Are you juggling the responsibilities of caring for aging parents? Helping your kids prepare for college? And/or thinking about your own future, all while trying to stay on top of everything else? In the midst of all this chaos, there’s one thing that often gets left out, estate planning. But here’s the truth. It’s one of the most important things you can do for yourself and your loved ones. If you’ve been putting it off, or don’t know where to start, today’s episode will give you the practical advice you need to secure peace of mind and take control of your future. Tune in here.
Welcome
Welcome to today’s episode of Small Daily Habits. I’m your host and menopause specialist Christine. And you might be wondering, what the heck does estate planning have to do with menopause coaching? Well, it’s January. I’m still in planning and reevaluation mode. I also just made a big move this summer from New Hampshire to Florida, and I’m still trying to get my own affairs in order. So, I thought to myself that maybe this is something that other women my age need to hear.
I’m very excited to bring you a conversation that will give you peace of mind, clarity, and practical advice. If you’re a woman in midlife juggling it all, today’s episode is one you don’t want to miss. We’re talking about something that’s often overlooked in the hustle and bustle of life.
This topic is one of the most important things you can do for yourself and your loved ones. Today, I’m thrilled to be joined by Alyssa Pockell, estate planning attorney with years of experience helping families navigate complex and important decisions.
I first met Alyssa when I was a franchisee for FIT4MOM, and she was one of my wonderful clients. Over the years, she has helped me get my own important paperwork in order. That’s something I am so grateful for.
Intro to Today’s Guest Alyssa Pockell
Christine: Alyssa, welcome. I am so excited to have you on the podcast today. To start off, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself.
Alyssa: Hi Christine, thank you so much for having me on your podcast. It’s always great to speak with you. I appreciate having the opportunity to speak more about what I do, estate planning. I’m an estate planning attorney in New Hampshire and licensed in Massachusetts as well. I also practice in the fields of probate and trust administration. This gives me a more unique take on estate planning because I see the other side of it as well. When the plan is not put into place correctly and what types of provisions will benefit my client.
The Sandwich Generation’s Challenges (3:15)
Christine: Let’s dive right in. Why do you think estate planning is so crucial for women in the sandwich generation? Those of us juggling both aging parents and children heading off to college.
Alyssa: That is a huge concern for a lot of my clients, being part of this new sandwich generation where we’re taking care of maybe new adult kids and taking care of aging parents. The number one thing that I recommend is to have those difficult conversations with your parents. Have those conversations with your kids, telling them why it’s important for them to have their documents in place.
Your Child Turns 18, Now What?
So as soon as your kiddos turn 18, I highly recommend that you talk to them. And obviously, they’re not kids anymore, so you can’t force them to get documents done. But just telling them and explaining to them, hey, now that you’re 18, if you go to the doctor, it’s harder for me to speak on your behalf. If you have a problem with your finances or a tuition issue, it’s harder for me to talk to them. If you’re in the hospital, doctors may not talk to me if I call.
So, if they are interested in continuing having your assistance with those types of matters, then it’s very simple for an attorney to draft up a healthcare directive, a healthcare proxy, financial power of attorney, also called the durable power of attorney, to allow somebody to make those decisions on your kiddos’ behalf if they’re unable or unwilling to do so themselves. And also, with parents as well, if they are in the hospital, you want to make sure you can talk to doctors. If you are frequently accompanying your parents to hospitals and doctor appointments and they want you to be able to talk to doctors, doing a HIPAA clause in necessary so that can continue.
Essential Documents for College-Bound Kids (4:56)
Christine: It can be a tough subject. But, such a relief in the end knowing things are taken care of, and you won’t be scrambling in a crisis. Now let’s talk about the big milestones many of us face like sending our kids off to college. We just talked about this, but if you have anything to add, what estate planning documents should we have in place for our kids before they head out the door?
Health Care and Financial Power of Attorney
Alyssa: I think just the healthcare power of attorney and the financial power of attorney. They are the only documents that our adult children need when they head off to college. Even though you may be paying the tuition, if you call the business office, they may not speak to you.
If your child is off to college and there’s a banking issue at home, there’s a legal document that needs to be signed, they’re doing a semester abroad, financial power of attorney will allow you to step into their place to make financial and legal decisions on their behalf. The healthcare power of attorney allows you to make decisions if they’re incapacitated, speak to doctors or hospitals, school nurses, and just allow that continuation of care and things that you’ve been doing since they were born, really.
Christine: I couldn’t agree more. I’ve had to use both for my son and I’m very grateful that you had put those into place for us. Kids get sick, and they need help navigating because they’ve never done it before. Without the right paperwork, it’s very difficult for you. I was very glad that I had that set up.
Alyssa: I’m so glad to hear that that worked out for you. It’s such an abrupt change when they turn 18 where you go from being able to manage practically everything for them to absolutely nothing.
Christine: Absolutely! It comes as a shock too. I know I’ve heard other people talk about it, but when it starts happening, it happens quick, and I wasn’t prepared for that. Like, what do you mean? I’ve raised this child from a baby, and I’ve done everything up to this point, why can’t I talk to you? So yeah, I’m glad I had those papers.
Guardianship for Adult Disabled Children (6:58)
Christine: Can you explain the importance of guardianship for women with adult disabled children?
Alyssa: Yes, it is so important on many levels. When you meet with a state planning attorney, sometimes they will forget to dive into those details. They ask you if you have any kids who are minors. You say no, and they move on to the next topic. This neglects the fact that guardianship still needs to be included in your last will to provide for that adult disabled child should something happen to you and making sure that your guardianship provisions are up to date.
If you had guardianship when your kids were young, it may be your parents. It may be somebody of a generation that won’t be able to continue care if you were to pass away. If your adult disabled child was older, then that person may not be around, so guardianship provisions in your last will is so important because you’re going to want to name somebody who is of that same generation or younger than who you may have listed for your kids when they were babies. So often we are updating guardianship provisions in last wills to be a sibling or a cousin or somebody else.
Things to Think About as Your Child Ages
Who would be able to serve as guardian when your child is 40 or 50 years old, should something happen to you? The other issue is, again, we talked about what happens when your kids go off to college, they turn 18, but if your child is disabled and can’t sign documents on their own, if they’re nonverbal, if they just lack capacity, then we do need to look at that guardianship and getting that in place so you have the ability to continue making decisions.
We’ve seen cases where non-verbal kids turn 18 and the hospitals stop sharing with parents. Clearly that can be a huge issue if they have complex medical needs. So, I recommend that families start talking to a guardianship attorney a few months before the child turns 18 so that they’re all set to go on the 18th birthday and not starting the paperwork at that time.
Christine: That’s an important point that I think a lot of people forget about.
Will Versus Trust: Understanding the Basics (9:16)
Christine: Okay, let’s talk about the basics, wills versus trusts. Where should women begin with estate planning? What are the first steps to ensure we’re covering all the important aspects?
Alyssa: A common mistake that I see when clients come to see me when they already have an estate plan in place is they don’t fully understand the documents that they have. A lot of clients will come in with their last will and they’ll say, well, this avoids probate, right? An important thing I want to make sure that I conveyed today is the difference between a will and a trust.
Wills
A will is a simple document that says, when I die, if I have an asset that’s frozen by virtue of my passing, meaning I have an asset that has no joint owner, no beneficiary designation, I’m it. So, if I pass away, then that asset is going to be frozen, and no one will be able to access that without some sort of legal designation like becoming an executor. What a will does is it names who the executor is, and it tells the court who the beneficiaries will be at the conclusion of the probate process.
So, the best way to kind of visualize a will is it’s like a car. It picks up the asset that I left behind and it drives it to the beneficiary. But that car is powered by the probate court. So, it can’t go without the probate court funding that and moving that process along. The other important part to realize about a will is that things can’t live in a will. So, it’s just a mechanism of transferring from the decedent to the named beneficiaries at the conclusion of probate.
Trusts
In contrast, a good way to think of a trust is like a warehouse. So, you’re actually making a structure now while you’re alive. There are so many different types of trusts. I could keep you on our call all day talking about them. We’re going to just say there’s lots of different types, but they all kind of create like a warehouse. It’s a structure that exists while you’re alive and you can put things into the trust while you’re alive. You can name the trust as beneficiary. But the key point is we already have the structure in place.
So, if you pass away, the trust has a mechanism for a new manager to step in. Often assets that are in a trust don’t need to go through probate because they’re not frozen upon your passing. It says who can take over and who has authority to manage and who the beneficiaries are. Trusts are also really great because they allow us to give so much more detail than we can with a basic last will.
Remember a last will is going through a probate process with a judge supervising. So, if your will has a lot of complex provisions, that’s just going to be a more complex probate with more for the judge to have to go through and review. Whereas a trust, can easily put things in that stipulate if something happens to me, my kiddo doesn’t get money until they’re 30 or 35. And even then, maybe it’s a little bit at a time. OR, it’s managed a certain way if I have special needs beneficiaries and money can be held in a special needs trust for them upon my passing.
I’ve even had clients get really creative and put clauses in like my child has issues with drugs and addiction and I’m going to put a clause that they can never have an outright share and it’s always managed by somebody. I’ve had pet trusts that I’ve done where we’ve set up money for pets long term and that money doesn’t go back to the family until the pets pass away. So, we can accomplish a lot more creativity in a trust for clients than we can with just a simple last will.
Christine: I love those analogies. It makes so much more sense. And I know there’s a lot of confusion between wills and trusts. So that kind of helps make the distinction.
Common Estate Planning Mistakes (13:17)
Christine: I know there are some common mistakes people make when it comes to estate planning. You shared one just recently with that last question. But can you share a few of those mistakes and how we can avoid them?
Alyssa: Absolutely, yes. I want your listeners today to be able to get something from this conversation. So, if they’ve never done an estate plan, they know what to look for. And if they have an estate plan in place, I’m going to give you a couple of things that they can go home and check and make sure that their documents have as well.
First of all, when it comes to powers of attorney, I see a lot of clients that just name spouses, for example. So, a husband and wife come to see me, and they only have each other named and no backups.
And I really, I try to go by the rule of threes. I like to have three people for each position. So, I’d like to have a primary and two successors. That way if something happens to one person, you’re not having to redo and make a new document.
Another thing that people don’t realize is you can have multiple people serve in a position. It doesn’t have to be one after the other. I had a client with three kids, and they said, well, all of them could help make my healthcare decisions, but the law says it can only be one. No, there’s no law on that.
You can have multiple people as long as you spell out how decisions are made. Is it always any one of them being able to undertake and act individually? Is it consent of majority? So as long as we put that specificity in there as to how decisions are made, you can name multiple people to be your trustee, your healthcare power of attorney, executor, or financial power of attorney.
When it comes to trust, another big mistake I see is clients not taking advantage of some of those creative provisions. They think that it’ll avoid probate but then gets distributed outright to their kids. And they don’t realize that we can put those clauses in that I explained like 25 or 30 or staggered distributions. So just using a trust for probate avoidance but not taking advantage of the specific provisions that can be put into place.
Christine: I love that. That gives me a lot to think about and I’m sure my listeners too.
Small Daily Habits for Estate Planning (15:55)
Christine: This next question is one that I ask all my guests. Because the podcast is named Small Daily Habits, I like to ask each guest one small habit that my listeners can start doing today to take a step toward getting their affairs in order.
Alyssa: I think that getting in the habit of maybe an annual review of your assets, making sure that they have beneficiary designations, making sure that those are still the beneficiaries that you want on your accounts, setting up an annual review with your financial advisor to make sure that things are set up the way you want them to be, I think that’s really important.
I think annually reviewing where and how you’re storing usernames and passwords and making sure that your family would know how to find your assets if something happened to you. So, I think just kind of going through that process once a year because we have clients that come in, they’re like I can’t believe I named that person as beneficiary, I haven’t talked to that person in years. So going through making sure that beneficiary designations are up to date.
Another good habit would be adding beneficiaries to accounts at the time that you’re setting them up.
Christine: That’s a great habit! So simple yet so effective.
How to Connect with Alyssa
Christine: Alyssa, thank you so much for being here today. For our listeners who want to stay in touch with you learn more, where can they find you?
Alyssa: I have a small law firm called Pockel Law Office in Londonderry, New Hampshire. Listeners can find me at Pockell Law Office, and our website is pockell-law.com.
Christine: Perfect. If you want to connect with Alyssa, click on the blue link above.
The Importance of Self-Care for Caregivers (17:34)
Christine: Before we go, Alyssa, is there anything else you’d like to add?
Alyssa: Yes, I think there is one thing that’s really important that I don’t see a lot of my clients doing is taking care of themselves and carving out time for self-care, especially our clients in this sandwich generation that we were talking about. Remember, you’re not going to be any good to your parents or your kids if you’re not taking time for yourself. There are a lot of resources and support groups out there for caregivers, and I highly recommend and talk to my clients frequently about making sure that they’re taking time for themselves to make sure they don’t suffer from caregiver burnout.
It’s a lot. Alot of time, effort, and it’s a lot on you. Especially if you’re also working a full-time job at the same time. So just making sure that people carve out some time for themselves and taking care of themselves is so important and will make them a much more effective caregiver.
Christine: This makes my heart so happy. That’s what I do with my clients as well. And I don’t think we as women do that enough. The more we hear it, the better. Thank you so much, Alyssa. It was such an inspirational conversation today and one that I will definitely take into consideration so that I can go ahead and update all my information and get my estate planning underway. It’s not something we like to think about, but it is very important and helpful to be prepared. So, thank you.
Alyssa: Thank you, it is hard to talk about, but it does give people peace of mind.
Empowering Women for a Better Future (19:04)
Christine: That’s a wrap friends. I hope today’s episode has inspired you to take action and start planning for the future. Remember to follow small daily habits on your favorite listening platform, as well as social media to stay on top of all my tips, tricks and strategies for staying healthy in midlife. And I would love it if you would leave a review and share this episode with someone you love so we can grow and share our message with more women.
Don’t forget to tune in next week where I discuss how eating MORE and working out LESS, yes, you heard me right, is the key to balancing hormones and ditching those pesky menopause symptoms. You don’t wanna miss it!
As always, this is your weekly reminder that BIG changes begin with small daily habits. Until next time…
Need to catch up? Last week’s episode was all about How Balanced Eating Can Unlock Hormone Harmony. Listen to the podcast here and find the show notes here.
Wishing you much love, health, and happiness,
Christine
