If you are in your twenties or thirties, making an estate plan might be something you have never even considered. Or perhaps you know you will need one but figure that you have years to worry about making it.
While most people’s estate plans only come into play when they are far older than 20 or 30, death can strike at any time. So, it is better to put a plan in place now, and you can alter it as needed over time.
There will always be an excuse to delay making one
Plenty of people before you have promised themselves they will get around to making their estate plan later. Yet it’s too easy to continue putting it off. A 2019 Merril Lynch survey found that half the people in the country still had not made theirs. As with handing in an assignment or a work report, the sooner you get it out of the way, the sooner you will have peace of mind.
Even if you live to an old age, there are advantages to early planning
Aside from being prepared for ill health or death, making an estate plan can help you take a good look at your assets. It forces you to consider what you have and what you want to do with it. It forces you to learn about tax laws that can affect transferring wealth and how things like Medicaid can gobble up your assets if you leave things to chance.
Planning early can allow you to structure things in a financially efficient way. For example, using your annual gift allowance to pass a certain amount of money to others tax-free. Or transferring wealth early enough to prevent Medicaid from using its look-back period rule to claw money back from those you gave it to.
Estate planning can seem daunting, but with appropriate legal help, you can take care of yourself and your family well in advance of the majority.