our parents are all wonderful loving people. They love A as much as their own child. But they have what I consider to be some very bad views of homosexuals and I don't even want to know what they would do with a transgender situation. As it stands I don't know what any of them would do if my teenage son, under their care announced that he was gay or transgender. Part of me is like, well, maybe we could put some stipulations in our will but maybe it would be better that he not be with them at all. Maybe he's better off with like, my SIL. Problem is I don't know if SIL would agree to be designated or not. We would have to ask.

[amaristella]

Jan 21, 2015 19:54:12 GMT -5 @villainv said:

Yeah, we haven't done this yet. And we haven't agreed on who will care for our kiddo if we die at the same time. I think I would probably specify 21 or 25, unless the money is to be used for education (community college, 4-year institution, technical school, trade school, etc).

That gives me something to think about. We've yet to establish a fund especially for education or trade school or whatever.

[amaristella]

Jan 22, 2015 1:14:38 GMT -5 Stan said:

Jan 22, 2015 0:09:49 GMT -5 amaristella said:

See, verbally we agreed on who should raise A, but suddenly I'm having second thoughts now that it needs to go down on paper and here's why.

Our parents are all wonderful loving people. They love A as much as their own child. But they have what I consider to be some very bad views of homosexuals and I don't even want to know what they would do with a transgender situation. As it stands I don't know what any of them would do if my teenage son, under their care announced that he was gay or transgender. Part of me is like, well, maybe we could put some stipulations in our will but maybe it would be better that he not be with them at all. Maybe he's better off with like, my SIL. Problem is I don't know if SIL would agree to be designated or not. We would have to ask.

See, the reason I'm not comfortable with either of my families is due to ideological differences. H's family are, um, not like us. His mom hasn't spoken to me since she posted something about how dumb Obama supporters are with our idiot kool-aid. My parents, well, they're more like us, except the fight I had to be the America loving Truman style liberal that I am took a toll on me. I know that sounds dumb, but my mom and stepdad made it really hard to be me, even recently. I hope that my children are liberal, and I hope they also love service. It doesn't have to be military service, I think the fact that my parents are teachers and such is patriotic too, and I even think their tendency to protest things they disagree with is patriotic. But if my kids want to join the military, I want that to be encouraged, not stymied at every turn. I want my kids to be free to be who they are supposed to be, as long as it's not nihilist evil bad citizens. I know beans would be sane, I know she'll be a fantastic mother, and I believe she'll raise critical thinkers who are good people. Hopefully that never becomes an issue, but I am firm in my need to have my kids raised with similar ideological principals. That means no homophobia, no misogyny, no military hating, and no one who would vote for Ron Paul/Rand Paul/Paul Ryan. I think ideology is a perfectly good reason not to give kids to someone. It's a parent's responsibility to raise their children as good citizens of the world, right? 

It's hard because I want to be able to see around it. My parents had 3 kids and let's see, at least two of us have managed to form entirely our own opinions. That's a skill that, ironically, we learned from our parents. I pointed that out to my mom once and she didn't really respond.

But the reason that it freaks me out is that is can be a matter of life and death for a teenager. If they don't have the emotional support that they need things can go very wrong. Now that I realize this I know that I have to bring it up with DH and see what he says.

[amaristella]

And Stan you know how things are where we're from. To be honest we had originally agreed to send A to the bay area where DH's parents currently live. We figure that it's a healthier environment up there in a lot of ways but the In-Laws would still be the ones creating the home environment. Maybe to avoid an argument we just need to say someone else, like SIL, for age reasons. I don't think that my parents ever considered sending us to their parents. Health and ideology were their reasons.

[amaristella]

Jan 22, 2015 1:41:28 GMT -5 Stan said:

Jan 22, 2015 1:26:32 GMT -5 amaristella said:

And Stan you know how things are where we're from. To be honest we had originally agreed to send A to the bay area where DH's parents currently live. We figure that it's a healthier environment up there in a lot of ways but the In-Laws would still be the ones creating the home environment. Maybe to avoid an argument we just need to say someone else, like SIL, for age reasons. I don't think that my parents ever considered sending us to their parents. Health and ideology were their reasons.

True that. We're so behind for CA! I totally agree that someone around your age is better anyway. Good luck talking to SIL!

Thanks. DH says he will talk to his sister but it's hard to tell until we ask because although she would be a great role model, is young, in excellent health, educated and in a great place financially she's also pretty busy having a great time as a 20 something so I don't know if that's something that she would consider. I know that she thinks A is pretty cute but I'm not sure if she would want the responsibility.

[ohyouknow]

This is not legal advice. For consideration only:
In most cases if you give kids money younger than 25, there are higher fees to set up the trust. MOST people (out of the hundreds or thousands of wills I've drafted) did age 25. As far as splitting up money v. custody, if you trust one set of grandparents for both money/custody, consider doing that. If you don't, consider giving custody to one set and give the money to an independent trustee to be used for the benefit of the children. That way you have a professional making the decision of "should the custodial family get $175,000 to upgrade to a nicer house so each of the children have a bedroom" and the other set of grandparents thinking "they don't deserve a nicer house, that money should be saved for the kid's college." It just avoids that conflict and leaves things professional.
Also - don't stress too much. It is very, very rare that both parents both die at the same time. I've had a couple clients die, but never both. Sorry if that's morbid to others. :-( I used to deal with wills daily so it doesn't faze me, lol.

[lindyanne]

We did some at 18, 21, 25 and 30 with extra for specific purpose (like house down payment) at the discretion of ther trustee.

[thebreakfastclub]

SIL is the financial guardian (separate from custody) who can release funds above and beyond normal expenses (like for braces, etc.)

DS can access his money on his own at 18 for school, a home or a business.

Outside of those uses, he gets access to 25% at 18, 50% of the balance at 25 and the rest at 30.