Savvy Estate Planning is true Horror Genre. This thing gave me legit nightmares. And maybe one really solid panic attack. And I now have an estate planner.
This book I am quite tempted to buy for all of my in-laws. I did actually buy it for my mother-in-law when she asked Wren and me to help in talking to an attorney about a trust. My folks have a will and trust set up. They did that back in the first year of Covid. But I didn’t think too hard about what that meant until MIL asked. So, I did what I do best – academically panic. I mean research. I wanted to know what it meant to talk to an estate attorney, and what would be expected in this kind of meeting. I had exam anxiety is what I had.
So, I went looking for a book, any book, on estate planning to get me started. This one had a decent number of good reviews on Amazon, so I used some extra points I had lying around and picked the ebook up for free. I got half way through it before having a physical copy sent to my mother in law. When I got to her house later in the week, I kidnapped it and filled it with lots of highlighter marks and sticky tabs for her to use more comprehensively.
Good lord, I wish more people read these types of books and took care of their family through Wills and Trusts.
Was the editing clean? Yeah, I think so. There weren’t any glaring typos that distracted from the horror stories of folks stuck in probate. I didn’t notice run on sentences when I learned that 18 year olds really do need Power of Attorneys so their folks can more easily bury them and get their car out of the impound lot when they die in a drunk driving incident. I couldn’t pin point if there were repetitive sentence structure when I found out that you can’t just let your family divvy up the guns from your gun safe when you die, because what if Jr. takes weed – that would make it a felony for him to end up in possession of your favorite antique pew-pew.
So, is this one of those ones I’d just suggest picking up used or at the library?
No.
Absolutely not.
This is one that I would say keep a physical copy around – maybe let it haunt your bathroom if you need terrifying reading during your long morning constitutionals. Highlight it. Tab it. Note the margins to heck and gone. Use the damn checklist. Save up and get yourself a trust and a will. Do it. And know you’re doing one of the best things you could for your family.
Seriously, though. You need the book, and your ma, and your grandpa, and your little sister. I’m not being sponsored to say that. It is the most necessary horror book you will ever read.
Books in the Cottage 