Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:06] It is Lauren with the Llamas podcast. And as you can see, I am by myself for this one.
[00:00:11] Lacey has a trial this week, so she is busy with that.
[00:00:17] So I'm gonna do this one by myself. And since this is the new year, a lot of times we like to talk about New Year's resolutions, and that's kind of going to be the focus of this is a possible New Year's resolution, if you're thinking about making them. A lot of times, one resolution people have is something that I do for work, and that's getting your estate plan in place. So I know this isn't going to be fun and exciting like some of ours, but I kind of wanted to talk about the estate planning New Year's resolution and what you need to think about this and, you know, why it is so important to have. I know this is more educational. And just so you know, I'm only licensed in South Carolina. I'm not licensed in every state.
[00:01:01] So New Year's resolutions.
[00:01:03] One of those a lot of times I get up this time of the year is, let's get my estate plan in order. I will tell you the new year is a good time to think about this because we just spent time with all our families over the holidays. And, you know, the holidays cause a lot of stress, a lot of drama, a lot of tension. And, you know, it may be is that time where you realize, hey, I don't want to not have this done because I want to make sure this person isn't in my will or because they treated me so awesome during the holidays. Let's make sure we get that will updated or, you know, realize, you know, Mom's kind of getting dementia. Maybe we need to make sure we get her documents done before that happens. So it's really important we get these documents done in time. So, as I was saying, I'm only licensed here in South Carolina. This is just for educational purposes only. This is not to tell you what to do. I. Obviously, you need to go see an attorney in your state, but New Year's is a great time to do this, to get in there, to get it done. It's like a band aid. Rip it off, get it taken care of.
[00:02:07] Just a fun fact for everybody. Do you know a lot of divorce attorneys get really busy this time of year because people realize, I don't want to spend another minute with my spouse after going through this holidays.
[00:02:19] Maybe that's also a time for you to update your estate plan because you're going through a major Life change like a divorce.
[00:02:26] So I just kind of want to give y' all some info on estate planning or things you can take in mind when you go to talk to your attorney on this estate planning.
[00:02:36] If you're here in South Carolina and want to see me, obviously you can come do that, but that's not what the point of this is. I'm currently very booked up right now, so. But love to have you, but the point of this is I want to give education because so many people die without ever doing a will or so many people have life happen and become incapacitated, and then they can't make medical decisions for theirselves. I think one of the biggest things is, you know, as y' all know, me and Lacey are in our late 30s, and a lot of people our age don't really think about it because we're like, I'm young, I'm healthy. Nothing's gonna happen. But we all know good and well nobody's guaranteed a happy, healthy tomorrow.
[00:03:16] I had a guy that was in my office just a week before he had a massive heart attack and died. And he was only 6, in his 60s, and he really seemed healthy. And I would never have guessed it. And it broke my heart, honestly, because seeing somebody so healthy and vibrant and not being there. So that's the thing none of us know.
[00:03:37] So I always push people. We need to get powers of attorney done. Now, every state is different, but usually there's two different powers of attorneys. We like to think about a medical one so somebody can make medical decisions for us, or a financial one with somebody to make financial decisions.
[00:03:56] And so many times, husbands and wives are like, I don't need this. We bank together.
[00:04:01] We own our house together, but you still do. So, for instance, say your spouse has a 401k at work. Your spouse becomes incapacitated, but you need to pull that 401k money to continue to pay the bills.
[00:04:16] Well, he's incapacitated. He can't do it. But your name's not on the account.
[00:04:20] Doesn't matter that your beneficiary, that only matters when he passes away. So you can't have those funds during his life and use them like you would without having that power of attorney. If you don't do that power of attorney, you're going to have to end up a lot of times in court getting a conservatorship, and it is a nightmare.
[00:04:42] You also want to think about that health care power of attorney, and that means somebody's going to make medical decisions for you if you're incapacitating.
[00:04:49] And I think so many times in thinking about this, we overthink a lot of it. But that's human nature. But I think one of the big things we need to think about in all of this is who do I trust to make those decisions for me? Who's going to be the one that I trust financially? Who's going to be the one that I trust medically? And they can be different people. And it's really important that we pick the right people for these physicians. We can't just pick.
[00:05:20] We can't just pick whoever. You know, maybe you have a good friend and you want to pick them, but they're terrible with money. Well, don't pick them. You need to pick someone who's good with money to handle your finances. If you don't do that. My children keep peeking at the window of my home office. I normally try to record these at my office because of that, but then phones are ringing all the time, so it kind of gets distracting. But thinking about it, who can handle a crisis, who can handle medical, who can handle financial? And then the other thing, I'm not going to get into trust and all the different details with those, because I don't really think I want to go that deep with y' all right now. And this is kind of just an overview, but realistically, you need a wheel, because you need to say who your assets are going to go to or when you die. And if you're like me and have young children, you need to think about who's going to be the guardian of those children, what are they going to do? Who is going to manage your children if you are not here? So I think it's really important. Just those are the three essentials, I think, a financial, a medical power of attorney, and having a will. And your will. I think so many times people think, I've got to think really hard. It's going to be a really hard decision.
[00:06:39] But ultimately, just rip the band aid off and do it. This is always revocable. It's changeable, it's worth having. Because I've seen so many horror stories where people don't have a will or people haven't planned. I've seen where spouses need money to take care of their other spouse who's in the nursing home. I've seen where people didn't have a will.
[00:06:58] And it was a blended family, and it was a nightmare because half goes to spouse, half goes to children.
[00:07:05] In South Carolina, that's the laws of intestacy and that's one thing I like to point out. Here in South Carolina, if you don't have a will, you really do. It's called the uniform probate code. And in that, it specifies who your assets are going to go to if you don't have a will. And you know what? Eventually they could go back to the state who wants that. Or goes your third cousin you hadn't talked to in 20 years, but you really care about a certain charity or church or different thing. So with that in mind, it is really important to make sure you specify who you want. And a lot of times people think, well, I don't have much, but you do if you have children. As you can see, mine is in the background right now. Her daddy is supposed to be keeping her out of here, but obviously that is not happening. Can you say hey?
[00:07:49] Say hey. Hey. That is Maddie saying hey. If you're just listening to this, her little face is in the video. She's a little cutie, but she doesn't drive me insane right now.
[00:08:00] Maddie, how old are you?
[00:08:03] 4.
[00:08:04] What's your favorite thing to do?
[00:08:09] Well, this is one of my reasons for having a will and having all that put together, because I want to make sure it's protected for her and that somebody is there to take care of her. Something happens to me.
[00:08:22] One thing to think about with your garden. My parents are our first one, but my second choice isn't. I'm an only child. It's not a sister brother, because I don't have those. It's a third cous. But she.
[00:08:33] Okay, out. Out.
[00:08:37] Kylie, you know this is being videoed. This is bad.
[00:08:42] People will see you having a temper tantrum.
[00:08:46] She shouldn't have.
[00:08:49] She didn't come over here and then go.
[00:08:55] This is Kylie. How old are you, Kylie?
[00:09:00] I'm not gonna say how old you are. You can do it.
[00:09:04] Okay, girls, out.
[00:09:08] Okay, say how old you are. Okay, girls, out.
[00:09:12] Wendy, please edit some of this out because there's too much going on. Wes, go get them.
[00:09:20] Yes.
[00:09:24] Go.
[00:09:25] I love you. Go.
[00:09:28] Okay, you're gonna go get your bath and you've got Barbies to play with.
[00:09:38] Stop.
[00:09:58] Okay, if you run in here again, there's no more Barbies. They're gone.
[00:10:03] No, you don't.
[00:10:05] Come on.
[00:10:07] Okay, go.
[00:10:18] So back to what I was telling you. You need that will because your kids are one of your most important reasons for having it. But say you don't have kids. You're single. Well, wouldn't you rather stuff go to who you want? It to than somebody you don't care about. And I think that's why it's important to do these estate planning documents. I also think it's important because you need to be in charge of what medical decisions you have. And I think that's important is to say, do I want to be on life support or not? Do I want to have a feeding tube or not?
[00:10:46] Or do you want some family member to make that decision?
[00:10:50] It's really important for you to take charge and make these decisions because if you don't, it may not be the right person making the decisions for you.
[00:10:58] So I know that's a big New Year's resolution is let me get my estate planning done. Now's a great time, whatever state you're in, to think about it. There's some great resources online. I'm going to tell you that. Don't do your will on ChatGPT.
[00:11:13] Chat GPT can do some great things, but when it comes to legal stuff, you know, you want to make sure a professional looks over. And I'm not just saying this because I'm an attorney, I will tell you, if I was to get divorced, which hopefully I never do, I'm going to go see U.S.
[00:11:28] family Law Attorney to help me get through that. I'm not going to do it on my own because I don't know how to do it.
[00:11:34] I mean, I'm sure I could learn, but I'm not going to do it on my own. So, Harold, because I'm not an expert at that, if I get arrested, I'm calling Lacey. Hopefully that never happens. But the same thing, when you do your estate plan, go to somebody who does estate planning. And I think we all are thinking about New Year's resolutions right now. Maybe you never make them, but having an estate plan isn't a resolution, is something you have to have in your life. It's something you really need. So I think that's something that's great to talk about. While this wasn't as fun and exciting as murder and mayhem and homicide in the holidays and crazy crime, I think this is probably one of the more important things you can do is protect your family, protect your assets and make that plan and make it somebody you trust and somebody you want to do that. And speaking of New Year's resolutions, I'd love to know what are some of yours. What are you doing? What things are you trying to do to make yourself have a better year? It's all one like meme that was like, you know, you don't have to make New Year's resolution to be a good person. You can make it to be a worse person. But I hope y' all are not doing that.
[00:12:40] One of my resolutions this year is I am actually trying to read through the Bible.
[00:12:47] I am a Christian, and I will be honest and say I've never, as an adult, read through this whole Bible. I've done Bible studies, I've been to church, but here it is. I'm holding it up. I've got the New International Women's Study Bible, and right now I am in the middle of Exodus. So it has not been the most happy reading right now. You know, I've got through Moses and Pharaoh, Pharaoh, Let my people Go and the plagues. But I'm trying to read the whole thing this year. It's really hard, though.
[00:13:22] It's not exciting, like reading my fairy smut that I just can dig in and read. I want to learn it, I want to study it, and I want to understand, because I want to be able to make arguments that I actually understand when somebody says something so I can say, no, that's not what the Bible teaches. This is what the Bible teaches kind of thing. And my interpretation of it, which I know we all have different ways of interpret it. And that's just one of my goals for this year. It's nothing fancy.
[00:13:46] I do think it'll help in making me, you know, understand and hopefully a better person, because I think that's really, at the end of the day, what all of our New Year's resolutions are. I'm also continuing to go work out. I've been doing Orange theory, and I've really enjoyed it. So my goal is to keep on doing that New Year and try to stay healthy and all of those things, to be a better mom, even though my children are driving me insane right now because they don't want to let me get work done and have a good work life balance. But I'm probably gonna need to go to work this weekend, and that's okay, because sometimes we have to do that because so much is going on, and I think so many working moms feel so much pressure with that, which is one of the reasons we actually started this podcast, was because we. We are working moms and showing the struggle and the different things that go on.
[00:14:37] But that's kind of where we are. So we can dig more into estate planning. I can talk more about, like, trust, taxable estates, nursing home planning, Medicaid, you know, digging deeper into different powers in a power of attorney. But I just wanted to give you an overview. So it wasn't fun, it wasn't exciting, it wasn't the best thing out there, but it's a busy time, busy week. We're talking about resolutions, and I think it's a great one to check off your list, getting that estate plan done. But, you know, keep us updated on if you do that or not. Let us know your resolutions. Let us know what you want us to talk about. We're currently trying to plan for 2026, so let us know. And we'll be back soon by.
