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Myth: You’re too young for estate planning

On Behalf of | Sep 12, 2022 | Estate Planning

One myth that you’ll often find people repeat about estate planning is simply that they are too young. This belief sometimes causes people to put off the exact estate planning that they need to do.

It can happen to people of many different ages. For example, someone could be in their mid-20s and have just gotten married, and they may assume they don’t need an estate plan yet. Another person could be in their 30s or 40s, a new parent, and still assume the same thing. You even find people in their 50s and 60s who decide that they need to make an estate plan, but they might not need to create it for a few years.

No matter where people fall on the spectrum, it’s important to point out that this is a myth. You are not too young for estate planning. No one is.

Anyone can benefit from an estate plan

The thing to remember is that people of any age can benefit from having an estate plan.

For that newly married couple, it may simply be a way to determine what happens to their assets and debts if they pass away unexpectedly. Car accidents and other such unexpected events do take lives every day. The odds of this happening may be small, but it’s better to have an estate plan in place and not need it than to not have a plan that is needed.

For the new parents, the goal may be to protect their children. Maybe their children are minors, so they want to put their assets into a trust until the kids are older. Maybe they just want to pick a guardian for the children if something should happen to them. It’s clear that parents can also benefit. Estate planning is about more than just wealth transfer.

And even for those who are in their 50s and 60s, who may be waiting until they retire to make a plan, it can be useful to have the plan in place first. You can always update that plan in the future if you need to. But life is simply not predictable enough to move forward without having any plan at all.

Setting it all up

Maybe you’ve been falling for this myth for a while, and you’ve been procrastinating your estate planning. Now that you see how important it is to change that, it may be time to look into the necessary legal steps.

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