#RichLifeLawyer Podcast 003: Three Cornerstones of a Rich Life

Every conversation I have surrounding estate planning starts with one thing: the three cornerstones of a rich life.

Now, these three things aren’t necessarily going to make you rich or make you happy, but they will give you the security you need to put your head down and pursue your dreams.

What are these three cornerstones? Great question!

Disability insurance;
Life insurance;
Will

If you want to know more you’ve got to listen to the podcast!

Cheers,

Christopher Small

P.S. Do you have kids? Have you completed guardianship paperwork? Have you done it correctly? Click here to find out what happens if you don’t do anything: Are you okay with a judge choosing the guardians of your children?

P.P.S. Do you own a business? Do you have a plan so the business, and your family, can survive if something happens to you? If not, click here to learn how simple it is to protect your business and your family from tragedy: 5 Ways to Protect Your Business from Catastrophic Failure.

P.P.P.S. Do you have no kids and think you don’t need an estate plan? Single and think a will is only for married couples. You couldn’t be more wrong. Click here to learn more: 5 reasons estate planning is a must have even if you don’t have kids.

Christopher Small is a Kirkland estate planning attorney who helps people get rich and live forever. He is also the owner of CMS Law Firm LLC.

Three Cornerstones of a Rich Life Transcript

Hey everybody welcome to episode three of the Rich Life Lawyer podcast. I’m your host, Christopher Small, I’m excited to be here with you on this evening. I’m actually driving to the gym right now but I would sneak this podcast in. You know we’re still new here with the podcast so I think it’s important for you to understand that. Yeah you’re going to get some good quality information here some stuff that’s going to help you lead rich life. And you know hopefully make some more money. Protect your family. Create legacy. Do all those fun exciting things. But you know, I’m going to do this when the moment strikes. And it’s going to be real, I’m not going to be super lawyery about it, I will from time to time get in the weeds a little bit with some estate planning stuff because I know that some of you like tax heads out there want to hear about. You know, charitable remainder trust and grits and gratz and you know eyelets, q-tips, all that kind of fun stuff.

But you know, it’s going to be a little bit of a different tone than you may be used to from your local estate planning attorney and that’s because I’m not like your local state playing attorney. You know, I’m coming at it from a little of different angle. Still bring in good service and obviously helping you reach your goals, that’s the whole reason that we’re here. But its gonna be little bit different. So I’ve got about, I don’t know, eight minutes between now and gym to drop some knowledge on and I’m about to do that. So, the three cornerstones of a successful sort of life plan, these things really apply whether you’re single or married or have kids. They are certainly fundamental if you are married and there must haves if you have kids. I don’t think there’s anywhere around it. But there are certainly things here that if you’re single and you don’t have anyone, you also want to consider and I’ll talk about each of these, in each of those contexts I guess, real quickly.

Two these things I don’t even do by the way. I don’t sell these products or anything. So you know these are things that I think everyone should have. Because I think they really achieve what I think is most important and one of life and that is sort of protecting yourself and protecting your family from those unforeseeable occurrences. When those things happen to you that you aren’t ready for. You’ve got something backing you up and taking care of you. So let’s talk about number one. The first thing, the first thing that is, the first cornerstone of a successful I guess a safe, I guess life maybe is disability insurance. Disability insurance is that insurance that renews or repays, replenishes your salary or your wage, if you are injured in some way and no longer work. Now most of us know or most of us have some sort of a disability policy through our job.

But you can get supplemental disability insurance or your own separate disability insurance policy on your own and that’s what I have and so my wife has as well. At least we have our own separate ones because we want to fill it up as much as we can. What’s cool about disability insurance is that it pays you all the way through age 65, in most cases and again, by the way I’m no insurance guy. So if I get the slight details wrong, your insurance broker is going to fill in those holes for you. But you get to sixty five, I believe maybe sixty seven and the cool thing about it is that this income, you get it every month until you reach that age basically of retirement. And you get that income tax free. So you don’t pay income tax on that. So that is a tremendous sort of safety net for your family particularly, if you’re going one of the only, if you’re sole breadwinner. If you’re the only person that’s making money in your household. It’s critical that you get this because it allows you to protect your family if something happens to you.

Number two, life insurance. Life insurance is sort of this, works along the same lines in the sense that this is protection for your family should something happen to you when you die, obviously. Think about that mortgage on your house and those car payments and that credit card debt. And just being able to give your family time to mourn. Give your family time to figure things out. Also take care of your kids for, put it the rest of their lives or a significant portion of their lives. Life insurance can do that for you and it’s relatively cheap depending on how old you are and what your medical history is like but for a relatively small monthly payment, you can get a tremendous amount of coverage. Kind of very similar to car insurance, actually cheaper than car insurance. Probably likely under fifty bucks for a significant policy. That’s the second cornerstone or the second sort of foundational element of your safety plan.

The third and final one is your will and your will actually covers up several of the things that are important we’ll talk about this real quick. So, the first thing a will does is it is a tool to distribute your assets if you die, that’s great. That’s fine but I think least for me. The older I get the sort of more I think about it. The money side of things, it’s important but it’s not the end all be all, you know, it’s not something that’s really I’m worried about, a particular something happens to me. How the money’s distributed you’re gonna go where it’s gonna go. The same thing that you do if you have kids, this is critical is your will is the vehicle that allows you to nominate your guardians.

So you have the ability to choose who will take care of your kids basically and we talked about how you can choose a guardian in the last episode but your will is actually that vehicle that will allow you to specifically say like I want to have Joe be my be my guardian for my kids. The third thing that it does, power of attorney. So if you are injured and this is where it gets into the important area for single people. Power of attorney, if you’re ever injured. It allows the person that you have appointed to be your power of attorney to help you pay the bills, take care of your life while you are disabled and that’s why it’s super critical.

Medical power of attorney, that’s the same similar thing but for medical decisions and then you also want to be doing hip releases which are not really part of the will package that I put together. So if you’re you know over eighteen and you haven’t signed a hip release for your parents or you or someone that’s close to you to at least be able to speak to doctors and learn about your medical status if something happens to you or if you’re in an accident. That’s not a thing that you can do with your will. So, I’m at the gym and so that means time is up and we’re eight minutes, lots of play time. I’m trying to hit you with quick quick hitters on your drive to work or out walking the dog you can just you know learn a little bit. Hopefully you take some action. You don’t have to call me, call anyone. Just get this stuff done and really sort of take care of your family and and sort of jump start the rest your life. So on that note. I will bid you adieu and talk to you next time. See ya!