In this insightful episode of Mobile Estate Planning, host Michael Bailey shares the importance of proactive estate planning and teaches valuable lessons on time management to his children. Amidst tales of his family’s spring break adventures, Michael emphasizes the significance of preparing for the future and preventing last-minute crises. Through real-life examples, he demonstrates how thoughtful planning can lead to peace of mind and a secure future for loved ones.
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 :
Good afternoon. Welcome to Mobile Estate Planning with Michael Bailey here on KLZ 560 AM, also heard on 100.7 FM or the KLZ 560 radio app. So we can do something besides just leave your family alone. 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. Once again, 720-394-6887. So, it is Wednesday. It’s halfway through spring break for my kids, so they are not in school, which is wonderful and cool and all those type of things, except for, of course, they have homework, because why in the world would you have a spring break where you actually have a break from school? Their teachers are like, oh, no. Daughters, AP teachers, oh, well, you know, but we’re so far behind. We need to do this. And I’m like, I get that you’re so far behind, but whose fault is that? Is that the fault of the schedule makers or the kids who are just at the, you know, they’re learning or… Is it maybe because you’re trying to fit too much into a class period of time? I don’t know. It’s not like we’ve had a whole lot of snow days this year to put people behind. But it’s one of those silly things that… So my son, I haven’t been… So my wife and daughter, they left. They went out of town this week. And so… So we’ve got, you know, it’s only I and my son that are home. And so I and my son are home and I’ve encouraged him the last couple of days. So one day he did his math homework and one day he did his math. social studies homework. And he still has a book that he needs to be reading. And I encouraged him to read some of it today. I don’t know how much he’s done. I haven’t tried to check in on him because it is still spring break. But my wife and daughter were supposed to be home an hour ago but their their flight got canceled so they got rebooked on another flight that’s going to leave in a couple hours and you know all that kind of stuff and all those crazy things and then they get to have a layover in las vegas for an hour so they’ll be in a las vegas airport for an hour which as everybody knows is the most exciting part of las vegas is the airport you know there’s you know there it’s very much like other airports there are places to sit at gates and there are airplanes that come and go and there’s People with bags walking through who are not always at their best. But spring break, so we’re trying to get some things done, but not push it too hard because it is, in fact, spring break. And I don’t want to be like, oh, hey, no, you need to do your homework. You need to do this. I’m like, yeah, but… My 13-year-old, we’re trying to teach him how to plan ahead so that you’re not doing things last minute. The last book that he read, he kind of had the deadline for when he needed to finish reading it, sneak up on him. As in, he was reading 80 to 100 pages a night for a couple of nights and trying to get all of his… annotations and all the other stuff done that needed to be done. And we’re kind of like, well, maybe let’s plan ahead a little bit next time so that we, I mean, and, you know, reading a book isn’t exactly the worst or most terrible thing to be doing. You know, he’s home with the dogs, you know, he’s gone to the gym, you know, pretty much every day since we’ve been, you know, this week. So, you know, it’s not like he’s just, you know, doing nothing. But I’m like, it’s reading a book, and it’s not like it’s a terribly boring academic book on estate planning, for instance. He’s supposed to read the book Ender’s Game. The last book that he read was Project Hail Mary. Now, for everybody who has watched TV in the last… You know, week or two, you know full well that Project Hail Mary has turned into a movie and is coming out. It came out last week, I think, like last Friday. So, you know, there’s a whole set of things to do there. And, you know, but we’re trying to teach him. to prepare and to do things ahead of time and to Not put things off to the last minute because when you put things off to the last minute then the things you want to do You can’t because you’ve got to do things last minute. So I mean he’s he recently made a a travel or sorry, a competitive basketball team. So not this weekend because this weekend is volleyball tournament time, but next weekend, which is also volleyball tournament time, but it’s also basketball tournament time. He’s going to have a basketball tournament that he needs to be playing on Saturday and possibly Sunday, depending on how they do and how much they win. So with those things, it’s just not going to work particularly well for him to be like, oh, on Saturday, be like, oh, you know, I need to read 150 pages of my book. I’m like, well, you kind of need to be at the basketball tournament that you committed to. Oh, but I need, you know, so, you know, or if we were talking about wanting to go see the movie of Project Hail Mary, I’m like, well… We’ll be happy to go see it, but if you’re needing to read your other book, that’s going to be much more problematic to be able to do that. And so we’re trying to teach him to plan ahead and kind of plan things out and space them out so that there’s not a crisis at the last minute because having a crisis at the last minute is not what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to avoid a crisis at the last minute. And, you know, it’s a, it’s a lesson that we got to teach our 19 year old, who’s now off in college and has pretty good study, study skills and has pretty good, you know, concept of how to space things out and not need to try to do everything all at once, but, you know, work her way through methodically. Our 17 year old who balances AP classes with teachers who are so far behind, um, And she and my wife are currently in California right now. They went out on a volleyball recruiting trip. There’s a school there in California that is interested in her coming to play volleyball for them. So as a dad who is looking at paying for college… I’m more than happy if there’s some scholarship money there that can help alleviate that expense and make it not too bad. And then my 13-year-old, he’s only in eighth grade, so we’re trying to teach him some good study habits. And these study habits become life habits where you don’t always want to put things off and not do them. I mean, We all procrastinate. Let’s not kid ourselves. But I can only put off doing laundry for so long before I actually need to do the laundry and so that I have clean clothes to wear. I mean, I could wear dirty clothes, and I’m sure that Luke would love the fact that if I was wearing dirty clothes that there’s a door and a window between us so that there was not the visible and noticeable effects of wearing just dirty clothes. But, you know, you got to do laundry from time to time. You know, I also have to pay my mortgage each month. Otherwise, the bank comes and they want to take the house back or, you know, any number of things that go on there. Or, you know, I don’t, you know, I don’t know that it’s my favorite activity to be like, I need to clean the dishes. But you know what I do? I still put the, I rinse the dishes and put them in the dishwasher and run the dishwasher. You know, I need to clean the house and, you know, vacuum and, you know, all of those things need to be done. So you go through and do them even though they need to be done. And so we’re starting very early with our children of, Hey, you got to do what needs to be done. You need to plan ahead so that it doesn’t all sneak up on you. So that suddenly you’re walking through the house. You’re like, why is, you know, why are clouds of dust puffing up from the carpet? Oh, right. I probably should have vacuumed it sometime in the last six to 12 months. So, life skills that we’re using, life skills that we’re trying to do, life skills we’re trying to teach our kids so that they know how to plan ahead and how to budget their time properly. 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. Once again, 720-394-6887. So I had the opportunity to see these life skills that we’re trying to teach our kids in action yesterday and today. Yesterday, I got home from work, and I keep track of the mileage that I drive and enter it on my spreadsheet where I keep track of mileage so that I can deduct it and all those type of things. you know, potential referral from 560 KLZ. And I was like, Oh, I’m so excited. Who is this wonderful listener who’s going to, you know, make want me to help them. And so I pulled up the email. And it was from a 560 KLZ listener. It’s from one that I’d helped a couple of years ago put together a will and financial power of attorney and medical power of attorney. And so you know, we did that in 2003. So it’s coming up on two and a half or three years that I’ve that I helped them. And this email talked about how one of the people that I’d helped, so it was a couple, and one of them has been diagnosed with early onset dementia or early onset Alzheimer’s. So they’re starting to have memory loss. And so there was questions about, oh, do we need to set up powers of attorney? And what do we do? And how can we get this done quickly? And so on and so forth. So I called them back today and I said, okay, so we already did your powers of attorney. We already set everything up. You are all set now because all you’re going to need to do is when it becomes more apparent that she isn’t understanding what’s going on or that she’s not quite ready. You know, following conversations. And so then that’s the time to go have her tested with the doctor and get a neurological test that shows that, you know, her neurological function has decreased enough that it’s probably time to. I not have her make her own decisions. So then you get medical documentation and the medical documentation combined with the financial and medical powers of attorney that you have will give the other spouse the ability to make decisions for her. And he’s like, oh, I’m so glad to hear we already did that. That’s so wonderful that you did that. I’m like, no, no, it’s so wonderful that you did that. You were very good. You planned ahead. You did this during a time when it wasn’t a time of crisis and it wasn’t a, oh, hey, we need to get this done now. Otherwise, all bets are off. You planned ahead. You took some time out of what otherwise was your busy day or your busy week or month or year or life. to come visit with me and get planned ahead. So now, two and a half or three years later, we had an unexpected diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer’s and early onset dementia. It’s no longer a, oh my gosh, what do we do? We need to get everything in place. Like, you know, a bunch of it’s already in place. You’re set. You’re good. Oh, well, that’s wonderful. Yes, yes, it is. And so we go, okay, well, that’s really cool. I’m glad that we have that all set up. I’m glad that we have it all figured out. And I’m glad that we can get it all taken care of for you. And that’s a super wonderful, super awesome thing. And the person that I was talking to said, oh, well, you just made my day so much better. You made my day so much easier. I so appreciate you calling. And I said, well, see, here’s the nice thing is that I don’t know that I made your day easier or better. You already did that for yourself. I just happened to have put together the legal documents that are now useful and helpful to you. And in this case, it’s someone who has suffering from memory loss and won’t be able to make their own decisions for forever. And hopefully, for everybody listening, that’s not your future, that you end up with memory loss. I think if we live long enough, we probably all will end up with memory loss. But probably when I was 18 or 19, I think I knew everything. And I remembered everything. And it was pretty awesome. Somewhere between 18 and 19, in the age I am now, I’ve gone to Russia and been a missionary and learned Russian that I somehow knew when I was 18 or 19, even though I didn’t. I went to school. I went to college and got a degree in economics and another in American studies and a minor in Russian. I went to law school and got a law degree. And now I’ve practiced law for coming up on 20 years and learned some things. So despite the fact that I believed that I knew everything and understood everything and remembered everything when I was 19, I did not. And so I’ve had to learn and grow along the way. And now I’m in a position where I can help people and give them the good news that they’ve helped themselves and that they are set for what they need. Or when somebody calls and says, oh, well, you know, my mom is on hospice and she’s only got a week or two to live. You know, what do we need to do? And I said, you already did all the things you need to do. You’ve already got your will in place. You’ve already got your trust in place. You’ve already got the description of what’s going to happen and what will become of your assets. That’s already happened. All set up because you planned ahead. And I said to my client today, I said, you know, I really love it when I get to tell people that they’re already all set. Because I’m like, you did it right. You did it the way that we’d hoped. And now you’re in a really good position so that I can tell you, hey, you’ve got everything you need set up. You’re good. And, you know, it was really nice to be able to do that for somebody today. It was a really cool thing. Like, awesome. That’s so neat. just because I could let them know that, in fact, they were set up the way they needed to be. And it was because they had taken the time to be proactive and figure something out. And, you know, I happened to be the one that was there to help them make their proactive journey happen. That was a very good thing and just made me happy today. I was like, cool, I can do that. I can… give you the good news that you’ve already done what you needed to do. And it’s not that I was like, oh, you know, he’s like, oh, you know, I’m so glad that you did this. I’m like, no, no, no, you did this. I’m just here to help and facilitate along the way. But you are the ones that made the good decisions. You’re the ones that set things up. You’re the ones that have planned ahead. And I really, really like that with people. I was talking to a different attorney who’s thinking about getting into estate planning yesterday, and we were talking about how it really is the planning part that we wanted to do, not the last-minute crisis thing. Because a lot of law is looking at what happened and how do we go and say, oh, well, this happened, this bad thing happened, so is there something that caused the bad thing? to happen that requires a remedy of some sort. You know, whether it’s, you know, there was a car accident or, you know, a building collapsed or, you know, somebody was, you know, lighting, you know, fireworks off and started a fire in the forest or something like that. You know, is there some, when bad things happen, sometimes lawyers in the law, we look at it, we go, okay, you know, what do we need to do here? Or maybe there was a criminal action where somebody robbed a store or somebody stole something from somebody else or somebody was beat up by a gang of roving thugs or something like that. So a lot of law sometimes is looking backwards and saying, okay, what happened and who can we go try to find to hold responsible for this? whether it’s in a civil thing of, oh, well, you know, somebody lit off a firecracker and started a fire that now has spread and consumed all of, say, Commerce City or something. And, oh, well, now we have lots of property damage. We need to hold the person who lit off the illegal firework accountable. or you’ve been arrested because you committed some sort of crime, all of those things, the law a lot of times looks backward and says, oh, well, here’s what happened. Let’s unravel that, figure out who’s at fault, and see if we can remedy that going forward. But my area of law is a lot more what’s going to happen in the future and what do we do about it. 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 once again, that’s 303-477-5600. And my direct line is 720-394-6887. Once again, 720-394-6887. So as we’re trying to figure all this out and we’re trying to see what we can do with all of this. We look at, okay, we know I don’t want anybody out there listening to get diagnosed with early Alzheimer’s or dementia or late Alzheimer’s dementia or Alzheimer’s or dementia at all. You know, if we live long enough, we’re going to end up with memory loss. It’s just how life goes, you know. Whether it’s I’m 47 now and I don’t remember everything that I learned, you know, as my daughter is taking AP chemistry and she will ask me AP chemistry questions and I’ll do my best to help her. But, you know, I took AP chemistry when I was her age. So it’s been 30 years, and although I’d like to say that I remember everything from every class I ever took, I don’t. So I try to be helpful, but I can’t be completely helpful to her at all times. But so as we’re remembering things and looking forward, we look forward and we say, okay. The fact of the matter is none of us are going to survive. In the words of the great philosopher Bugs Bunny, you can’t take life too seriously, you’ll never get out of it alive. There’s no other options and there’s no other way that life ends besides death. It’s just how it is. Is it sad? Definitely for those who are left behind. is it something to be feared lots of people fear it totally understand that is something to be anticipated yes is it something to be planned for yes and i think that when you anticipate it and plan for it the fear component can be a little bit lessened because you know what’s going to happen or at least what’s going to happen to your assets that you leave behind i mean if we wanted to have a whole conversation about what’s going to happen when you die and where do you go and all that type of things I think that would be for our sister station right across the hallway here, who is the Christian radio station, and they can talk about the theology of all of that. And I could certainly talk about the theology of all of that, but I don’t know that all the people listening would agree with the theology that we might have. And there’s just slightly different versions and ideas of the theology that are out there. I remember studying ancient Egypt and how when you died, you could go to the happy fields of food and be there. Apparently, you’d be well-rested and happy and have plenty to eat. Well, that’s cool. When my puppy dog died 60 and a half years ago, Everybody talks about the poem of the rainbow bridge and the story of the rainbow bridge and how when the dog dies, it will go and wait for you with the rainbow bridge. And then eventually when you pass on, you’ll have a joyous reunion between you and your dog. And I don’t know that that’s theologically based or… or if that’s just, you know, wishful thinking based, or if it’s just a nice sentiment that your dogs will, or your, since I’m a dog person, my dogs, if you have cats, your cats, or whatever pets you have, will be there to greet you and, you know. There’s a, you know, about a year after I lost my puppy dog, I was scrolling through something and there was a cartoon. And it was a guy who had arrived at the pearly gates and, you know, St. Peter’s there and says, oh, so you’re little Bobby. Rex here has been going on about how wonderful you are for the past 50 years. And there’s a little dog bouncing, you know, across the clouds to go. say hi to his owner from, you know, that had died, the dog had died 50 years prior to the owner. And I’m like, you know, that’s a nice way to think about it. You know, we won’t get too far into theology and what is or is not, you know, supported by different belief systems. Well, you know, what’s going to happen and, you know, what happens when you die? And, you know, we’ll leave that to the theologians and we’ll leave that, you know, I could have that theology discussion when I’m acting as a member of my church and a studier of theology. But for right now, when we’re talking about estate planning, we’re more like, okay, what’s going to happen to your stuff that you leave behind when you die? And so the stuff that you leave behind when you die, that’s where I play. And that’s where I take care of things or help you take care of things. Sometimes I have people who say, oh, well, what should I do? I’m like, well, you should decide who you want to leave it to. Yeah, but who should I leave it to? I’m like, Kalen Allison and Carter Bailey. Well, who’s that? Well, those are my kids. But I don’t want to leave it to your kids. Well, we’ve established who you don’t want to leave it to. Who do you want to leave it to? Because sometimes it kind of gets jumpstarts. People get some going and they’re like, oh, well, maybe to my kids. I’m like, yeah, that would probably be better. You can leave your own money to your own kids. That seems like a good thing. When we donate to different things, I’ll donate to different causes. I had a niece who had childhood cancer, so I’m much more inclined to donate to charities like St. Jude’s who help kids with childhood cancers and things like that. Just because my niece who survived childhood cancer is you know, near and dear to me. And I’m like, yep, that’s a good thing to do. So I don’t always spend all of my money on my own kids. There’s other worthy causes that are out there. And I donate plenty of time and effort to other people and other things. It’s just kind of how it goes. But with all of that, you know, who do you want to leave stuff to? Well, I figure that out from you, then we can put it in your estate plan. And then you get your estate plan signed and it’s all good to go. So then when the crisis hits, whether it’s someone with memory loss or there’s an injury or, you know, somebody is hurt and ends up in the hospital or, you know, you’re You’re driving and injured in a car accident or you’re up skiing and you try to, you know, you decide that you will become a human axe and try to chop down a tree. I’ve done that. It doesn’t work, just so you know. But, you know, something happens and suddenly there’s a crisis or, you know, somebody unexpectedly passes away or even expectedly passes away. And people are scrambling and, oh my gosh, what are we going to do? Well, if you’ve got all the documents in place and you’ve got your plan all set up, then we already know what you’re going to do. We already know what you need to do. And we can go ahead and just implement that plan. And you can go through and do all the things that you need to do. to get your estate planning your assets transferred on continue to take care of your family even though you’re gone and to leave them a legacy of what you’re like and what you were like and how much you cared about them and loved them so thank you so much for listening to mobile estate planning with michael bailey i am not going to be here next week so i will not be able to do a live show but in the meantime stay tuned for john rush and rush to reason and we will talk to you when i get back 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.
