Deeply personal lessons learned

It might seem like I haven't learned too much about trusts and estates in the past week. Which is probably true. But it's more because my head is ready to explode with all the little things I'm figuring out that still need to be learned and/or ironed out. Just when I think I have a handle on something, like... handling the claims forms for death benefits from the Teachers' Retirement System, I learn that there's a glitch. In this case it's a glitch that's come up before. Because my dad never filed a claim for Mom's benefit, because "we have time," it's become a much larger and involved process than it should be. I'm a sequential kind of gal. I need to do things in order. I like a list. I like to check things off on my list. And with the simultaneous settling of two estates, that just doesn't seem possible.

I'm trying to come to terms with the mess that my dad left me. Us. Me as executor and trustee. Me.  I'm learning about many of the mistakes he made in his estate planning... and praying that I don't make the same mistakes. This is very difficult for me to do. My dad was a rock for me most of my growing up years. But he was human, no infallible and many mistakes were made. Many of which I hope not to mistake when I start my own estate planning.

I started quaking in my boots last night, watching The State of the Union Address, as President Obama talked about changing tax rules for inheritance. If you have someone plan out a trust for you to maximize the benefits that your beneficiaries will get, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, make sure that you review the current tax laws each year to see what changes need to be made to your trusts. While you're alive, they are revocable - and easily amended. Keep things current. Huge lesson learned.

Another lesson that I learned during the months I spent in New York. It is so important to have a hobby to clear your mind. It's also really nice to have a hobby that you can do on your own, something solitary, that can be shared with other people. Just two months before I got that "fatal" phone call from my dad, telling me that my mom had a stroke, I signed up for a photo challenge. You can see the details at Fat Mum Slim. It's a personal challenge, not a competition. I've really noticed that my photos have improved a lot since signing up for the challenge. I now take at least one photo per day from a prompt. And because I need to think before I photograph, I've become more thoughtful. And I've noticed things around me that I would not have otherwise seen. It was something fun to share with my family as we sat vigil by my mother's bedside. It gave me an excuse to go for a walk while sitting by my father's hospital bed. And once my father was in the nursing home, it gave us a chance to share adventures together on the days he was up for it. When he wasn't up for going out, he'd give me ideas on what to photograph and then we might make the selection for what I'd share with the group together. Which is the second great thing about this hobby. I can take the photos on my own (solitary hobby) but I have not one but several places to share my hobby and to keep me connected with others. I post my daily picture each day to my Facebook wall, to the FMS PAD group on Facebook and with the hashtag #fmsphotoaday on Instagram. Photo a Day was a lifesaver while up in New York and now it's a great thing for me to turn to when I don't feel like dealing with the ickier side of life.

Now to clear my head and get back to my camera...

What's important?

My dad's original password book

In the old days, when someone died, you'd go through his or her paperwork and find much of what you need to know. In the digital age, that isn't the case.

I was reminded of this while reading the AARP newsletter today. They were discussing why it's important for parents to fill in their adult children on their finances, their record keeping, where things are located. It's also really important to know where they've written down all their passwords to bank websites, insurance company websites and the like since much of that kind of business, if your parents are anything like mine, is conducted online. The passwords give you a brief window (before institutions learn of deaths and certain accounts are frozen) into the financial records of your parents.

We were lucky in that not only did we have my dad's original "little red book" (as well as my mom's "little red book" (she was not as diligent in keeping her records up to date), but my brother had the opportunity to sit with my dad to create a new password book that was more easily decipherable than his original one. (Even luckier still, over the months that my dad was in the nursing home, my brother had the chance to sit down with our dad and get all his assets entered into Quicken. So once my father had passed away, we didn't have to go searching for things. It was all consolidated in one place. Not many people are that lucky.)

The lesson here is actually something to be learned going forward. You may think that you're going to remember all your passwords to every website you access for all times. Maybe you will. But maybe someday you won't be there and your adult child might need to access some of your accounts. The lesson I was reminded of today is that I really need to make more of an effort to write down all my passwords to all my accounts... and to keep these records up-to-date. At some point, someone might need them. 

Another lesson I'm reminded of in one way or another nearly every day is how blessed I was to be able to spend the final months of my dad's life with him. He was in a nursing home so I consider myself more of his advocate than his caregiver. But I was there nearly every day for the last five and a half months of his life. We got closer than we ever were, close as father/daughter, close as two adults. For that, I will be forever grateful.

More questions than answers

I've learned it's impossible to add photos to my blog from my iPad without using a Google app. I'm not interested so you will have to wait until tomorrow to see the great photos I had in store for today.

Last night, as I plugged my phone in to charge, lucky me. It was 11:37! I had no idea. Is this now a sign that my parents are looking out for me?






I spent a few hours today reading my estate book and taking notes. I ended up with more questions than lessons learned.

Of the few books I've borrowed from the library, this is the one I seem to like best
and would be most likely to recommend. So far...

However, I learned what per stirpes means. It means that each branch of a family is to receive an equal share of an estate. I've heard that term before. That's the situation we're in. My brother's bloodline (that consists of just my brother) and my bloodline which is me... and my three adult children. There's also something called per capita. Since it didn't apply to us, I didn't take notes. I think that means each beneficiary gets an equal amount. I'm not 100% sure so don't take my word about that.

I also learned that securities can be distributed in kind unequally with cash used to equalize the distributions. The important thing is having it all in writing. That was something I wondered about yesterday.

Today I went to the first funeral I've attended since my dad's funeral. Tomorrow is funeral #2. I want to know when 2015 starts to get better. When?

Help made this job go quicker

Thanks to my husband who helped me calculate date of death values - and alternate valuations this afternoon. I've (re)learned that he can be a really nice guy. Together, it took the two of us about four hours. For stocks, you need to calculate the value by averaging the high and low price for the date of death. You do this for the actual date of death and six months later. For mutual funds, there's nothing to calculate. You look for the sale price in historical data. We used yahoo finance to calculate our prices.

Because I'm doing this for both my parents (who shared most of their assets), it was double the work. Sort of. I had to calculate for the date of my mother's death, the date of my father's death and then my mother's alternate valuation. It's too soon to calculate my dad's alternate valuation because he hasn't been gone six months yet. That just means in another few weeks, I'll have to do it all over again.

Another thing I (re)learned today, and something I've already shared here, is that I can see what I've learned and haven't learned by trying to explain something to someone else. Today I tried to explain to my brother all that I thought I learned from an attorney I met with in New York in December. I took my notes from that day that I hadn't looked at since that day. And then I typed them up all up in an email to my brother. I was happily surprised at how few times I had to write "at least I think that's what he meant" or "I think that's what he said."

One thing that I learned from the attorney is what it means to settle an estate. How do I know if the estate is settled? He explained that the estate is settled when the assets are all collected, the estate taxes are paid and that we get a closing letter from both the IRS and from New York State saying that no more taxes are due. At that point, there needs to be a formal or informal accounting of what we have spent and what's left. The beneficiaries give me a receipt and release once I give them their assets. That releases me from further obligation.

The question came up when I met with the attorney about how to split stocks amongst 5 different people. He said that the cleanest way is to liquidate everything right before distribution. Then it can be easily divided. Leaving stocks to distribute "in kind" (as stocks) gets messy with fractional amounts of shares. I do wonder, though, about the tax consequences of liquidating everything before distribution. We will acquire the cost basis of the date of death valuation of Dad, but again, really need to look at the tax consequences of doing so as we get closer to this point. Right now, it seems like a long way off.

Something else I learned from this attorney is that because Dad never inherited Mom's IRA and it's gone into her estate, it's technically no longer an IRA and it's simply stocks (that will probably need to be liquidated) to distribute out of her estate. This will be the only asset to pass directly from Mom to her beneficiaries (my brother and I). So no inherited IRA from Mom. This is not exactly what I learned from the institution where Mom held her IRA (and that I shared with you earlier last month).

I already have the things I'd like to learn about tomorrow on my "to do" list. I had hoped to file the paperwork to get my dad's death benefit from his union but I learned that can't do that without the paperwork that says that I'm the executor of the estate and that won't happen until the attorney I've hired for probate has done his thing.

Instead, I'll learn about setting up inherited IRAs from two different institutions. And I plan to learn about transferring stock from Computershare... and where it actually has to get transferred to. That, to me right now, is a big mystery.

And now back to reading my executor and trustee book! Lots more to learn.

Happy freaking New Year!

Main lesson that I learned while I was away: An iPad isn't a computer. I thought it would be easy enough to blog on the iPad. WRONG! I tried to blog on the iPad just going to the blogger website. Difficult. Then I tried downloading two different apps, neither one of which worked the way I hoped it would.

Okay, that means if I want to blog while I'm away, I need to do one of the following: I need to bring along my Mac Book with me, wherever I go, or I need to write some blogs before heading out of town and use the really cool "schedule" feature that blogger has to get my blogs posted on some sort of schedule. I wasn't happy sitting down to write tonight seeing that my last post was on December 18th. Once I have regular readers, I can't leave them in the lurch, hungering for more, the way I did this trip.

Yes, we spent time at 1137, where there is a computer. But I was so busy doing what I needed to do, who had time to sit down and blog? Not me.

While up there, I was reminded that I miss my parents so much less when I'm in their space than when I'm home in my own space. Tonight I literally had a pang of pain at the time when I normally would have picked up the phone to call my mom. Ouch. I wonder when that will go away for longer and longer stretches. Right now, I'm good for only a couple of days before it hits.

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Why is today's post called "Happy freaking New Year"? Well... 2015 is not off to a happy start. What did I learn today? I learned that even though you think you're doing everything right, things can turn out wrong.

I went to bed last night at 11:37pm hoping that would give me an edge on a good night's sleep. Wrong. I had trouble sleeping but had to get up early to make it to the doctor's office this morning to have a procedure done. I had wanted it done in mid-December, but there was an insurance mandate that said I couldn't have the procedure done until December 19th, the day I flew out of Florida at 6:25 in the morning. I had to wait until I was back home to have it done. Okay, annoying. I truly am trying to learn patience.

After my rotten night's sleep, while it was still basically dark and foggy outside, I woke up, got ready and headed to the doctor's appointment. The office opened half hour prior to my appointment and I really did wonder why there were no other patients there when I arrived. The receptionist greeted me, asked me if I had new insurance (I said no), and then asked for my insurance card so she could verify my coverage. I went back, got weighed, had my vitals taken and was escorted to the procedure room. They even measured out the lidocaine they were going to give me. A few minutes later, the door opened. Rather than the doctor, it was one of the office staff, come to tell me that my insurance was inactive. Was I interested in doing the procedure as private pay? I was stunned. Our insurance was new, it was actually better than what we hoped to get - and now they were denying me? I needed to come home and check on the status of our plan with my husband who is the subscriber.

Long story short... the cost of our premium went up just over 50% from December 2014 to January 2015. Over 50%. And they call this AFFORDABLE? I don't think so. Worse still, this increase came with no warning. Since we would have had to shop and purchase a new plan for January 1, 2015 by December 15, 2014, wouldn't it have been nice to find out that our premium went up so much prior to December 15th? Oh yes, we did get a letter... today, when our held mail from December 19th on got delivered. On December 15th, we were still blissfully unaware that if we didn't do something (other than schedule the payment for our then current premium) we wouldn't have insurance today. Lesson learned.

The real bugger of all this is that there is no one to complain to. The insurance company doesn't care. Our agent, who does seem to care, had his hands tied. He said he's dealt with this a couple of times over the past few weeks. The only response he's gotten from the insurance company is that they've sent out multiple notifications advising subscribers of the rate increases. Really? The letter we got today was simply a bill for the higher amount. There was no explanation as to why our premium was going up over 50%. How can that even be legal?

Instead of working on get values for my parents' stock portfolios today, which had been the plan, I was trying to get myself health insurance again. As I was dealing with my parents' illnesses, I knew that the insurance they had was golden. Today was just a reinforcement of how great their insurance was, how lucky they were, and how the rest of us will suffer until the health care system in this country is improved. Happy freaking new year!