October 24, 2018 • 33 mins
Over half of Americans don’t have a will- and this is a huge problem. You might think you don’t really need a will, but if you have any assets, a spouse, or kids you most definitely do. Wills aren’t just for old people! Most often people feel that they can always put it off until a little bit later, but the best time to go ahead and create a will is right now. It can be an unsettling topic as most folks don’t enjoy talking about their mortality, but having the peace of mind in knowing that your children and assets are in the right hands after your untimely death is worth any short term discomfort. In this episode we cover the big reasons why you need to have a will, why you likely don’t need a lawyer involved, and how to create a will for free.
And during this episode we enjoyed a Sweet Leilani by Cherry Street Brewing which you can find and learn all about on Untappd. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe and review us in Apple Podcasts, Castbox, or wherever you get your podcasts!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to how the Money. I'm Joel and I am Matt,
and today we're asking the question, but aren't wills for
old people wills? That's right, man, We're gonna talk about
(00:27):
that soon. For now, what do you think about our
our new recording studio that we've got going on here?
This is amazing. I feel like we need to set
this visual scenario of where we are. So normally, Matt,
you and I record at your dining room table. That's right,
and we are, however, dining room table this evening. But
also to your rights. Over your right shoulder is our refrigerator,
and uh, over my left shoulder is our kitchen, kind
(00:50):
of lovely instant pot on on a makeshift table with
like a children's desk underneath it, Yeah, dude, and a
larger children's desk to the side of it. It's it's
you two children's desk that we've picked up for free
at yard sales over the years. That that mash perfectly. So.
Your kitchen has been moved into your dining room, and
that is because of the renovation taking place in the
(01:12):
back of your house exactly. I can't remember if we've
told folks this, but so we've broken ground. We were
adding some a couple of rooms onto the back of
our house. Uh, and we're also going to be finishing
out the Airbnb space underneath, so that's actually happening. We
haven't done a full episode dedicated to that, but that's happening,
and we certainly will keep you posted as that progresses.
But what that means, dude, is that for the next
(01:33):
our contractors told us maybe for the next month before
the drywall is up, at which point then we can
kind of move back, you know, get back in there
and kind of get settled in again in our kitchen.
We're not getting a new kitchen, we're just kind of
adding onto the space beyond that. But yeah, we can
still use our dishwasher and some of the our appliances
back there, but it's just a mess, and certainly we
don't want to have the girls back there. And if
(01:55):
you notice, over my right shoulder there's our giant bus,
our bussing tray or bust hub, and we dump all
of our plates in there and I take it back
there and do the dishes at night. It's not terrible.
You guys are really good about finding like a system
no matter what condition. You're in. The system has gotta work, yes,
and so you you set up this really great system,
because I gotta tell you, if it was our family
(02:16):
that was renovating, it might be a little more of
a cluster. We wouldn't float nearly as well. So I
do appreciate the way you guys set up a system. Uh,
and it seems like it's working well. You're kitchen dining
room combo. You know. While not ideal for the long haul,
it works out for the short term. Dude. It's actually
kind of nice. It makes me feel like we're in
New York or something like that, where it's just like, oh,
(02:36):
I need some more catch up. Let me just literally
I can reach over and open the fridge from my seat.
That's pretty sweet. That's pretty sweet. It's the it's not
too bad, but we certainly are looking forward to getting
back into our into our space and our new sort
of expanded space. You know, this is something that Kate,
now we we've talked about for a while. We see
ourselves in this house, you know, potentially for forever with
(02:57):
this small edition. And then we're also we're kind of cheating,
but we're justifying it by using the space below you know,
to to put up on Airbnb, and the you know
what we're gonna be able to generate from that is
gonna earn us if you run the numbers, like over
ten percent on our money. We get to increase the
amount of utility that we have to use for ourselves,
(03:18):
provide sweet little service or folks through the Airbnb, and
then all the while make uh make over ten percent
on our money. It's it's not too bad. Yeah, that's
pretty sweet, dude. You know, we actually talked about doing
an entire episode on construction. Maybe we gotta do that soon. Yeah,
like finding a contractor making sure that you can get
reliable help, just just all the things that just all
the steps that people go through and and they're just like,
how does this even work for folks that are maybe
(03:40):
considering an addition or maybe just a small renovation. I'm
not totally sure at what point will be, but we've
done some work like this before down on this house,
but on others, and so yeah, that might be fun
to talk about. Oh man, we had a listener right
in a few episodes ago. I think i'd kind of
bashed donating plasmas. Yeah, yeah, we're gonna mentioned the plasma guy. Yeah,
(04:01):
so I donated plasma a little bit in college and
made some sweet money and it worked alls in college,
and I think, you know, I kind of made fun
of it that now at this point in my life,
I wouldn't do it. And listener Ryan wrote in and
talked about how he still donates plasma and kind of
why he does it and how much money he makes,
like he does it on the rag and brings in
some serious money, which I was completely impressed with his
(04:23):
system and kind of, you know, the way we set
up our kitchen and like the processes, that's the way
he sets up his left arm. Yeah, it's gonna be
his left because he's on his phone with the right exactly,
listening to podcasts and reading books and stuff like that,
which I love. I love his his approach to it.
So he said he makes almost like a year from
donating plasmas. So if you stick to the schedule and
(04:44):
you go twice a week, that usually you know, the
payout increases if you're able to go twice a week,
and then if you go regularly almost every day that month,
you're going to get an additional bonus on top of that.
So the more you donate in every single month, you're
going to get more money for donate in your plasma.
And you can will put a link maybe to what
it means to donate your plasma in the show notes.
(05:04):
I don't want to kind of go into all the
specifics now, um, but you're fine, like like an instructibles,
but like how to donate your own plasma yourself at home?
Yeah no, probably not, you don't want to do that,
but just like the Wikipedia for what it actually means,
because some people might be like it might be a
foreign concept. I've never donated plasma. Is that like donating blood?
And I don't want to answer all those questions right here,
but the fact that Ryan's doing it, it's really cool.
(05:25):
And I just thought of this because on the way
to one of my rental houses today, I passed a
plasma donation center and I just honestly didn't even know
where the one nearest to me was, and so I
don't know, maybe I'll consider it. And Ryan had mentioned
that the reason that he donates plasma kind of what
he uses it for. Well, he said, first off, I'm
making money for listening to podcasts and reading blogs and
stuff like that, right, so he's just on his phone
downtime and he's able to listen to the show or
(05:48):
whatever other podcasts he's digging right now. Um. And then
on top of that, he uses all that extra money
to fund his vacations. And so I love that he's
kind of get this goal, this this reason for doing
it right. It's like, Okay, this is extra play money,
and I'm gonna use it to fund my travel. And
so that was super cool. I kind of like this
philosophy behind it. I like that he's doing it and
(06:08):
you know what, all right, I'm gonna lay off few
plasma donators. And I love that he put in there
too that it only takes them about two hours a week,
Like that's about he goes in twice a week, takes
them about two hours, and so I mean you can
actually see the numbers there right, like two hours a
week making about a year. Like that's not too bad.
It's not too bad. It's awesome. I love it. Way
to go, Ryan. Alright, Matt, So the beer we're drinking
(06:29):
on the show tonight, you picked it up for us. Yeah, man,
This is by Cherry Street Brewing. This is a small
batch that they've put out and it's called Sweet l Lonnie,
which is a barrel age stoubts. Yeah, quickly, I wanted
to say this beer gets an amazing rating on untapped,
And if you don't follow Matt and I on on tapped,
you can do that. It's kind of social media for
(06:50):
beer drinkers. And you can find our untapped handles on
our website. All right, Joel, let's talk about wills. But
aren't wills for old people? No way, man, Um. The
fact is is that over half of Americans don't have
a will, man, And this is terrible news because what
that means is your assets aren't protected, well specifically, you
(07:11):
don't have control over where they go. More sort of personal,
and even more important to us is that you don't
even necessarily have say over who's going to be your
children's guardian. Man. That is insane to think of the
different families who don't have wills, where something you know,
could happen tomorrow and the state gets essentially decide, you know,
(07:31):
where your kids go. That's that's crazy. Yeah, man, And
first I think we need to clear up to the
fact that you know, we aren't lawyers, were certainly not
experts on this. But what we want to convey more
than anything, is it. Setting up a will is easy,
it's quick, and it can be free. And so we're
gonna go kind of go through all those things and
the reasons to like why you should have a will
and you need to because you could totally get like
(07:53):
final destinations tomorrow, yes, impaled through the skull or I
don't foot, I don't know, whatever it could, whatever it takes,
you know, there's all these random ways you can die,
hit by a bus, disc golf, disc to the head.
There's just the possibilities are endless. If you're gonna get
a final destination, they would totally be getting disc golf
to the head, right, Like if you're gonna go out, like,
(08:14):
how would you like to go out? Probably that way, yeah,
like on the course, like out in nature. Like it
doesn't remind me of the first time I took my
family out to play disc golf. I've never taken the
girls out. And uh, I was walking with my I
think at that point they were two and four and
my wife, my wife throws her disk and she just
she never plays disc golf, and she hit our four
(08:35):
year old in the back of the head's like directly
beamed or right in the back of the head. So
my little disc golf teaching lesson ended really quickly and
we headed home. I think everybody was crying, right like
for sure. Yeah, so yeah, not a good day on
the disc golf course. But that's yeah, that's probably the
way I'd like to go. But yeah, we're all gonna go.
And it's important to have a will because if you
(08:55):
have any money in your name, or if you have
young kids and a spouse, assets, whatever, you need to
have a will. And we're not legal experts, but we
can say with certainty that you want to make sure
that in the event of your eventual death right it's
gonna happen. It's inevitable for all of us. We just
don't know when right that that that that you're not
(09:15):
leaving a burden to your family or arguments to be
made amongst the court systems and the people that have
a vested interest in the outcome of where your possessions
or your minor children go. You want to make sure
that your will spells those things out so that you're
not leaving it up to kind of chance and the
whims of family arguments or the state right exactly if
(09:36):
you die without a will, you know, the state is
to decide who gets your kids and how your money
is divided. This is called you know, dying intest states,
which is a fun word kind of sounds like intestine.
I wish I had a small intestate and a large intestate.
It's like I'm going in from my intestate exam. But
the estate at that point enter is probate. And that
(09:58):
can be terrible because it can be really expensive. It
can cost way more than a will, especially because wills
can be free. Yeah, and I can also just take
a long time and be a pretty stressful time when
in the aftermath of your death, when your family is
already incredibly emotional, there's a lot going on in preparing
for the arrangements of your burial or cremation or whatever
(10:21):
it may be, and adding on at probate court and
the decisions that come along with determining where your assets
end up, and the bickering that can happen even amongst
families that care for one another and have a loving relationship,
you know, during a post death scenario, it's it's just terrible,
and so a will can just alleviate all these things.
(10:41):
It's not so much for you. Right, you're dead, you're gone,
but it's for your family members, the people that you
care about. And doing that now, making sure that you
get that will created now just gives you some peace
of mind knowing that your family is taken care of
when that stressful time eventually presents itself. Yeah, and I
love what you said, which is that it's not for you. Like,
(11:02):
that's what's so important about a will, is that it's
it's for the people that you love. And I think,
honestly that's the biggest reason why it gets pushed off.
People think that, oh, I've got more time to do this.
I can always do this tomorrow. This is something, This
is a can I can just kick further down the
road and I'll just delay. I'm not really gonna die,
I mean, am I right? But fact is, anybody that
(11:23):
dies without a will in test dates. Uh, that is
what they think. That's the thought process that's going through
their head. I get that. But at the same time,
it's something that you need to take care of. And
the good news is that it's quick and painless. And
so after the break, we're gonna talk about the biggest
reasons why you should have a will, and we'll talk
about the costs associated with that. Hint is cheap. All right, Joe,
(11:54):
let's talk about the big reasons why you've got to
have a will and why it's not just for old people. Uh. First,
I mean we kind of touched on this, right, but
this is a crappy topic. This is sort of like
we did the listener question not too long ago about
life insurance, which is it's kind of crappy, similarly crappy topic.
And I think maybe that's why we're kind of joking
more about it, because we realize that it's not something
(12:16):
that's really fun to talk about. It's just one of
the things that you gotta do, and we've done it,
and we're here to talk to you about it, and
then I help you understand why you need to do
it as well, and we'll just keep incorporating weird death
jokes into this episode. And So the first reason you
need to have a will is because with a will
that you get to decide how your estate is distributed.
(12:37):
And what that means is that you know, any of
your assets, you get to decide, All right, do I
want all this to go to my spouse? Do I
want to go to my spouse, and twenty five to
go to each one of my two kids. It's up
to you. You can decide and shoot, maybe I want
to have one of it to go towards this this
charity or this nonprofit that you're a part of. Uh
and for you that may not have happened were you
(12:59):
to not have set up a will. These are all
the different reasons why you want to have a will
to decide where you want your assets to go. Joel,
if you were to die, would you will me? Uh?
Your folk art? You get my boom box. I've already
decided on that. Like John Cusack sty album box on
the shoulders, that's what you get, Bunny. You know, when
I was younger, someone told me once that I reminded
(13:20):
her of John Cusack. Really, what do you think about that?
M Can you see it? Nope? She's like she's like
like a blend between Richard Greer or gear. Why do
you look like old people? I don't know. I mean
even I was like twenty three at the time, too
said definitely didn't make sense since then, but yeah, John
Cusack and Richard I was like, I don't know how
to take that, but we'll post a picture of you
(13:42):
on the show notes and people can decide whether who
you look more like, or maybe we won't post any
pictures of me on the show notes and maybe instead
you can just check out the countless selfies that Joel
and I post. I did want to say, you didn't
make my will in one area? No way. Please tell
me you're the executor of my will, my friend, Yes
you are. So I just want to let people know
too that when you're creating a will, why did I
(14:03):
not think of making you my executor? Uh? Probably because
you chose someone that was smarter and probably better that
suited to handle the job. Makes me a worse friend though, No, no,
I don't want to be the exact That's a lot
of work, dude, I set you up for a lot
of work. Well, but you're not gonna die. Well that's
probably true. Ever, yeah, I can agree with that. So
to let people know the executor or executive tricks of
(14:26):
a will is the person that will handle dispersing your
assets and making sure that your final wishes are carried
out in the manner that you wanted them to be
carried out. And so you know, choosing the right person
to handle that is great. You want someone that you
know is kind of gonna be up for the paperwork
and the relationship hassles of handling your estate after you passed.
(14:49):
Do you know I love relationship conflict. I know. That's
why I chose you. Detail orientation. I see now why
you chose me. It's it's a match made in heaven.
So you're my executor. So choose an executive or that
you trust. I trust Matt. Choose either your podcast partner
or your best friend. And you know what, it's even
better if it's both. Ideally both I'm about that man.
I like it. Also, another huge reason why you want
(15:11):
to have a will is that we can We touched
on this earlier, but you decide who gets to take
care of your kids. So Joel mentioned the executor of
the estates. What we're talking about now is the guardian.
So if you have kids, you want to make sure
that you've got somebody taking care of your kids that
you want taking care of your kids. This is somebody
too that you need to have talked to, unlike having
(15:31):
it sprung on them at the last second of oh hey,
by the way, you're the executor. Uh. Guardianship is who
would do that. Um, hey, I accept guardianship though it's
a I mean, it's a completely different thing, right, I mean,
you're raising children, You're you're taking these these children on
and you're loving them basically as as your own. And
that's you know, that can be a really really tall
(15:54):
order for folks. So that's a conversation that needs to
be had. But as the parents, I knew that that's
an opinion that I would have as to who raised
our girls. And and so that's you know, that's a
huge benefit of having a will set up. Yeah, you
just don't want to leave that to chance, especially if
you have kids. Right, Like your assets, like that's a
big deal, but your kids, man, that's an even bigger deal.
(16:17):
And so you just don't want to leave that to
family arguments over who wants to take the kids. You
want to be the person kind of writing that out,
spelling out your wishes and making sure that once you die,
that's what's carried out, right, And that's kind of that's
a big position to be in. And so yeah, that's
just something you need to think about, especially if you
have young children. And so a lot of folks might
(16:37):
be one and Joel, how expensive, is it? Don't I
need a lawyer? Um? And you know, in some cases
we would say, yeah, you do. You know, there's a
lot of sort of more complicated situations that would call
for a lawyer. You know, if you own property in
other states, or if you have your own business, if
they're severe medical issues. These are all sort of situations
(16:58):
where you know, you deaf only want to involve lawyers.
Or if you're like Matt and you've just got an
enormous amount of assets, Yeah, exactly. Yeah, if you're me,
then you definitely want to get the lawyers involved. Also,
if you've got a pre nup that you created before
you got married, if you have a spouse or a
child with a disability, or that you believe that your
will maybe contested a bunch of kids that argue, is
(17:21):
that what you're saying? That, That's exactly what I'm saying.
So you're you're gonna want to make sure you have
a will laid out ahead of time. Yeah. Man. Basically,
if you have a complicated financial or family situation or
manners going on, you should consult a lawyer then. But
oftentimes you do not need a lawyer if you have
a simple boring family or a you know, pretty regular
(17:42):
money situation looking at you, boring lawyers, guard family. Then
for you, like those free will options or the you know,
inexpensive will templates that are out there might be a
great option for you, and we're going to talk about
that right after this break. All right, Matt, we'll back
(18:06):
to the break. We talked about how sometimes you don't
need a lawyer to create a will, you can just
do the free ones right in so many circumstances. Here's
the problem. There are a lot of lawyers out there
who will probably be emailing us after this episode is
posted saying we're way off base, and then you need
a lawyer to create a basic will, a basic document.
(18:27):
But the problem is lawyer friends out there that that
if there is this barrier to entry to creating a will,
and most of us are never going to create any
document at all if we have to go see a
lawyer and pay the kind of sums that it takes
in order to get that will created. And so while
it might be the best case scenario to have an
(18:50):
actual lawyer help you create this will, a lawyer that
specializes in wills the States and trusts, well, it's kind
of like how people actually ride an ee by versus
letting their regular bike sit looking at myself in the mirror.
I guess um, people actually do that, right, And so
I think an action that people are actually going to
take is better than not taking any action at all
(19:13):
and and creating a will on your own without the
help of a lawyer, because it's way cheaper and you're
actually just gonna do it sitting at your computer for
five minutes. Man, go for that route as opposed to
just not having one created. Dude. I completely agree with
that and love that. Honestly reminds me of Seth Godin.
He always talks about delivering, like whatever it is that
you're working on and you're creating, whether it be like
(19:35):
an art or a book or an episode or a
blog post. It's something he says is that perfection is
the biggest enemy to delivering. And that's the case with this.
If you feel that you have to get it exactly rights, dude,
you're never gonna actually do it. Uh. I think that's
the truth For the vast majority of folks out there.
They think that, oh, it's got to be perfect, and yeah,
(19:55):
like you said, it's that. I mean that alone right there,
is going to keep people from creating a will and
from getting that ball rolling all together. So let's talk
about a few of the options that are out there
for people. If you know what, you're realizing, I've got
kids and I've never created a will, or holy crap,
I've got six million dollars in the bank and I've
never created a will. You're you're gonna want to get
(20:16):
started on that right away. If if that's the case
for you, if you're single, you live alone, there's you
don't have many assets. Will is not nearly as important
that you might want to consider it anyway, because it's free,
and whatever you do have, you you want to make
sure that it's going to the proper people. Your assets
are going where you want them to go, you know,
upon your eventual demise. But it's not nearly as important.
(20:39):
But if you do have kids, if you have that
large estate, like we talked about, it is important. So
let's talk about the options. Will Maker is a software
that's available. Prices on Amazon change constantly, but it's like
fifty six bucks last time we checked, so that is
kind of actually, in our opinion, the more expensive options
you should consider, which sounds ridiculous to say that, like, oh,
(21:00):
it's a lot of money, but big picture, when it
comes to estates and wills and that sort of thing,
it's it's really not that big of a deal. Yeah, completely,
But so our first free option here is going to
be free will dot Com. Which side note, you totally
thought of Free Willy, right, like the movie from the nineties. No,
that's funny. I'm just like a theology nerd at time.
(21:20):
So I was thinking of the free will versus determinism. Okay,
so my mind went to Disney and terrible, terrible movies
from the nineties of like Free Willy and Cool Runnings
and whatever other movie came out in that time period. Anyway,
tangents free will dot com. That is where Joel and
I have created our will. You know, so you had
(21:40):
one before and I set mine up for the first
time on there. How did you actually denote which one is?
I guess up to date for you because you said
you had one before this because I didn't have a
I didn't have a will set up before before I
did the one here at free will dot com. Yeah,
so what you do at the end of creating your
will printing it out. The great thing is free Will
sends you a PDF and you print it out and
(22:02):
they give you the step by step instructions of how
to make sure that your will is valid. And so
you take your old will and you rip it up,
you toss it in the fire however you want to
do it, however dramatic. You want to be really right,
and so to validate the will, to make sure that
it is actually legal in your state, you're going to
need to get it signed by two witnesses. That's super easy.
(22:24):
They just have to be over the age of eighteen
and not involved in receiving assets from your will. So
if you do, design to use free will dot Com
and will link to them in the show notes as
your source for creating your free will, which we would
highly recommend. It's a really great service. They make it
super easy. It literally takes less than five minutes to
(22:45):
create your will, and then they give you all the
steps in order to make sure that your will is
totally valid, and they tell you how to make sure
that you tell the proper people like your executor, which
I told you on this episode. You can't say you
didn't know. Everyone knows you knew, and it just makes
sure that you have your proper ucks in a row.
Start the domino effect of making sure that your assets
go to the proper place in the event of your death. So,
(23:07):
speaking of assets, would you would you will me like
the craft beers that you've got in your seller, I'll
give you my craft beer seller, because who else would
I give it to. I don't know. I feel like
there's somebody else. You might be like, hey, you want
these beers? No way, man, of course, it's got to
be my craft beer podcast. Buddy, Yeah, homie, No, wait, man,
you know I gotta leave it to my podcast. And Buddy, well,
that means a lot, man, I appreciate it all right. Man.
That leads us to our second free option, and that
(23:29):
comes from a website called meet fabric dot com. Specifically, uh,
meet fabric dot com forward slash wills. What I love
about this site is that it seems like they're kind
of geared more towards the ladies, uh specifically like mom bloggers.
Just kind of the way it's set up. I kind
of clicked around something and I saw that they sell
life insurance as well, and so you know, they're kind
(23:50):
of finding their niche in the market, but they're making
it really easy to use this very you know, non technical,
because that's what you think of, right when you think
of wills, you think of lawyers, and it's nis you
think of a very bureaucratic and sort of state run process.
And the way they had it set up on the
website was just very approachable, and I loved it. I
thought it was an awesome site. I love how both
(24:12):
of these sites are able to use different models to
sustain themselves and to offer a great product for free,
you know, Fabric essentially trying to hopefully get you to
my term life insurance at some point, and free will
dot com. The way that they're able to offer their
product for free is when you're finishing your will, they
offer you the option of donating a certain percentage of
(24:36):
your assets to nonprofit organizations, and those nonprofit organizations essentially
pay Free Will to be on their website, to be
in front of your face when you're choosing where you
want your money to go, you know, when you die,
and obviously you don't have to choose to donate your
money to any of them, but I just kind of
love that they both found a model for creating this
(24:57):
ability for you to create a will for free, because
in my mind, for me, the two biggest barriers to
entry to create a will before I did it for
the first time were money and time. I didn't want
to spend any money to create a will because when
you're in your thirties, you know, early thirties, you don't
think you're ever gonna die. And I still don't think
I'm going to, but I realized there's a chance. And
(25:19):
then you also just don't want to spend any money
on it, right you there's so many other places you
want your money to go. That's spending, you know, even
fifty six dollars on a will that you buy, you know,
on Amazon. It just feels like this barrier to entry
that you're not going to cross. And so these two
websites will link to them in the show notes. They
just make it an actual reality for most of us
that if we're you know, in our twenties or thirties,
(25:42):
we might actually do it because it's only gonna take
five minutes and it's not going to cost us a dime. Yeah, man,
that's good stuff. And so after you have that will
set up, you want to review it with life changes
and what that means is that if you have kids,
or you know you might get married or even divorced,
or if you have an increase in assets, do you
(26:03):
want to review the will because at those points in
time things have changed and at that point you might
want your money to go to someone else or to
instead go to this person or not this person, you know,
I don't know whatever it might be for for your
specific situation. Yeah, and if you have another child, you
want to make sure that that child is named in
your will exactly. Yeah, you want them included. Yeah, that
newborn goes to the people that you desire your kids
(26:25):
to go to. Or if you have a falling out
with someone that is named in your will as a
beneficiary and you want to change that, make sure you
want you're on top of that. I know, I just
thought of that. Like what if you you know, you
had like a nasty divorce and you forgot to take
that person out of your will and then you were
to die and then they get all your money, right,
or if you found a new podcasting partner and like
(26:46):
that would be so brutal, man, that would be bad.
And so obviously that's if something major happens in your life.
But even if nothing major does happen, that's something you
want to review annually. And so it's just sort of
good to think. Maybe a lot people do this at
the beginning of the year. They're looking ahead, setting goals.
You think, Okay, what's is there something I want to change?
Is there something that's maybe changed for me that I
(27:07):
didn't you know, naturally think of. It's a good time
to think of it fairly regularly of how might I
want to, you know, change my asset allocation of you know,
where my money would go after the fact. Yeah, And
the great thing is you can always create a new
one for free in a very short amount of time,
and you can destroy your old will super quickly. Uh.
(27:29):
The thing is, like we said, the barrier to entry
is incredibly small, very small amount of time that you
need to commit to creating this will and no money,
and then you just have to find two witnesses that
are over eighteen that will sign the will acknowledging that
these are your final wishes, right, and you're done. Is
it two witnesses for every state? Yeah? I think they do.
(27:50):
At least free will dot Com offers you the ability
to to add a third witness, you know, just in
case something would have happen to one of your other witnesses.
But it pretty much uch. In most dates, it's two witnesses.
And I think there's another misconception that you have to
have your will notarized, and that's just not true. You
have to have two witnesses in most dates and no notary. Yes,
(28:12):
you can have like two of your friends come over,
have a beer, they'll sign your will, and uh yeah,
it's pretty simple transaction. Yeah, super easy, super simple. I
love it. All right, Matt, let's get back to the beer.
It's from this awesome brewery that's just about an hour
outside of Atlanta called Cherry Street Brewing Company, and this
is a small batch, barrel aged stout called Sweet Leilanie.
And holy crap, dude, this was really good. Yeah, fantastic stout.
(28:36):
It'scott just amazing everything. Like I don't know how it
is to describe it, Like, as we're pouring it, it
just had that thick motor oil darkness to it. It
didn't pour super viscous and so it wasn't like overly sticky.
It had a good amount of uh what effervescence like bubbles,
so you're drinking it, and it feels pretty light in
your mouth, but it's just got all that flavor. It's
(28:57):
got like the roasted chocolate, it's got like the dark
lookiness that you want out of a stout. This is
a fantastic beer. And honestly, this kind of gets me
jazzed up for the fall, as like that we're about
to have some more colder, colder days ahead of us,
and having some nicer stouts like this gets me excited
for the winter. Yeah, seriously, I know you and I
are both kind of advocates of drinking beer in the season.
(29:19):
They're supposed to be drunk or at least like we
don't even care if other people do, I guess, but
you and I both like to do that. Yeah, and yeah,
a stout feels like inappropriate in July. It just feels weird, right,
and and so it's nice to be kind of getting
towards the season where a stout like this feels right
stout season. You know what we're not going to have
on the show, pumpkin spice beers. Don't get me started
(29:42):
on pumpkin beers. So many of the pumpkin beers, the
vast majority are just complete crap. It might be they're
pretty terrible. Yeah, I mean, I'm just thinking of like
pumpkin spice latte season because we're talking about drinking with
the seasons and all that kind of stuff. So yeah,
we don't adhere to that, like it's you know, the law,
but it is nice having an appropriate uh season will beer. Yeah,
and this uh sweet Leilannie from Cherry Street was an
(30:05):
appropriate seasonal beer. This was so freaking good man, I
really enjoyed it. So thanks for picking that up for me, man,
glad I could all right, jel, it's time for us
to do our final thoughts. But aren't wheels for old people, Maddie, No,
they're not. Basically, if you have money, you know, if
you have any assets to your name, or if you
(30:25):
have kids, or if you have a spouse, if you
can say yes to any of those three things, then
you need to have a will. Most folks don't have
a will because they feel they can put it off.
They can put it off to another day. This is
something that they don't have to address now. This is
something that you do need to get to now. Yeah,
and I completely understand that lazy approach, except for the
(30:47):
fact that it's super quick, painless, and free, so it's
not expensive and you don't need a lawyer in most cases.
That's right, man. For the vast majority of situations out there,
you can go with one of the free are just
really cheap options out there. We're talking about free will
dot com or meat fabric dot com. But if you
want to pay for the software, you know there's willmaker
(31:09):
as well. Will link to all three of those options
in our show notes. Yeah, I mean, Matt, Ultimately we're
all gonna die. Maybe that's in a zoo Lander style
free gasoline fight accident. Who knows, it could be you're
an airplane exactly exactly. It could be, you know, an
airplane spontaneously combusting. There are so many ways that you
(31:30):
could die, and you know, obviously it's a sad it's
a sad thing. We don't want to leave our family
and friends behind, but especially you don't want to leave
them behind not taking care of And that's why it's
important to create a will, especially when it's this easy.
It makes me think of the analogy said earlier about
like the e bikes versus regular bikes. You know, like
if you've got a regular bike and you're just probably
(31:51):
not going to ride it because you've got too many
hills between you and your work. Well, you know, an
e bike will get you moving, and you know getting
on that at all is better than not being on
a bike gets you out of the car. Yeah, exactly
gets you out of the car. And you know, some
of these free wheels online may not be the best
or bulletproof solutions, but they are one hundred times better
(32:13):
than not having one at all, which is why we
recommend them. Yeah, something is better than nothing, and good
is better than perfect. That's never gonna happen, that never
gets delivered. That's right, all right, everyone, thanks for listening.
Our home on the web is how to money dot com.
We will have shown us up for this episode with
all the appropriate links. That's right. And if you like
(32:35):
what you hear and have found this episode helpful, please
let us know. You can give us a review on
Apple Podcasts. We would love to hear from you. While
you're there, be sure to subscribe until next time. Man,
best friends out, Best friends out? Mm hmmmmmm. Executed upon
(33:06):
your execution
Welcome to how the Money. I'm Joel and I am Matt,
and today we're asking the question, but aren't wills for
old people wills? That's right, man, We're gonna talk about
(00:27):
that soon. For now, what do you think about our
our new recording studio that we've got going on here?
This is amazing. I feel like we need to set
this visual scenario of where we are. So normally, Matt,
you and I record at your dining room table. That's right,
and we are, however, dining room table this evening. But
also to your rights. Over your right shoulder is our refrigerator,
and uh, over my left shoulder is our kitchen, kind
(00:50):
of lovely instant pot on on a makeshift table with
like a children's desk underneath it, Yeah, dude, and a
larger children's desk to the side of it. It's it's
you two children's desk that we've picked up for free
at yard sales over the years. That that mash perfectly. So.
Your kitchen has been moved into your dining room, and
that is because of the renovation taking place in the
(01:12):
back of your house exactly. I can't remember if we've
told folks this, but so we've broken ground. We were
adding some a couple of rooms onto the back of
our house. Uh, and we're also going to be finishing
out the Airbnb space underneath, so that's actually happening. We
haven't done a full episode dedicated to that, but that's happening,
and we certainly will keep you posted as that progresses.
But what that means, dude, is that for the next
(01:33):
our contractors told us maybe for the next month before
the drywall is up, at which point then we can
kind of move back, you know, get back in there
and kind of get settled in again in our kitchen.
We're not getting a new kitchen, we're just kind of
adding onto the space beyond that. But yeah, we can
still use our dishwasher and some of the our appliances
back there, but it's just a mess, and certainly we
don't want to have the girls back there. And if
(01:55):
you notice, over my right shoulder there's our giant bus,
our bussing tray or bust hub, and we dump all
of our plates in there and I take it back
there and do the dishes at night. It's not terrible.
You guys are really good about finding like a system
no matter what condition. You're in. The system has gotta work, yes,
and so you you set up this really great system,
because I gotta tell you, if it was our family
(02:16):
that was renovating, it might be a little more of
a cluster. We wouldn't float nearly as well. So I
do appreciate the way you guys set up a system. Uh,
and it seems like it's working well. You're kitchen dining
room combo. You know. While not ideal for the long haul,
it works out for the short term. Dude. It's actually
kind of nice. It makes me feel like we're in
New York or something like that, where it's just like, oh,
(02:36):
I need some more catch up. Let me just literally
I can reach over and open the fridge from my seat.
That's pretty sweet. That's pretty sweet. It's the it's not
too bad, but we certainly are looking forward to getting
back into our into our space and our new sort
of expanded space. You know, this is something that Kate,
now we we've talked about for a while. We see
ourselves in this house, you know, potentially for forever with
(02:57):
this small edition. And then we're also we're kind of cheating,
but we're justifying it by using the space below you know,
to to put up on Airbnb, and the you know
what we're gonna be able to generate from that is
gonna earn us if you run the numbers, like over
ten percent on our money. We get to increase the
amount of utility that we have to use for ourselves,
(03:18):
provide sweet little service or folks through the Airbnb, and
then all the while make uh make over ten percent
on our money. It's it's not too bad. Yeah, that's
pretty sweet, dude. You know, we actually talked about doing
an entire episode on construction. Maybe we gotta do that soon. Yeah,
like finding a contractor making sure that you can get
reliable help, just just all the things that just all
the steps that people go through and and they're just like,
how does this even work for folks that are maybe
(03:40):
considering an addition or maybe just a small renovation. I'm
not totally sure at what point will be, but we've
done some work like this before down on this house,
but on others, and so yeah, that might be fun
to talk about. Oh man, we had a listener right
in a few episodes ago. I think i'd kind of
bashed donating plasmas. Yeah, yeah, we're gonna mentioned the plasma guy. Yeah,
(04:01):
so I donated plasma a little bit in college and
made some sweet money and it worked alls in college,
and I think, you know, I kind of made fun
of it that now at this point in my life,
I wouldn't do it. And listener Ryan wrote in and
talked about how he still donates plasma and kind of
why he does it and how much money he makes,
like he does it on the rag and brings in
some serious money, which I was completely impressed with his
(04:23):
system and kind of, you know, the way we set
up our kitchen and like the processes, that's the way
he sets up his left arm. Yeah, it's gonna be
his left because he's on his phone with the right exactly,
listening to podcasts and reading books and stuff like that,
which I love. I love his his approach to it.
So he said he makes almost like a year from
donating plasmas. So if you stick to the schedule and
(04:44):
you go twice a week, that usually you know, the
payout increases if you're able to go twice a week,
and then if you go regularly almost every day that month,
you're going to get an additional bonus on top of that.
So the more you donate in every single month, you're
going to get more money for donate in your plasma.
And you can will put a link maybe to what
it means to donate your plasma in the show notes.
(05:04):
I don't want to kind of go into all the
specifics now, um, but you're fine, like like an instructibles,
but like how to donate your own plasma yourself at home?
Yeah no, probably not, you don't want to do that,
but just like the Wikipedia for what it actually means,
because some people might be like it might be a
foreign concept. I've never donated plasma. Is that like donating blood?
And I don't want to answer all those questions right here,
but the fact that Ryan's doing it, it's really cool.
(05:25):
And I just thought of this because on the way
to one of my rental houses today, I passed a
plasma donation center and I just honestly didn't even know
where the one nearest to me was, and so I
don't know, maybe I'll consider it. And Ryan had mentioned
that the reason that he donates plasma kind of what
he uses it for. Well, he said, first off, I'm
making money for listening to podcasts and reading blogs and
stuff like that, right, so he's just on his phone
downtime and he's able to listen to the show or
(05:48):
whatever other podcasts he's digging right now. Um. And then
on top of that, he uses all that extra money
to fund his vacations. And so I love that he's
kind of get this goal, this this reason for doing
it right. It's like, Okay, this is extra play money,
and I'm gonna use it to fund my travel. And
so that was super cool. I kind of like this
philosophy behind it. I like that he's doing it and
(06:08):
you know what, all right, I'm gonna lay off few
plasma donators. And I love that he put in there
too that it only takes them about two hours a week,
Like that's about he goes in twice a week, takes
them about two hours, and so I mean you can
actually see the numbers there right, like two hours a
week making about a year. Like that's not too bad.
It's not too bad. It's awesome. I love it. Way
to go, Ryan. Alright, Matt, So the beer we're drinking
(06:29):
on the show tonight, you picked it up for us. Yeah, man,
This is by Cherry Street Brewing. This is a small
batch that they've put out and it's called Sweet l Lonnie,
which is a barrel age stoubts. Yeah, quickly, I wanted
to say this beer gets an amazing rating on untapped,
And if you don't follow Matt and I on on tapped,
you can do that. It's kind of social media for
(06:50):
beer drinkers. And you can find our untapped handles on
our website. All right, Joel, let's talk about wills. But
aren't wills for old people? No way, man, Um. The
fact is is that over half of Americans don't have
a will, man, And this is terrible news because what
that means is your assets aren't protected, well specifically, you
(07:11):
don't have control over where they go. More sort of personal,
and even more important to us is that you don't
even necessarily have say over who's going to be your
children's guardian. Man. That is insane to think of the
different families who don't have wills, where something you know,
could happen tomorrow and the state gets essentially decide, you know,
(07:31):
where your kids go. That's that's crazy. Yeah, man, And
first I think we need to clear up to the
fact that you know, we aren't lawyers, were certainly not
experts on this. But what we want to convey more
than anything, is it. Setting up a will is easy,
it's quick, and it can be free. And so we're
gonna go kind of go through all those things and
the reasons to like why you should have a will
and you need to because you could totally get like
(07:53):
final destinations tomorrow, yes, impaled through the skull or I
don't foot, I don't know, whatever it could, whatever it takes,
you know, there's all these random ways you can die,
hit by a bus, disc golf, disc to the head.
There's just the possibilities are endless. If you're gonna get
a final destination, they would totally be getting disc golf
to the head, right, Like if you're gonna go out, like,
(08:14):
how would you like to go out? Probably that way, yeah,
like on the course, like out in nature. Like it
doesn't remind me of the first time I took my
family out to play disc golf. I've never taken the
girls out. And uh, I was walking with my I
think at that point they were two and four and
my wife, my wife throws her disk and she just
she never plays disc golf, and she hit our four
(08:35):
year old in the back of the head's like directly
beamed or right in the back of the head. So
my little disc golf teaching lesson ended really quickly and
we headed home. I think everybody was crying, right like
for sure. Yeah, so yeah, not a good day on
the disc golf course. But that's yeah, that's probably the
way I'd like to go. But yeah, we're all gonna go.
And it's important to have a will because if you
(08:55):
have any money in your name, or if you have
young kids and a spouse, assets, whatever, you need to
have a will. And we're not legal experts, but we
can say with certainty that you want to make sure
that in the event of your eventual death right it's
gonna happen. It's inevitable for all of us. We just
don't know when right that that that that you're not
(09:15):
leaving a burden to your family or arguments to be
made amongst the court systems and the people that have
a vested interest in the outcome of where your possessions
or your minor children go. You want to make sure
that your will spells those things out so that you're
not leaving it up to kind of chance and the
whims of family arguments or the state right exactly if
(09:36):
you die without a will, you know, the state is
to decide who gets your kids and how your money
is divided. This is called you know, dying intest states,
which is a fun word kind of sounds like intestine.
I wish I had a small intestate and a large intestate.
It's like I'm going in from my intestate exam. But
the estate at that point enter is probate. And that
(09:58):
can be terrible because it can be really expensive. It
can cost way more than a will, especially because wills
can be free. Yeah, and I can also just take
a long time and be a pretty stressful time when
in the aftermath of your death, when your family is
already incredibly emotional, there's a lot going on in preparing
for the arrangements of your burial or cremation or whatever
(10:21):
it may be, and adding on at probate court and
the decisions that come along with determining where your assets
end up, and the bickering that can happen even amongst
families that care for one another and have a loving relationship,
you know, during a post death scenario, it's it's just terrible,
and so a will can just alleviate all these things.
(10:41):
It's not so much for you. Right, you're dead, you're gone,
but it's for your family members, the people that you
care about. And doing that now, making sure that you
get that will created now just gives you some peace
of mind knowing that your family is taken care of
when that stressful time eventually presents itself. Yeah, and I
love what you said, which is that it's not for you. Like,
(11:02):
that's what's so important about a will, is that it's
it's for the people that you love. And I think,
honestly that's the biggest reason why it gets pushed off.
People think that, oh, I've got more time to do this.
I can always do this tomorrow. This is something, This
is a can I can just kick further down the
road and I'll just delay. I'm not really gonna die,
I mean, am I right? But fact is, anybody that
(11:23):
dies without a will in test dates. Uh, that is
what they think. That's the thought process that's going through
their head. I get that. But at the same time,
it's something that you need to take care of. And
the good news is that it's quick and painless. And
so after the break, we're gonna talk about the biggest
reasons why you should have a will, and we'll talk
about the costs associated with that. Hint is cheap. All right, Joe,
(11:54):
let's talk about the big reasons why you've got to
have a will and why it's not just for old people. Uh. First,
I mean we kind of touched on this, right, but
this is a crappy topic. This is sort of like
we did the listener question not too long ago about
life insurance, which is it's kind of crappy, similarly crappy topic.
And I think maybe that's why we're kind of joking
more about it, because we realize that it's not something
(12:16):
that's really fun to talk about. It's just one of
the things that you gotta do, and we've done it,
and we're here to talk to you about it, and
then I help you understand why you need to do
it as well, and we'll just keep incorporating weird death
jokes into this episode. And So the first reason you
need to have a will is because with a will
that you get to decide how your estate is distributed.
(12:37):
And what that means is that you know, any of
your assets, you get to decide, All right, do I
want all this to go to my spouse? Do I
want to go to my spouse, and twenty five to
go to each one of my two kids. It's up
to you. You can decide and shoot, maybe I want
to have one of it to go towards this this
charity or this nonprofit that you're a part of. Uh
and for you that may not have happened were you
(12:59):
to not have set up a will. These are all
the different reasons why you want to have a will
to decide where you want your assets to go. Joel,
if you were to die, would you will me? Uh?
Your folk art? You get my boom box. I've already
decided on that. Like John Cusack sty album box on
the shoulders, that's what you get, Bunny. You know, when
I was younger, someone told me once that I reminded
(13:20):
her of John Cusack. Really, what do you think about that?
M Can you see it? Nope? She's like she's like
like a blend between Richard Greer or gear. Why do
you look like old people? I don't know. I mean
even I was like twenty three at the time, too
said definitely didn't make sense since then, but yeah, John
Cusack and Richard I was like, I don't know how
to take that, but we'll post a picture of you
(13:42):
on the show notes and people can decide whether who
you look more like, or maybe we won't post any
pictures of me on the show notes and maybe instead
you can just check out the countless selfies that Joel
and I post. I did want to say, you didn't
make my will in one area? No way. Please tell
me you're the executor of my will, my friend, Yes
you are. So I just want to let people know
too that when you're creating a will, why did I
(14:03):
not think of making you my executor? Uh? Probably because
you chose someone that was smarter and probably better that
suited to handle the job. Makes me a worse friend though, No, no,
I don't want to be the exact That's a lot
of work, dude, I set you up for a lot
of work. Well, but you're not gonna die. Well that's
probably true. Ever, yeah, I can agree with that. So
to let people know the executor or executive tricks of
(14:26):
a will is the person that will handle dispersing your
assets and making sure that your final wishes are carried
out in the manner that you wanted them to be
carried out. And so you know, choosing the right person
to handle that is great. You want someone that you
know is kind of gonna be up for the paperwork
and the relationship hassles of handling your estate after you passed.
(14:49):
Do you know I love relationship conflict. I know. That's
why I chose you. Detail orientation. I see now why
you chose me. It's it's a match made in heaven.
So you're my executor. So choose an executive or that
you trust. I trust Matt. Choose either your podcast partner
or your best friend. And you know what, it's even
better if it's both. Ideally both I'm about that man.
I like it. Also, another huge reason why you want
(15:11):
to have a will is that we can We touched
on this earlier, but you decide who gets to take
care of your kids. So Joel mentioned the executor of
the estates. What we're talking about now is the guardian.
So if you have kids, you want to make sure
that you've got somebody taking care of your kids that
you want taking care of your kids. This is somebody
too that you need to have talked to, unlike having
(15:31):
it sprung on them at the last second of oh hey,
by the way, you're the executor. Uh. Guardianship is who
would do that. Um, hey, I accept guardianship though it's
a I mean, it's a completely different thing, right, I mean,
you're raising children, You're you're taking these these children on
and you're loving them basically as as your own. And
that's you know, that can be a really really tall
(15:54):
order for folks. So that's a conversation that needs to
be had. But as the parents, I knew that that's
an opinion that I would have as to who raised
our girls. And and so that's you know, that's a
huge benefit of having a will set up. Yeah, you
just don't want to leave that to chance, especially if
you have kids. Right, Like your assets, like that's a
big deal, but your kids, man, that's an even bigger deal.
(16:17):
And so you just don't want to leave that to
family arguments over who wants to take the kids. You
want to be the person kind of writing that out,
spelling out your wishes and making sure that once you die,
that's what's carried out, right, And that's kind of that's
a big position to be in. And so yeah, that's
just something you need to think about, especially if you
have young children. And so a lot of folks might
(16:37):
be one and Joel, how expensive, is it? Don't I
need a lawyer? Um? And you know, in some cases
we would say, yeah, you do. You know, there's a
lot of sort of more complicated situations that would call
for a lawyer. You know, if you own property in
other states, or if you have your own business, if
they're severe medical issues. These are all sort of situations
(16:58):
where you know, you deaf only want to involve lawyers.
Or if you're like Matt and you've just got an
enormous amount of assets, Yeah, exactly. Yeah, if you're me,
then you definitely want to get the lawyers involved. Also,
if you've got a pre nup that you created before
you got married, if you have a spouse or a
child with a disability, or that you believe that your
will maybe contested a bunch of kids that argue, is
(17:21):
that what you're saying? That, That's exactly what I'm saying.
So you're you're gonna want to make sure you have
a will laid out ahead of time. Yeah. Man. Basically,
if you have a complicated financial or family situation or
manners going on, you should consult a lawyer then. But
oftentimes you do not need a lawyer if you have
a simple boring family or a you know, pretty regular
(17:42):
money situation looking at you, boring lawyers, guard family. Then
for you, like those free will options or the you know,
inexpensive will templates that are out there might be a
great option for you, and we're going to talk about
that right after this break. All right, Matt, we'll back
(18:06):
to the break. We talked about how sometimes you don't
need a lawyer to create a will, you can just
do the free ones right in so many circumstances. Here's
the problem. There are a lot of lawyers out there
who will probably be emailing us after this episode is
posted saying we're way off base, and then you need
a lawyer to create a basic will, a basic document.
(18:27):
But the problem is lawyer friends out there that that
if there is this barrier to entry to creating a will,
and most of us are never going to create any
document at all if we have to go see a
lawyer and pay the kind of sums that it takes
in order to get that will created. And so while
it might be the best case scenario to have an
(18:50):
actual lawyer help you create this will, a lawyer that
specializes in wills the States and trusts, well, it's kind
of like how people actually ride an ee by versus
letting their regular bike sit looking at myself in the mirror.
I guess um, people actually do that, right, And so
I think an action that people are actually going to
take is better than not taking any action at all
(19:13):
and and creating a will on your own without the
help of a lawyer, because it's way cheaper and you're
actually just gonna do it sitting at your computer for
five minutes. Man, go for that route as opposed to
just not having one created. Dude. I completely agree with
that and love that. Honestly reminds me of Seth Godin.
He always talks about delivering, like whatever it is that
you're working on and you're creating, whether it be like
(19:35):
an art or a book or an episode or a
blog post. It's something he says is that perfection is
the biggest enemy to delivering. And that's the case with this.
If you feel that you have to get it exactly rights, dude,
you're never gonna actually do it. Uh. I think that's
the truth For the vast majority of folks out there.
They think that, oh, it's got to be perfect, and yeah,
(19:55):
like you said, it's that. I mean that alone right there,
is going to keep people from creating a will and
from getting that ball rolling all together. So let's talk
about a few of the options that are out there
for people. If you know what, you're realizing, I've got
kids and I've never created a will, or holy crap,
I've got six million dollars in the bank and I've
never created a will. You're you're gonna want to get
(20:16):
started on that right away. If if that's the case
for you, if you're single, you live alone, there's you
don't have many assets. Will is not nearly as important
that you might want to consider it anyway, because it's free,
and whatever you do have, you you want to make
sure that it's going to the proper people. Your assets
are going where you want them to go, you know,
upon your eventual demise. But it's not nearly as important.
(20:39):
But if you do have kids, if you have that
large estate, like we talked about, it is important. So
let's talk about the options. Will Maker is a software
that's available. Prices on Amazon change constantly, but it's like
fifty six bucks last time we checked, so that is
kind of actually, in our opinion, the more expensive options
you should consider, which sounds ridiculous to say that, like, oh,
(21:00):
it's a lot of money, but big picture, when it
comes to estates and wills and that sort of thing,
it's it's really not that big of a deal. Yeah, completely,
But so our first free option here is going to
be free will dot Com. Which side note, you totally
thought of Free Willy, right, like the movie from the nineties. No,
that's funny. I'm just like a theology nerd at time.
(21:20):
So I was thinking of the free will versus determinism. Okay,
so my mind went to Disney and terrible, terrible movies
from the nineties of like Free Willy and Cool Runnings
and whatever other movie came out in that time period. Anyway,
tangents free will dot com. That is where Joel and
I have created our will. You know, so you had
(21:40):
one before and I set mine up for the first
time on there. How did you actually denote which one is?
I guess up to date for you because you said
you had one before this because I didn't have a
I didn't have a will set up before before I
did the one here at free will dot com. Yeah,
so what you do at the end of creating your
will printing it out. The great thing is free Will
sends you a PDF and you print it out and
(22:02):
they give you the step by step instructions of how
to make sure that your will is valid. And so
you take your old will and you rip it up,
you toss it in the fire however you want to
do it, however dramatic. You want to be really right,
and so to validate the will, to make sure that
it is actually legal in your state, you're going to
need to get it signed by two witnesses. That's super easy.
(22:24):
They just have to be over the age of eighteen
and not involved in receiving assets from your will. So
if you do, design to use free will dot Com
and will link to them in the show notes as
your source for creating your free will, which we would
highly recommend. It's a really great service. They make it
super easy. It literally takes less than five minutes to
(22:45):
create your will, and then they give you all the
steps in order to make sure that your will is
totally valid, and they tell you how to make sure
that you tell the proper people like your executor, which
I told you on this episode. You can't say you
didn't know. Everyone knows you knew, and it just makes
sure that you have your proper ucks in a row.
Start the domino effect of making sure that your assets
go to the proper place in the event of your death. So,
(23:07):
speaking of assets, would you would you will me like
the craft beers that you've got in your seller, I'll
give you my craft beer seller, because who else would
I give it to. I don't know. I feel like
there's somebody else. You might be like, hey, you want
these beers? No way, man, of course, it's got to
be my craft beer podcast. Buddy, Yeah, homie, No, wait, man,
you know I gotta leave it to my podcast. And Buddy, well,
that means a lot, man, I appreciate it all right. Man.
That leads us to our second free option, and that
(23:29):
comes from a website called meet fabric dot com. Specifically, uh,
meet fabric dot com forward slash wills. What I love
about this site is that it seems like they're kind
of geared more towards the ladies, uh specifically like mom bloggers.
Just kind of the way it's set up. I kind
of clicked around something and I saw that they sell
life insurance as well, and so you know, they're kind
(23:50):
of finding their niche in the market, but they're making
it really easy to use this very you know, non technical,
because that's what you think of, right when you think
of wills, you think of lawyers, and it's nis you
think of a very bureaucratic and sort of state run process.
And the way they had it set up on the
website was just very approachable, and I loved it. I
thought it was an awesome site. I love how both
(24:12):
of these sites are able to use different models to
sustain themselves and to offer a great product for free,
you know, Fabric essentially trying to hopefully get you to
my term life insurance at some point, and free will
dot com. The way that they're able to offer their
product for free is when you're finishing your will, they
offer you the option of donating a certain percentage of
(24:36):
your assets to nonprofit organizations, and those nonprofit organizations essentially
pay Free Will to be on their website, to be
in front of your face when you're choosing where you
want your money to go, you know, when you die,
and obviously you don't have to choose to donate your
money to any of them, but I just kind of
love that they both found a model for creating this
(24:57):
ability for you to create a will for free, because
in my mind, for me, the two biggest barriers to
entry to create a will before I did it for
the first time were money and time. I didn't want
to spend any money to create a will because when
you're in your thirties, you know, early thirties, you don't
think you're ever gonna die. And I still don't think
I'm going to, but I realized there's a chance. And
(25:19):
then you also just don't want to spend any money
on it, right you there's so many other places you
want your money to go. That's spending, you know, even
fifty six dollars on a will that you buy, you know,
on Amazon. It just feels like this barrier to entry
that you're not going to cross. And so these two
websites will link to them in the show notes. They
just make it an actual reality for most of us
that if we're you know, in our twenties or thirties,
(25:42):
we might actually do it because it's only gonna take
five minutes and it's not going to cost us a dime. Yeah, man,
that's good stuff. And so after you have that will
set up, you want to review it with life changes
and what that means is that if you have kids,
or you know you might get married or even divorced,
or if you have an increase in assets, do you
(26:03):
want to review the will because at those points in
time things have changed and at that point you might
want your money to go to someone else or to
instead go to this person or not this person, you know,
I don't know whatever it might be for for your
specific situation. Yeah, and if you have another child, you
want to make sure that that child is named in
your will exactly. Yeah, you want them included. Yeah, that
newborn goes to the people that you desire your kids
(26:25):
to go to. Or if you have a falling out
with someone that is named in your will as a
beneficiary and you want to change that, make sure you
want you're on top of that. I know, I just
thought of that. Like what if you you know, you
had like a nasty divorce and you forgot to take
that person out of your will and then you were
to die and then they get all your money, right,
or if you found a new podcasting partner and like
(26:46):
that would be so brutal, man, that would be bad.
And so obviously that's if something major happens in your life.
But even if nothing major does happen, that's something you
want to review annually. And so it's just sort of
good to think. Maybe a lot people do this at
the beginning of the year. They're looking ahead, setting goals.
You think, Okay, what's is there something I want to change?
Is there something that's maybe changed for me that I
(27:07):
didn't you know, naturally think of. It's a good time
to think of it fairly regularly of how might I
want to, you know, change my asset allocation of you know,
where my money would go after the fact. Yeah, And
the great thing is you can always create a new
one for free in a very short amount of time,
and you can destroy your old will super quickly. Uh.
(27:29):
The thing is, like we said, the barrier to entry
is incredibly small, very small amount of time that you
need to commit to creating this will and no money,
and then you just have to find two witnesses that
are over eighteen that will sign the will acknowledging that
these are your final wishes, right, and you're done. Is
it two witnesses for every state? Yeah? I think they do.
(27:50):
At least free will dot Com offers you the ability
to to add a third witness, you know, just in
case something would have happen to one of your other witnesses.
But it pretty much uch. In most dates, it's two witnesses.
And I think there's another misconception that you have to
have your will notarized, and that's just not true. You
have to have two witnesses in most dates and no notary. Yes,
(28:12):
you can have like two of your friends come over,
have a beer, they'll sign your will, and uh yeah,
it's pretty simple transaction. Yeah, super easy, super simple. I
love it. All right, Matt, let's get back to the beer.
It's from this awesome brewery that's just about an hour
outside of Atlanta called Cherry Street Brewing Company, and this
is a small batch, barrel aged stout called Sweet Leilanie.
And holy crap, dude, this was really good. Yeah, fantastic stout.
(28:36):
It'scott just amazing everything. Like I don't know how it
is to describe it, Like, as we're pouring it, it
just had that thick motor oil darkness to it. It
didn't pour super viscous and so it wasn't like overly sticky.
It had a good amount of uh what effervescence like bubbles,
so you're drinking it, and it feels pretty light in
your mouth, but it's just got all that flavor. It's
(28:57):
got like the roasted chocolate, it's got like the dark
lookiness that you want out of a stout. This is
a fantastic beer. And honestly, this kind of gets me
jazzed up for the fall, as like that we're about
to have some more colder, colder days ahead of us,
and having some nicer stouts like this gets me excited
for the winter. Yeah, seriously, I know you and I
are both kind of advocates of drinking beer in the season.
(29:19):
They're supposed to be drunk or at least like we
don't even care if other people do, I guess, but
you and I both like to do that. Yeah, and yeah,
a stout feels like inappropriate in July. It just feels weird, right,
and and so it's nice to be kind of getting
towards the season where a stout like this feels right
stout season. You know what we're not going to have
on the show, pumpkin spice beers. Don't get me started
(29:42):
on pumpkin beers. So many of the pumpkin beers, the
vast majority are just complete crap. It might be they're
pretty terrible. Yeah, I mean, I'm just thinking of like
pumpkin spice latte season because we're talking about drinking with
the seasons and all that kind of stuff. So yeah,
we don't adhere to that, like it's you know, the law,
but it is nice having an appropriate uh season will beer. Yeah,
and this uh sweet Leilannie from Cherry Street was an
(30:05):
appropriate seasonal beer. This was so freaking good man, I
really enjoyed it. So thanks for picking that up for me, man,
glad I could all right, jel, it's time for us
to do our final thoughts. But aren't wheels for old people, Maddie, No,
they're not. Basically, if you have money, you know, if
you have any assets to your name, or if you
(30:25):
have kids, or if you have a spouse, if you
can say yes to any of those three things, then
you need to have a will. Most folks don't have
a will because they feel they can put it off.
They can put it off to another day. This is
something that they don't have to address now. This is
something that you do need to get to now. Yeah,
and I completely understand that lazy approach, except for the
(30:47):
fact that it's super quick, painless, and free, so it's
not expensive and you don't need a lawyer in most cases.
That's right, man. For the vast majority of situations out there,
you can go with one of the free are just
really cheap options out there. We're talking about free will
dot com or meat fabric dot com. But if you
want to pay for the software, you know there's willmaker
(31:09):
as well. Will link to all three of those options
in our show notes. Yeah, I mean, Matt, Ultimately we're
all gonna die. Maybe that's in a zoo Lander style
free gasoline fight accident. Who knows, it could be you're
an airplane exactly exactly. It could be, you know, an
airplane spontaneously combusting. There are so many ways that you
(31:30):
could die, and you know, obviously it's a sad it's
a sad thing. We don't want to leave our family
and friends behind, but especially you don't want to leave
them behind not taking care of And that's why it's
important to create a will, especially when it's this easy.
It makes me think of the analogy said earlier about
like the e bikes versus regular bikes. You know, like
if you've got a regular bike and you're just probably
(31:51):
not going to ride it because you've got too many
hills between you and your work. Well, you know, an
e bike will get you moving, and you know getting
on that at all is better than not being on
a bike gets you out of the car. Yeah, exactly
gets you out of the car. And you know, some
of these free wheels online may not be the best
or bulletproof solutions, but they are one hundred times better
(32:13):
than not having one at all, which is why we
recommend them. Yeah, something is better than nothing, and good
is better than perfect. That's never gonna happen, that never
gets delivered. That's right, all right, everyone, thanks for listening.
Our home on the web is how to money dot com.
We will have shown us up for this episode with
all the appropriate links. That's right. And if you like
(32:35):
what you hear and have found this episode helpful, please
let us know. You can give us a review on
Apple Podcasts. We would love to hear from you. While
you're there, be sure to subscribe until next time. Man,
best friends out, Best friends out? Mm hmmmmmm. Executed upon
(33:06):
your execution
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