In this engaging episode, Michael Bailey delves into the intricacies of estate planning, drawing from real-life examples and personal anecdotes. Michael emphasizes the significance of planning ahead for life’s unpredictabilities, ensuring that family legacies are maintained and loved ones are cared for. Through engaging stories, listeners gain insights into how comprehensive estate planning can make a lasting impact.
Welcome to Mobile Estate Planning with your host, Michael Bailey. Over a decade ago, attorney Michael Bailey turned his attention to estate law after he recognized the unacceptable number of adults without proper end of life planning. Michael recognizes that many of his clients have difficulty finding the time for making a proper estate plan. That’s why he became the Mobile Estate Planner. He will go to wherever you are to assist you with your estate planning, including writing wills, trusts, and giving you the information you need to avoid probate. Now, ATX, Ask the Experts, presents Mobile Estate Planning with your host, Michael Bailey.
SPEAKER 02 :
All right, welcome to Mobile Estate Planning with Michael Bailey here on 560 KLZ AM. So we can do something besides just leave your family alone. You could also be listening on 100.7 FM or the KLZ 560 radio app. Phone number to talk to me on the air is 303-477-5600. And again, that’s 303-477-5600. And my direct line is 720-394-6887. And again, 720-394-6887. So if you’re going to try to call me on my direct line for the next half an hour, I’ll probably be talking on the air. uh and you know we’ll get it you know so we can um you know it’s just it’s hard for me to talk to somebody directly and on the air at the same time i mean you know perhaps i don’t know it’s possible that luke is that good that he could talk to multiple people at once both on the air and off the air and not have any confusion but i feel like sometimes having that um I feel like sometimes having that conversation goes a little bit like we have, like if we’re trying to, sometimes you’re talking to somebody on the phone and you can hear them, whether it’s a mother having a conversation with her kids or somebody having a side conversation with somebody else, all of those things can get in the way. And I’m trying not to have that happen here on the on the radio because we’re trying to have a normal conversation where we, or at least I’m trying to give people some good information about estate planning so that it works out. Now, sometimes when we’re talking about estate planning, or at least when I’m talking about estate planning, I try to keep it somewhat lighthearted. I try to keep it, we’re talking about weighty and difficult topics of death and dying. And sometimes I have missteps and sometimes I have things that I’ll talk about that will unnecessarily trigger people or upset people. And I really try not to do that. But sometimes it just kind of happens. And so we are talking about death and dying. It’s a serious topic. It’s a difficult topic. It’s not one that everybody’s going to be super enthused to talk about. But it is an important one. And, you know, I do try to be sensitive to that, but sometimes it just doesn’t quite work the way that I’d hoped. And so, like, I’ve had somebody, I’ve had people that I talk to who, you know, they will tell me, oh, well, you know, you have a, you haven’t, you know, you’re not listening to me or whatever. you know, what you’re saying is not appropriate or, you know, things like that. And I try not to do that. It just kind of happens sometimes. I think it’s the nature of death and dying and, you know, the concepts that go along with it. You know, sometimes when I’m telling a story or something, I try to leave out details so that it’s not immediately identifiable. of who I’m talking about. But I also, you know, we do think about, you know, sometimes I talk about my guiding business philosophy coming from the great philosopher Bugs Bunny, who teaches us the eternal truth, you can’t take life too seriously, you’ll never get out of it alive. Now, when somebody dies, I try to be sensitive about that. When I have a client who dies and a family will call me, I will usually not try to laugh and joke about things. I usually say things along the lines of, oh, I’m very sorry for your loss. Is there anything I can do to help? Those type of things. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. I will admit that I don’t always know the right thing to say. I’m just not that talented. But when it comes to planning for your estate plan, where we’re planning for death and things in the future, I don’t know that we’re necessarily going to exist. We can be all sad and depressed about it, or we can have a little bit of fun with it. And so I try to have a little bit of fun with it. You know, we’re not talking, hopefully we’re not talking about something that’s immediate. Hopefully we’re not talking about something that’s, you know, going to happen soon. But we can, you know, so we can laugh and joke a little bit. And, you know, sometimes I get people like, oh, you know, we’re like, okay, we’re trying to figure out what happens. And then one spouse or another be like, oh, but what about this? And what about this concern? And usually one spouse is like, oh, well, we’ll be dead. What do we care anyway? I’m like, well… that is one way to look at it that you know if you’re dead you don’t care but also if you’re dead you probably do care and i had some people this morning i was meeting with and they were wondering about how they could you know they want to give it to their siblings because they don’t have any children and so we was like they asked me how to do that i said i explained how they could i said okay so what happens if one of your siblings dies do you want to go back to the other siblings or to their kids who would be your nieces and nephews. And, you know, we got a couple of, you know, I got a furrowed brow and some questions from somebody asking about how we can, you know, because apparently one or two of their nieces or nephews they’re not on the greatest of terms with. And so they had a conversation about how even though they may not be on the greatest of terms with, it needs to go somewhere and it might as well keep it in the family. And so we talked about that. And we laughed a little bit about the… The concept of having a family who are just, you know, sometimes I have clients who are like, oh, well, you know, I just don’t know who to leave it to. I’m like, well, there’s a Caitlin Bailey and Allison Bailey and a Carter Bailey who are my kids. You could leave it to them if you can’t figure anybody else out. And they look at me and I’m like, that’s what we call a bad idea. I’m not actually suggesting that we should do that. But I’m like, if you really don’t have anybody else that you want to leave it to, please feel free to enrich my children. Don’t give it to me. I don’t want it. I don’t need it. But my kids would be more than happy to have an extra added windfall from somebody that they don’t know. And I do try to immediately identify that suggestion as a bad idea and that I’m not serious and I’m not trying to. get extra money from people just so it’s very clear. But it kind of helps them understand, okay, yeah, we just need to find somebody. Some people, I hear like Warren Buffett doesn’t want to leave a whole bunch of his money to his kids. He wants them to earn their own, so he’s planning to donate it to charity and causes that he believes in. I’m like, okay, yeah, we can totally do that. And so just in setting up an estate plan, we’re thinking about, okay, what happens to our stuff when we die? And Who are we going to leave it to? Do we want to leave it to our children? Do we even have children? Do we want to leave it to our children or our children? I have plenty of people who I talk to who they’re like, well, you know, we want to leave our stuff, but our kids are, you know, they’ve gone off to do these really cool things and they have much more money than we do. So we’re not sure that they necessarily need it. So we want to leave it to our grandkids. And I’m like, hey, that sounds like a great idea. If grandpa and grandma happen to pass away and there’s some money there that’s available to help pay for college or pay for wedding expenses or pay for a new house or something along those lines, that’s great. That is awesome. That is a really cool, wonderful thing that you can do for your grandchildren that the parents, although they are doing well financially, may or may not find to be quite as interesting and cool and necessary. so yeah i mean it’s it’s just kind of figuring out what do you want to do and how do you want to help people so you are listening to mobile estate planning here on 560 klz am also heard on 100.7 fm listening to michael bay or mobile estate planning with michael bailey Or this is Michael Bailey talking to you about mobile estate planning, whichever direction it goes. I don’t know. Phone number to talk to me on the air is 303-477-5600. And again, that’s 303-477-5600. And my direct line is 720-394-6887. And once again, 720-394-6887. Also, we’ve only got 20 minutes until people can try to call me on the direct line. But in the meantime, we can keep talking. So, you know, helping out your grandkids is a wonderful thing if that’s something you want to do. Now, you know, if you’re in a spot like, by the time, so my grandparents, my mom’s parents have both passed away, as have both of my dad’s parents. But my mom’s mom, so my mom, my maternal grandmother, was the last to pass away. And she lived for, I don’t know, let’s say seven or eight years past when her husband died. So my maternal grandfather. And they lived off a pension and Social Security. They were wonderful, amazing people. They were not necessarily rich people. And so by the time, you know, my grandmother had, you know, plenty of health problems towards the end of her life and had lots of medical expenses. So by the time she died, There really wasn’t a whole lot of money left. And, you know, that’s perfectly reasonable. That’s how it goes. But I do remember my dad’s grandma, when she died, she left something like seven or eight thousand. I want to say I may be completely off on my numbers. to my parents and the money happened to come in just around the time where my parents car had died so it was like the perfect timing there of a person of a grandparent dying and passing some money on now obviously my dad would rather have had his grandma than the money and we’re not trying to profit off somebody’s death and say, oh, ha ha, look how terrible this is. I mean, I may be an attorney and I may have no emotions whatsoever and I may be cold and unfeeling, but that’s not what I’m trying to do. I’m not trying to be a cruel and heartless jerk. I’m just, if there’s money out there and available and being passed on to relatives and loved ones, so if my parents have anything left when they die, I probably won’t turn the money down. I’m not gonna count on it, and I would prefer that my parents use their money for themselves. If there’s something left over, great. If there’s not, okay too. But as you’re trying to, sometimes you wanna think about whose life is it that we’re trying to help and trying to improve by what we’re doing. I had a client several years ago that by the time she died, I think she had something like 50 or $60,000 left, and she split it between three kids. And the three kids, they had very different needs at the time and spent it in very different ways. One had suffered a job loss and so was going through loss of a job and the person had, and they were on the verge of losing their house and the $20,000 that they got allowed them to get caught up on the mortgage and stay in their house. Well, that’s a pretty darn awesome thing. That’s amazing. One of the others had just gone through an unpleasant divorce and had legal bills and the 20,000 covered most of the legal bills. So suddenly they were in a decent spot where they could kind of close that chapter of their life and move on. So they were pretty excited too. And the other child had been able to have a more stable marriage situation and a more stable housing situation. They actually had been able, they were old enough, they were able to pay off their house. And so they took the $20,000. So they went on a trip to some sort of tropical island, I believe, where their mom had always wanted to go, but never quite made it. So they went in honor of her. And I don’t know for sure if they brought the ashes and spread her ashes there or not. or if they didn’t do that. That seemed like a question that would be in poor taste to ask of them. This was one of my clients where we happened to go to this client’s funeral because she had kind of adopted me as her, she decided that I was her son that she’d never had. And And then it’s been probably a little over 13 years ago that she passed away. Because I remember I had my youngest child, and she got mad at me that I didn’t bring her her new grandbaby to meet. And I’m like, well… So we haven’t gotten out to see a whole lot of people, and I know that we have a great relationship, but you’re not actually my grandma, and I’m not trying to avoid you. You live closer to my in-laws and my parents, so when I am in this area of the state, I go visit them, and it’s not that I’m avoiding you, it’s just I haven’t had a chance. But we did get there, and she got to meet him, so she was pretty happy about that. But, you know, that was like a perfect example of how even though $20,000, you know, it’s not $20 million, it’s not $20 billion, it’s not going to be complete life-changing, life-altering, you never have to work type of money. It’s enough that the people who received the assets were very happy with what happened and that it helped them in their lives. Now, some people, you know, there’s more money. You know, I have some friends who are, you know, much more wealthy than $60,000 of net worth. You know, they’ve paid off a house and the house that they, you know, like, I mean, you know, people who are my parents’ age who bought their house for like $100,000 and now it’s worth $100,000. $400,000 or $500,000. You’re like, well, you know, all you managed to do is keep the house up. You maintained it. You didn’t destroy it. You didn’t burn it down. You didn’t fail to fix the roof after a hailstorm, but rather you had the roof replaced when there was a hailstorm so you didn’t get water damage in your house. You know, you did the normal things. things that a responsible homeowner would do. But those normal homeowner responsible things are what has preserved the value of that house. And that’s cool. Good for you. I mean, I had a client once in kind of the Capitol Hill area, and they had paid $40,000 for their house. And now, you know, if you went to listed, it probably lists for like $950,000. Well, that’s a pretty good increase of about $900,000 in value of a house. But that $900,000 of value in a house, she was trying to work with a financial planner and a reverse mortgage person to figure out how she could use that $900,000 of value in the house to pay for life later in this woman’s life. because she didn’t have a whole lot of cash assets. She didn’t have a whole lot of money just lying around. She wasn’t quite Scrooge McDuck where she was going to go swimming in a tower of gold coins, if you remember Scrooge McDuck. And that was a frequent scene in the TV cartoon series DuckTales, that he would be swimming around And I’m like, yeah, that’s great for a cartoon. But if you dive into a pile of gold coins, I don’t think you’d actually swim. Gold coins tend not to spread out as much as water molecules do. It’s just one of those things. and so as we so we’ve got those those things and we’ve got uh yeah so you know the woman who had nine hundred fifty thousand dollars worth of value in a house you know she and her husband had taken very good care of the house i mean i always like walking into kind of older houses like that when i go visit clients i’m like oh there’s some really cool history here you know there’s i’ve met people who have They’ve got all sorts of Broncos or Rockies or Avalanche memorabilia on the walls, and they’re just big, huge fans. I’ve met people who have model cars that they’ve built or model airplanes they’ve built. You find people who have hunting trophies. you know, it’s like, it’s almost like a window into what their life was like. You know, I had one, I walked in and as I walked down the hallway to the kitchen where we were going to sit and talk, the entire walls were lined with pictures of their kids from being babies all the way up to graduating from high school and college. And then, you know, and then there were grandkids. And so you know, just like hundreds of pictures. And I’m like, this is like a whole, you know, vision of what their life was like from 40 years ago until now. I’m like, this is really cool. I get to meet these people and do all these really cool things. And yeah, we’re going to plan for what happens to your stuff after you die. But you know, it’s just really neat to see people and see what’s important to them. And, you know, and understand, you know, like, I mean, it gives me a better understanding of this is why we’re doing the estate planning is for these people to benefit them. Because at some point, all of us aren’t going to make it out of this life alive. Thank you, bugs again. And here we are. So you are listening to mobile estate planning with Michael Bailey here on KLZ 560 AM also heard on 100.7 FM, or the KLZ 560 radio app. phone number to talk to me on the air is 303-477-5600. And again, that’s 303-477-5600. And my direct line is 720-394-6887. And Only 10 minutes for those who want to call on the direct line, so we’re getting the countdown. It’s going well, apparently. I don’t really want to think about my own death all that often. I’m not a big fan of thinking about my own death a lot. I mean, I’ve told the story before of being hit by a light rail train and spending time in a coma. And so I probably have a slightly more cavalier attitude about death and dying than most people because I feel like I’ve done it once and it didn’t stick for me. The next time that I die, it’ll probably stick. I’m not counting on cheating death again. I just don’t think that’s how life works. But I don’t… I mean, even though this is what I do professionally, I don’t like to dwell on death and dying. Now, from a religious perspective… We talk about life after death and the afterlife and going back to meet our creator and things like that. I seem to think that will be a joyous reunion. Those who are left behind will be sad. And when I’ve lost… grandpas and grandmas. It’s sad that I won’t ever see them again here and be able to go visit them and do all the fun things that I did with grandpa and grandma growing up. But I’ve also kind of grown up, so going and visiting grandpa and grandma wasn’t really something that I’ve done most of my adult life. We’ve We visited who we could, but we go see like my parents or my in-laws, because that’s the grandparents of my children. You know, there’s much more fun. And, you know, my, my in-laws, they’re always, they’ve always been really good about, um, having all sorts of fun things. I mean, I think it helps that my father-in-law owned a bunch of tire stores and he has always enjoyed kind of motor, motorized vehicles and tinkering with things, um, So because of that, my kids have grown up that they will ride grandpa and grandma’s four-wheelers, or they’ll go and ride on grandpa’s motorcycle with them. My mom has a best-with-scooters thing that she would take the kids out on, and they had a good old time with that. But, you know, my father-in-law was the tinkerer and the kind of do-all-the-mechanical-stuff one. My dad, he was an electrical engineer, so we would… work with sound equipment and stuff like that. And we’d go and DJ dances and stuff like that. And my kids always thought it was kind of fun to come to dances and DJ stuff. And, you know, I DJed a whole bunch of weddings over the course, I’ve kind of, I’m mostly retired now from that, but I DJed a whole bunch of weddings and You know, some of them that were close to where we lived. Sometimes my, you know, if they had extra cupcakes or extra wedding cakes that they were trying to give away, you know, my family would be like, hey, you want to drop by and get a cupcake? And, you know, they were always excited about that. It was kind of fun. And, you know, I didn’t feel too bad that I was having my family happy. they weren’t necessarily crashing a wedding so much as coming to, you know, when you have a wedding, you never want to run out of food. That just seems like a bad idea. You’re like, oh, hey, did everybody get enough to eat? No, well, that might not go well. So, and sometimes with wedding cake, you know, people will be like, oh, well, you know, there was a trend several years ago where you didn’t necessarily have a wedding cake, but you had all sorts of cupcakes that you built into, like, it looked like a wedding cake. And so if you had you know, 300 wedding cupcakes that were built into this cake, but you only had 200 guests show up, you’re like, then you’re the host who’s trying to be like, hey, everybody, take a cupcake or two on your way home. But, you know, after you’ve eaten, you know, all of the things that were at the wedding venue, it might not have been your, you know, most important thing to you to take another cupcake home. I mean, I view it a little bit like, uh, on Halloween when you’re giving out candy and you’re like, Hey, you put, you’re like, Hey, just take one. And, you know, every parent’s like, Hey, just take one. But then you get to like seven 30 or eight and, you know, it’s kind of slowing down. And so you get a kid come by and the parents are like, Oh, just take one. And you kind of put a handful of candy into their bag. You’re like, I don’t want it. Cause I’m just going to have to eat it. So I’ll get it to you. Um, Or maybe nobody else does that. Maybe everybody else buys candy in proper quantities and plans better than I do. I don’t know. But I’m always kind of like, I’m trying to give away the candy at the end. Because sometimes you get parents who come in there and they’re sitting there talking to each other. So I’m like, no, let’s give some more to this kid. Hey, this kid wins the jackpot at this house. Um, because we don’t want to have, you know, I don’t want to have the extra candy leftover because I like candy and I’ll probably eat it. And then that’s not good for my extra calorie intake that I have to run off and things like that. You know, I, I maintain that you grow vertically until you stop, and then you start to grow horizontally. And, you know, if you’re lucky, then you can stop horizontally where you’re not too horizontal. And then, you know, with any luck, you can shrink a little bit down that horizontalness if you exercise and eat right and all those type of things. not the world war II battle of the bulge. It’s the 2025 battle of the bulge where we try to go running in the weightlifting and exercising and doing all those things so that I don’t end up on my 900 pound life as a, you know, a subject of a documentary. You know, I’m, I mean, I, and I know people who find those type of documentaries in port port or those type of shows in poor taste or they’re like, Oh, they’re just mocking this person. I’m like, no, they’re, they’re really, They’re not trying to mock the person. They’re just, you know, this person has ended up with whatever has gone on with their body and their metabolism. So they’re now a 600 or 700 pound person. And it’s how do you navigate the world as a 600 or 700 pound person where it’s not necessarily set up for that? I mean, I lived for a couple of years in Russia and everything was built to standard. Standard was five foot for a five foot nine person because that’s how tall Stalin was. So everything got built. So, you know, if you’re under it, great. If you’re over it, eh. But I remember sleeping like diagonally on beds because they weren’t quite big enough for me as a six foot four person. But there’s no such thing as standard in estate planning. There are the standards where we have to work within the standards of estate planning. But nobody’s life is standard. Nobody’s estate plan is standard. And nobody’s death is standard. It’s all customized to what do they want to have happen. How can they help the lives of others even if they’re gone? And how can we make what you want to have happen happen so that you can leave a legacy for your family and leave a legacy of what you’ve done and what you’ve built and what you’ve passed on? So thanks so much for listening to Mobile Estate Planning with Michael Bailey here on 560 KLZ AM. I am out of time. The music tells me that. But John Rush and Rush to Reason up next. So stay tuned and I’ll be back next week. Thanks and bye.
SPEAKER 01 :
Mobile Estate Planning with Michael Bailey will return to ATX next Wednesday at 2.30 here on KLZ 560, AM 560, FM 100.7, and online at klzradio.com.
