Jason Fuchs 0:00
Often clients, they can become uneasy when the discussion of an estate plan comes up thoughts that estate plans are too expensive to create, or that you only need one if you're a millionaire, couldn't be further from the truth. In fact, not having an estate plan in place is one of the biggest mistakes someone can make directly impacting their loved ones in ways they never anticipated. And
Announcer 0:25
welcome to dad cents a podcast for folks looking to grow their financial future. This podcast is hosted by Jason Fuchs, a dad, a husband, and managing director of sage path financial advisors. Jason's goal was to help you grow your financial future, the right way. Now your host Jason fears.
Jason Fuchs 0:48
Greetings everyone, if you're new here, I'm Jason Fuchs, married to the fabulous woman known as Amber's father to a two year old girl jewel who is absolute magic, and also happened to be the managing director of sage path financial advisors, and its age path. We're here to help you grow your financial future the right way. I am pumped to be here today. And to all of our listeners out there. Thank you so much for joining me. You could be listening to anything right now doing anything right now. You chose to be here with me. And I appreciate all of you. Guess who's back? It's Amber. Hey, Amber.
Amber Fuchs 1:21
Hey there.
Jason Fuchs 1:22
Thanks for coming back. Oh,
Amber Fuchs 1:24
I love being here. Thanks for having me.
Jason Fuchs 1:26
Happy New Year.
Amber Fuchs 1:27
Happy New Year to you.
Jason Fuchs 1:28
Thank you and Happy New Year to all of our listeners out there too. I hope 2021 has got some good things in store for all of you.
Amber Fuchs 1:36
Yeah, it's exciting year ahead.
Jason Fuchs 1:38
Yes, exactly. So Amber, I'm wondering estate planning important or not important?
Amber Fuchs 1:44
Well, I'm gonna go ahead and take a guess, based on the fact that we've reviewed this as a family and we have a nice, big, thick binder
Jason Fuchs 1:55
on the top infamous financial binder,
Amber Fuchs 1:58
that this is important.
Jason Fuchs 2:00
Absolutely. And we'll be going through the process again, seeing as It's a new year, right?
Amber Fuchs 2:04
Absolutely.
Jason Fuchs 2:06
You know, often clients, they can become uneasy when the discussion of an estate plan comes up. thoughts that estate plans are too expensive to create, or that you only need one if you're a millionaire, couldn't be further from the truth. In fact, not having an estate plan in place is one of the biggest mistakes someone can make directly impacting their loved ones in ways they never anticipated. And Amber. That's our financial topic. In today's episode, I'm going to share with you the top five estate planning mistakes to avoid. And this is gonna go really well with the webinar I'm hosting on Thursday, January 14 at noon. I'll be talking with you about estate planning. So if you're interested in that, head to our website, sage path faa.com. Click the Events tab. And be sure to register space is limited to 100 zoom attendees and we were at last month's income planning seminar. Amber, we were actually over that. So
Amber Fuchs 3:05
I know I had a hard time signing off.
Jason Fuchs 3:06
Yeah, unfortunately, people couldn't get on. So I don't want that to happen. Ladies and gentlemen, if you want to be there, be sure to register now it should be a really, really great event. But if you are not interested in a state planning, don't leave yet. I have a fantastic recipe for blue crab Benyus, I'd like to share with you. That's right, Amber. I've taken two things we love, and I've combined them.
Amber Fuchs 3:30
Oh, okay.
Jason Fuchs 3:33
And ladies and gentlemen, I want to hear from you. What are you thinking about today? What's on your mind? What are you most excited about? How are you feeling? The email address is Jay Fuchs at Sage path faa.com. My phone number is 904-366-9388. You can find all of that in the description of the podcast. Amber, I want to know what you're most excited about these days, New year, new opportunities. Excitement awaits. Right?
Amber Fuchs 4:02
Yeah, absolutely. I think I'm definitely excited for the new year to see what it'll bring. But I'm still kind of writing the high from the holidays to you know, it just ended and, and even though it was different than previous years, it was so wonderful.
Jason Fuchs 4:19
Yeah, we had a lot of fun, right? Yeah, we really did. Christmas with jewel
Amber Fuchs 4:23
Christmas with a two year old.
Jason Fuchs 4:25
Yeah. It was fun spending Christmas Eve with your parents. And I like how, let me give you a little bit of backstory. Ladies and gentlemen. My mom married into a large Italian family about 20 years ago. So when we have holidays, it's loud. There's lots of activity and delicious, delicious Italian food and we're talking truckloads of Italian food. So your parents were so nice to incorporate part of that Italian experience in our Christmas Eve dinner by I guess designing this giant Christmas tree pizza.
Amber Fuchs 5:03
Oh my gosh, it was so amazing.
Jason Fuchs 5:05
It was really neat. Yeah, really, really impressive. What did it for me is the mini snowman they built for jewel.
Amber Fuchs 5:13
Yes. I mean, it was all really special, but it combined some of my favorite things it combined pizza, which is a fate of like pizza, right? Absolute Christmas. Yeah. And tradition. Perfect. I just loved it Christmas pizza, I think it's gonna have to be a new thing.
Jason Fuchs 5:33
Well, that's one thing I enjoyed about the holidays, the Christmas holiday for us is the fact that we were starting new traditions. I think maybe because COVID was kind of forcing us to do things differently. Sure, but the activities that we created war things that we can do next year as well.
Amber Fuchs 5:49
Absolutely. And so looking forward to that and like keeping Joel excited. And
Jason Fuchs 5:54
yeah, it was neat seeing her excitement in relation to Santa. And she's finally understand the concept of Santa Claus, right. And I'll never forget the first experience I had with that, you know, weeks before Christmas was putting up the Christmas lights on the roof. jewel was you know, quote, unquote, helping me which meant
Amber Fuchs 6:11
you're doing air quotes right now.
Jason Fuchs 6:13
Yeah, exactly. Which meant playing in the dirt, throwing some rocks around while I'm on the ladder trying to put these lights on the edge of the the gutter. But anyway, I remember explaining to jewel the process of putting the lights up so Santa Claus could lay or could land his sleigh and his reindeer on the roof. And as soon as I saw that, her eyes lit up. And she kept saying Santa more, more and kept handing me more and more Christmas lights. And then the experience we had coming from your parents house Christmas Eve, when all we are in the backseat was Santa.
Amber Fuchs 6:44
Hurry, hurry.
Jason Fuchs 6:47
I'm sure I've got that on video somewhere. It was really neat, really neat. But I will be sure to post some pictures of the Christmas adventure in on Sage paths Facebook page.
Amber Fuchs 6:58
Yeah, certainly. And I think something else that we have a great picture from as well is when we were able to go to our socially distance church. Yep. We had to make reservations to make sure that there was space. But it was just so wonderful being there. And speaking of traditions, and seeing, you know, all of the different incorporation that they had with that it was just really wonderful.
Jason Fuchs 7:25
Yeah, and we're not you're just Sunday church goers per se we're involved in the church community throughout the year, pretty much every week, right. But it was really neat seeing the preparation celebration church made to make Christmas Eve so special.
Amber Fuchs 7:42
Yeah, it was really special. And it was really neat to see how involved and interested Joel was to absolutely. So we had a
Jason Fuchs 7:49
ton of fun.
Amber Fuchs 7:50
So much fun. And we dressed up a little bit in our own family way. Absolutely.
Jason Fuchs 7:57
You had the Christmas dress. I had the Christmas suit. Right.
Amber Fuchs 8:00
And Joel had the coordinating outfit as
Jason Fuchs 8:02
well. Keeping your formal but fun.
Amber Fuchs 8:04
Exactly.
Jason Fuchs 8:06
Well, if it's okay with you, Amber, I think it's time to talk about food.
Amber Fuchs 8:10
Oh, we can always talk about food. Right
Jason Fuchs 8:12
blue crab Ben? Yes. That's the recipe I'm featuring in today's episode. Let's get into it now.
Funny story about how I obtained this recipe. Amber, what is the name of that place in St. Augustine here in Florida that I love now.
Amber Fuchs 8:33
Oh, definitely. Ice plant ice plant.
Jason Fuchs 8:36
How many times have we been there now? I think three three maybe in recent history in recent history. Okay. What do I typically order when we go?
Amber Fuchs 8:44
Well, we have to go when we know it's on the menu. That is true.
Jason Fuchs 8:49
And luckily each time we've been it was going conveniently on the menu
Amber Fuchs 8:53
it was endure the amount that you order of it each time and
Jason Fuchs 8:58
last time I okay, so I ordered a disc called blue crab Benyus, and the first time we ordered it, we split a basket. So we had what one or two each,
Amber Fuchs 9:09
I think to each Yeah,
Jason Fuchs 9:10
a second time I had maybe three. And then the fourth time we went with my parents and it happened to be the week of my birthday. It was also Thanksgiving. Correct. So I, I splurged a little bit, I think I ended up having five or six. And we ran a five k The next day, my stomach wasn't the best shave, but totally worth it. So I love these things so much that I had to find out how to make them on my own. Though, once a month dining experience, it just wasn't enough. And I spent a lot of time on the internet trying to find a good recipe. I took ideas off of several websites and I sort of created my own. I can't give you one source because I've tweaked this recipe quite a bit. Ladies and gentlemen, you'll want to use the best and freshest crabmeat. You can get your hands on trust. To me, it makes all the difference. And these things are lightly battered. They're totally addictive. Amber, I want to know what you thought about them.
Amber Fuchs 10:08
Well, I mean, they're my favorite dish of the year. Thank you for bringing them into our life.
Jason Fuchs 10:15
Well, it's my pleasure. I have to thank you for bringing them into my life because you suggested the restaurant the first time. Yeah, yeah. So not difficult to mate. It's going to require a lot of patience. But remember, use fresh crab meat, you will not regret it. These things are incredible. So check out the recipe on our blog at Sage path faa.com forward slash blog, you will not be disappointed. And if it's okay with you, Amber, I think we could transition into our financial topic of today's episode.
Amber Fuchs 10:47
Yes,
Jason Fuchs 10:47
I'm ready. All right. So let's talk about the top five estate planning mistakes or excuse me, let's talk about the top five estate planning mistakes to avoid.
This is based on a white paper I published so if you'd rather read about it, ladies and gentlemen, call me email me, I'd be happy to get it to you, whatever you need. And these are just five tips, five mistakes to avoid rather, the webinar I'm hosting on January 14, again, it's at noon, it'll be on zoom, head to the website to register. That webinar will be more detailed. And we'll be talking about principles of preserving wealth. So you're going to get a lot of really great, helpful information. And again, seating is or excuse me, virtual seating is limited. So if you're interested, go ahead and register now. But there are certain relationships in your life that to be successful. They really need to be built on trust your physician, for example, your attorney, and yes Amber, your financial professional to or in your case your husband. And as a client, it's critical that you receive informed advice and sound guidance based on your goals. The responsibility of any financial professional is to be realistic about the future, and a client's financial picture. And I mentioned this at the beginning of the episode. One of those topics is estate planning. Often clients they can become uneasy when the discussion of an estate plan comes up. thoughts that estate plans are too expensive to create or that you only need one if you're a millionaire couldn't be further from the truth. In fact, again, not having an estate plan in place is one of the biggest mistakes you can make. It can directly impact your loved ones in ways you never anticipated. So what we're going to do Amber, we're going to run through the top five estate planning mistakes to avoid. Ladies and gentlemen, read them consider them. If you want to discuss any of the topics covered reach out and we'll connect. It's just too important not to you ready Amber, I'm ready. All right. Here is a state planning Mistake number one, ignoring basic documents. So I'm going to run through a list of some important documents. A will ensures that your wishes are honored regarding your assets and if you have minor children, their guardianship as well. A durable power of attorney designates a person to make decisions about your finance, finances if you're incapacitated, a living will ensures your healthcare wishes are followed. So for example, if you don't wish to be resuscitated or kept alive by artificial means, a medical power of attorney directs healthcare needs. If you're unable to decide for yourself. And it's a good idea to have an attorney review those documents, especially if you have a larger estate or multiple heirs. But these offer a good start. Let's connect and review your estate assets together. Now, setting it up isn't actually the step that makes the trust effective. Amber, which brings us to estate planning Mistake number two, not transferring assets into the revocable trust. Now revocable trust, it's a tool that allows you to avoid probate, essentially passing your assets directly to your heirs without the involvement of a judge or the state.
But the trust only works for assets that you put into it when you're still alive. If there are no assets in the trust, it's useless. So ladies and gentlemen, keep a list of what you've transferred into the trust. Make sure that a any new assets, any new accounts are owned or opened in the name of the trust. And estate attorney can be very helpful as you go through this process. So if you don't have one, let's partner together to help you find someone. Now if you're like most people with kids, you probably want to leave your estate assets to them in your estate plan like Cassandra right correct. But if not done properly, it leads estate planning Mistake number three, leaving assets outright to minors. Now Amber, if you leave your assets to your trust your children can be beneficiaries to the whole thing. But if you make your minor children direct beneficiaries of your will your retirement plan, life insurance or annuity policy, they're in for a tangled mess. Because children are minors, they can't own these large financial assets in their names. That means that the courts may get involved appointing an adult to oversee their inheritance until they're old enough to do it themselves. Typically, if you've created a trust, you've already chosen the adult who will manage your children's inheritance in your absence. And if you're the one who chose them, odds are you trust them to do what's right for your kids. leaving an inheritance to your kids Amber, it's thoughtful and kind. But leaving it the right way can actually impact their lives in a positive, helpful way that creates a legacy for their future. Ladies and gentlemen, let's be sure to connect if you have any questions. Now Amber, you wouldn't use a teaspoon to empty a bucket. And you wouldn't use your grandfather's antique watch to time a race, right?
Amber Fuchs 16:12
Probably not.
Jason Fuchs 16:14
Selecting the right tool to get the job done is critical to success. And it's no different in estate planning. That's Mistake number four, choosing the wrong trustee of your trust or personal representative of your state. Picking a trustee it's hard. It should be someone you trust to do what you've asked, even if you're not there to see it. It may seem counterintuitive, but sometimes the people who are closest to you, whom you love the most aren't always the best candidates. Letting emotion dictate your choice of a trustee or personal representative can have negative repercussions. So be sure your choice is well suited to objectively carry out their duties and your wishes. And we've been talking about smart estate planning and retirement preparation to avoid making mistakes in your own estate plan. As most of us think about retirement and leaving assets to our heirs, we often consider the upside, how will I spend my golden years how much will my children or my loved ones inherit, inherit. But this thought process it doesn't take into account for a very real possibility of today's aging process. And it's a biggie. So Mistake number five, ignoring the likelihood of disability. Amber, many of us have life insurance to provide for our loved ones. If something happens to us, you and I have life insurance, but life insurance, it only pays a benefit when you're no longer alive. With advances in health care and technology, it's possible to come very ill or significantly injured and still survive. So what happens then? Well, ideally, if you work for your income, you already have Disability Insurance protect your paycheck if you're no longer able to earn. But if you're not working, odds are you no longer have health insurance either. Which means that one health crisis could wipe out all of your savings. And it happens in America more than you think. In fact, statistics show a full 25% of today's 25 year olds will become disabled before they even make it to retirement. Can you believe
Amber Fuchs 18:21
that? No, that's eye opening.
Jason Fuchs 18:24
That leaves many years still to manage with neither insurance nor income. Now, ladies and gentlemen, you may be thinking, well, that's what Medicare and Medicaid are for. But there are many aspects of care those government assistance programs don't cover. And they often require that all of your assets be wiped out before they'll step in and help. So not only will your income become severely limited, but you also have nothing left over to leave to your loved ones. That's a bleak picture. But it's also completely preventable. Long term care insurance can cover the gap when you're disabled. It can help pay for nursing home care, in home care, rehab and many other essential health needs during a disability. And that closes out today's episode on avoiding estate planning mistakes. Now ladies and gentlemen, hopefully you've gotten some useful ideas to safeguard your own estate plan. Hopefully I've provided you with some great tips to protect both your loved ones and all that you've worked for. Again, check out that webinar on January 14. I think you're gonna find a ton of valuable information Ladies and gentlemen, you too, of course, Amber
Amber Fuchs 19:37
I'll give my seat up for someone if I need to. And I'll just come in and watch you.
Jason Fuchs 19:45
Ladies and gentlemen, if you're struggling with what to do, even if you have questions, let's connect I love to help you. The phone number is 904-366-9388 The email is Jay Fuchs at Sage path FA Comm. Amber, anything you'd like to add? No, I've
Amber Fuchs 20:07
learned a lot today My head is is swimming with all this wonderful information
Jason Fuchs 20:13
and in preparations for the Fuchs estate planning that's going to commence soon, right?
Amber Fuchs 20:17
Yes.
Jason Fuchs 20:18
Well, Amber, thanks so much for being here.
Amber Fuchs 20:20
Thank you for having me.
Jason Fuchs 20:21
Oh, it's our pleasure. We enjoyed it.
Amber Fuchs 20:23
Me too.
Jason Fuchs 20:23
All right, all of our listeners out there. Thank you for sticking around. I appreciate all of you. We will see you in two weeks for another episode of dad cents. Have a wonderful day. And now the part we all love the disclosures, securities and investment advisory services offered through FSC securities Corporation, FSC member FINRA/SPC. FSC is separately owned and other entities and or marketing names, products or services referenced here are independent of FSC. FSC does not provide tax or legal advice. Some of this information was obtained from Platinum Advisor Strategies, LLC. This episode is sponsored by Dunham and Associates investment council Inc. Sage path advisors is located at 512 rows but lane, Neptune Beach, Florida 32266