In last week's podcast, I went over trust and wills.

What are the differences?

What states likely don't need a trust? What states do need trust? And even if you live in a state that likely does not need a trust, when are the situations where you might go, yeah, I still think I should need it because I have a child with special needs, or I have a divorce, or I want to get these things set up. Now, at the end of last week's episode, I mentioned that I do have a resource to help you if you want to get these things set up. You can check that out in the description of this episode. Today is going to be more of a mailback episode. I don't know if that's the appropriate phrase, but when I was thinking about it, it seemed like the best one. And that means I'm going to just go over a bunch of different things real quick, short and sweet for you. So things like power of attorney or medical directives or trust or wills or beneficiary designations or PODs or if you're like, I have no idea what you just said, I'm going to go over all of that. Hopefully in 10 minutes you're like, okay, I think I've got a handle on this.

Now, when it comes to estates, there's a lot to this. So of course, you know, I do recommend

if you actually are going to execute a charitable remainder trust or a donor advice fund or some

fancy estate tool, you want to make sure you're working with an advisor because you can save

mega taxes and you want to make sure you're working with an advisor because you can save mega taxes and you

want to make sure you're doing it properly. So of course, consult with a CPA, financial

professional, a state attorney, you name it to make sure that everything's happening the way it

should. Now, real quick, because I get this question all the time, Will versus trust. I like to think I have good examples to simplify

things for my clients. And the way I explain these, as always, are will is that's going to be

essentially handled after death. Trust is during and after death. It's more complicated than that.

But to keep it simple, a will is basically just

deciding how assets move after you pass away. A trust, on the other hand, is managed while

you're alive, avoids probate. I call that avoiding hassle, because sometimes probate can feel

like the DMV. If you've been to the DMV many times, you know what I'm talking about.

And you also, of course, use this to distribute assets after death. Certain states, you just don't

need a trust. A will might be totally sufficient because you have a super simple estate plan.

You live in a state where it's just likely not necessary. So yes, you could still go get a trust, but it might just create unnecessary hassle. So I want to make sure if you haven't checked out last week's episode, feel free to check that out after this. Let's start getting into it. So I'm going to go through a few different examples. I hope this resonates with you. If you don't know already, my name is Ari Taalbb. I'm a certified financial planner, host of this podcast, the early retirement podcast,

and I'm the chief growth officer at Root, helping as many people as possible retire early with confidence.

So one, a reminder that there are state-specific laws.

Each state has its own laws regarding probate, regarding estate or inheritance taxes.

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