In this poignant episode, Michael Bailey shares personal anecdotes from his family holidays, juxtaposing the joy of celebration with the responsibilities of estate planning. Discover valuable insights into how planning for the future can coalesce with the simple joys of family, gifting, and creating lasting memories.
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 560 KLZ. So we can do something besides just leave your family alone. You can also hear me 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 it’s a brand new year 2026 we’ve uh I think this is the first show I’ve done this year. I was out for Christmas Eve and a New Year’s Eve show. They seemed like good days to not be here talking live on the radio, mostly because Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve tend to be days that we go do things with our families. I mean, Christmas Eve… And we have our Christmas Eve tradition where we used to go up to the buffet at Ameristar in Blackhawk. And that kind of… So we’d go up and we’d have lunch there and then come back. And it was a nice thing to be able to go do and have fun as an extra added bonus. It got us out of the house so the kids were not in the house for too long on any one day. And so they could… survive and not kill each other, so to speak. And so then several years ago, Ameristar, they switched their policies. So you had to walk on the path through the casino to be able to get to the buffet. And they didn’t let our kids who were under 21 walk on that path. And so we stopped doing that. And, um, we ended up, we, we were like, well, you know, we kind of like our, um, Christmas Eve lunch tradition. So we started going to the Rodigio grill and we would have lunch there. And even my daughter who is a vegetarian is happy to go to Rodigio grill. She likes the grilled vegetables and there’s lots of other things she can eat. So it worked out nicely. And, uh, Oftentimes they’ll have a Christmas brunch where they’ll have some sort of like breakfast things. They’ll have, you know, pancakes and waffles and sausage. And, uh, several years in a row, they’ve had the, uh, a, a lime cake that they make. So it’s like a lime Bundt cake thing and it’s really good. And it’s very tasty this year. They did not have the brunch items. They just had, you know, normal lunch type of things and that’s fine. They actually had a very good chilled mango soup, which, you know, they called it a soup, but mostly it was drinkable and had mango in it. So, you know, Christmas Eve at Rodigio Grill eating mango and, you know, steak and ham and pineapple and all the things they have there. So it’s a pretty good Christmas tradition, Christmas Eve tradition. And then we went home and we wrapped some presents and we, you know, ended up watching a Christmas movie and then went to bed. And the negotiations with my children went very differently this year. And they have for the last couple of years. But, you know, it used to be, you know, young, super young children. They’re like, OK, so I know you’re going to be up at three or four or five in the morning, but you don’t get to come in and wake mom and dad up until six. This year, I was like, so when do we want to do presents? And my middle daughter, a 16-year-old, was like, I don’t know. Should we get up at like 8.30 or 9? Yeah, that’s fine. That’s cool. So my wife and I, since we’re used to waking up at a certain time of day, we just woke up that certain time of day. And so we got up and got ready and ended up taking a shower before we went down to do Christmas presents. But the kiddos, they’re no longer in the We have to get down there as early as possible and rip all the presents open and go from there. And so, you know, that was our Christmas day. And then, you know, had the rest of the family down on Christmas day. And since it was 70 degrees and super nice out, you know, it didn’t quite feel like Christmas or at least not a Colorado Christmas. You know, my in-laws who live in Arizona, they’re like, yeah, it’s like 70 degrees down here. Like, well, it is here, too. Um, but I suppose if, and you might, my dad used, my dad lived for a couple of years in Brazil and in the summer, Southern hemisphere, Christmas on December 25th is, you know, like the middle of summer. So it’s a little bit different there than it is here. But, um, So you’ve got different things there. And since it was so nice, we could open up the sliding glass door and people could be out on our back deck. And so it was like, there’s all sorts of room and everything was great. And then Christmas Eve, or sorry, New Year’s Eve, new year’s eve we did a little bit of um yeah i got caught up on some work and then you know new year’s eve we spent um just kind of being at home you clean the house a little bit you know all the things that you would you know we’re like hey we’re ready for the holiday i’m like yep we’ve got all of our So that that night we cooked like appetizers for dinner and then we watched a part of a football game. We watched a movie. We introduced my oldest daughter to Pretty Woman, which has always been one of my wife’s most favorite movies. And, you know, watching it as an adult, we’re like, yeah, this might not be quite the cool, super awesome classic that we watched. Remembered it being, you know, there’s just, this is not, it’s a little bit strange. You’re like, really? So they were together for like four days and now we’re supposed to believe that they’re going to be in love for the rest of their life and should give up all of everything. It’s just, you know, it’s not quite right. It sounds romantic. It sounds awesome. But there’s a little bit of the, hey, let’s have some reality check in here just because of how it was. And you think of movies in the 80s and, oh, there are the classics. I’m like, well, they were good, but I don’t know they’re going to be the greatest movies ever in the history of everything. But then we made it all the way up. And so once that was over, we had about half an hour or about 45 minutes till midnight. And so we watched the Avalanche highlights. We watched the Nuggets highlights. That was the other thing about Christmas Day is once everybody went home, we could watch the Broncos play. And then we could watch the Nuggets play and win the game that they did on Christmas Day. So, yeah, that was a fun time. But, you know, New Year’s Eve, we made it all the way up until midnight. We said, hey, happy New Year. Congratulations. Yay, it’s awesome. And then about 12.03 in the morning, we’re like, so should we go to bed because we’re tired? Yeah, we should do that. You know, we’re real party animals at my house. And by real party animals, I mean we have real dogs that are real animals. And they don’t, you know, their idea of the party was that we were sitting and watching a movie so they could come lay down on our laps and get pet food. And those and for our puppy dogs where they like to get pet, that’s kind of about the best thing they could hope for is for us to sit still for a while and not change rooms and things like that. You know, on Christmas Day when my whole family was down, my little dog was just in heaven. because she could go get pet by grandpa and grandma and aunts and uncles, and everybody could just pet her and scratch her and rub her tummy and all of those things that dogs love. So my dogs, they know what Christmas is. They remember Christmas. The first dog I ever had, she used to crawl underneath a Christmas tree and kind of like scratch her back on the – on the needles and you know so she’d pet herself and she thought that was pretty awesome and then christmas day when she got a toy of one of the presents then she would um and then there was another present that was a bone she remembered the next year and so she’d go sniffing around the presents And there were a couple of years there where that dog would, she’d actually take a present. The shot was hers and she’d take it out in the backyard and she’d kind of scratch it to unwrap it. And if it was her present, she’d be, she’d get her present early. If it wasn’t, then she would, she would leave the present out in the backyard and we’d have to go rescue it before it got snowed on or rained on or something so that it would get ruined. So, you know, our, that institutional dog knowledge has passed on to our current dogs and, and, You know, they don’t open the presents now, but they know there’s something for them. And I’ve taken to putting their presents in their stockings instead of underneath the tree, just so that they don’t have to open the presents. But it is pretty cute to have your puppy dogs being so excited about a present. So you are listening to Mobile Estate Planning here on KLZ 560 AM, also heard on 100.7 FM. Or you can hear me on 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 once again, that’s 720-394-6887. So when we go downstairs, the little dogs are, they’re just, you know, bouncing up and down and barking and so excited. And so we kind of have to open the dog presents first. So we give the dogs their bones so they can go chew on it. And then they’ll come back. They’re like, oh, hey, here, I think this might be for you dogs. And there’s a dog toy in there. And, you know, they get all excited about it. And as long as we do it in the correct order, they won’t scratch me too much or get too excited. They interrupt opening of presents. But it’s kind of fun to see the dogs where what they really want for Christmas and New Year’s is just for us to sit down, watch a movie or watch a football game or something, and be able to just be there and pet them. That’s the greatest thing in the world that they want. My oldest daughter was back from college. So really what she wanted to do was spend time with, you know, on Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Day with us. As far as I know, she is currently either at the zoo or on her way home from the zoo. And she has a flight at six o’clock tonight to go back to college. So the greatest thing that she wanted was just to see us for the couple weeks she was home from college. She had a semester where she had all new roommates, and then she took organic chemistry, which was, I think most people who take in organic chemistry know that it’s not anybody’s favorite class when they first start it. So she was ready for a break to be back, and she’s going back to school today. Apparently, she just got offered a job today as a chemistry TA for the 105 class, so like the intro to chemistry class at college. I’m like, well, that’s cool. That’s a good thing. And so she’s doing well. She’s doing great. But that was kind of the most important thing to her was that she could spend time with us. Yeah. 16-year-old daughter, she happened to get sick over the break, so she was happy to have several days of not having school and not having volleyball practice. She was sick enough that she basically slept for three straight days. She’d wake up and come back. eat something or get something to drink, and then she goes straight back to bed. Now, this is a kid who plays competitive volleyball and will be playing volleyball all day on Saturday and all day on Sunday this weekend because there’s a tournament and she’s playing three matches a day. But she’s not one that’s just going to sleep for forever, but she was pretty sick. So The main thing she wanted was for, you know, the ability to get better, which, you know, fortunately she had. And we were out Christmas shopping because we go out as a family and we’ll spend like an entire day at the mall. Just kind of we we just go Christmas shopping together because sometimes there’s not time to find it. And my kids have taken to calling it Bailey Family Fun Day because they get to go and have fun. So we were there and We found my 16 year old a coat, which is quite the accomplishment because she doesn’t particularly like coats. So we found her a coat. We found my 19 year old some shoes, which it took about roughly 2.3 billion pairs of shoes to go through until we found the one that was the perfect right combination of everything for her. My 13-year-old wanted shirts that had Nuggets logos on them, so that was a little bit easier to find. But my 16-year-old kept asking me, she’s like, what do you want for Christmas? Is there anything we can get you? I’m like, look, I’ve kind of reached the point of my life where I’m much more excited about what I can get for you and how I can help you feel better because the main thing that I want is for you guys to be happy and you guys to be taken care of. So we’re all going, you know, and my wife had several things that we’d, we kind of take everything or like anything that we purchased kind of from about December 1st on. We’re like, oh, so should we actually keep that or is that a Christmas present? And so there were a few things like that that we found for my wife that she got for Christmas. Um, so we were at Costco and they had their hex clad pans that were there and they were on sale and we’re like, Hey, well we can get those. And I was like, well, which ones should we get? I’m like, well, why don’t you let me handle that? So I got both boxes. So we got all the pans as opposed to just one of the boxes. because that seemed like a nice thing to do. And also my, so Christmas is the 25th. My anniversary is January 2nd and my wife’s birthday is today. So I have three different holidays. And when she was growing up, she always got, she always got her presents on like Christmas and there would be like four birthday. And so she’d get like the same present for the same thing. She always kind of, was annoyed by that. And so I have taken to it on Christmas Day. I’m like, hey, is there anything that you didn’t get that you wanted? And she’s like, well, you know, how about this or this? I’m like, okay, that’s a good thing. We’ve got an anniversary and a birthday coming up. So most of the time I have remembered everything and I’m just asking. But there’s been a couple of years where I’m like, oh, right, I was going to get that. Oops, let me see if I can order it to get here in the next week or so. But, you know, she’s also of the – mostly of the mindset that, you know, whatever is going to be good for our kids and whatever they want is really what we’re looking for out of Christmas and things like that. Because, I mean, we’ve got our house. We’ve got our stuff. We’re like, well, we have – you know, we’re old enough where we’re like, we kind of have what we need. I’m not to be like, oh, I never need anything else. But I’m like, well – What am I going to do? I don’t have the money to buy a vacation home in Hawaii or a vacation home in Florida. I just don’t have that. So likely, I’m fairly satisfied with what I’ve got in my own life. And so I’ve kind of reached the point in life where I just want to do what’s going to be best for the kids and what will make them happy. And I think that’s a fair spot to be. I think a lot of parents end up in that spot where they want to do what’s good and what’s right and what’s… And, you know, trying to keep their kids taken care of. And so, you know, I mean, not that I was… I mean, you know, I remember being a kid in high school or college and being super excited about, oh, what are the presents going to be? What am I going to get? And, you know, what am I going to have? And all that kind of stuff. And so… And it’s not like I’m saying, oh, we need to have everybody – it’s not like I’m saying, oh, well, I don’t need anything ever because I’m so ridiculously rich or I’m going to become a hermit and live off of the land and have nothing. But it is a wonderful thing to have that be the case and have that be what I – can and cannot do. And I just, you know, so that, I mean, that’s, that’s what we’re doing in life. That’s why I’m alive. And then I look at that and think, huh, well, you know, I’m trying, you know, I want what’s best for my kids and I want to do what is, you know, what I can do to help them. And of course then, you know, because this is mobile estate planning with Michael Bailey on 560 KLZ AM or 100.7 FM. And we’re talking about mobile estate planning. That’s what an estate plan is. It’s what are you going to do to take care of your kids? Now, if you want to talk to me, 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, that’s 720-394-6887. And so, you know, in what I’m what I’m doing with the with my with with estate plans for people is it’s kind of the final, hey, how can we take care of the kids? How can we make sure that. Things get where we want them to go. And how can we do the best that we can to ensure they’re taken care of? Because when I am gone, I want my kids to be okay. I want them to be taken care of. I don’t want to be like, oh, well, I’m dead and gone. Gee, I hope my kids are going to be okay. I’m like, well, if I’m dead and gone, I think that I’ve taught my kids how to take care of themselves. They’re teaching them how to be good, responsible adults and all that type of thing. But I don’t know. But if I manage to have any money left over at the end of my life, I would really like to have that money go to my children. I’d like them to be able to use it to either pay off debts or pay off their house or go on a fun vacation. Sometimes I have people who say that they have their kids and they’re like, oh, we really need them to go. They’re like, well, we’re going to earmark a certain amount of money so that these kids can go on a fun vacation to remember me when I’m gone. I’m like, okay, that’s cool. Sometimes they specify, hey, I want to go on a vacation on a cruise in the Bahamas. And I direct you to take my ashes on the cruise ship and, you know, kind of dump them off the side or dump them off the back of the cruise ship. And I’m like, well, I’m sure that if that’s what you want to have happen, you can. I’m not entirely sure that is 100% legal, but, you know, well, if that’s what you want. I mean, I had one client who he wanted his ashes to be spread in the Denver Botanic Gardens. well, spreading ashes in the Denver Botanic Gardens is not really allowed. So I’m like, well, you have to be a little bit like, you know, Andy Dufresne from the Shawshank Redemption, where you have a hole in your pocket. So you put the ashes and just kind of have them fall out of your leg into, you know, I’m like, well, if that’s what you want to do, you got to try not to get caught, you know, try not if you’re, If you’re doing things illegal, I have to. My official line is that that is illegal and you cannot do that and I must dissuade you from doing so. The other part of that is try not to get caught, you know, all that kind of stuff. And, you know, I mean, putting burial instructions, you can put those in a will or a trust, but usually it can be just a separate document that you write up that says, hey, here’s what you need to do with your – what you can do with your – um you know last remains and you know put your requests for funeral services and things like that so that’s all can be part of an estate plan but just like i mean i’ve heard of a few people who aren’t particularly keen on leaving a whole bunch of money to their kids so for instance like someone like warren buffett you know warren buffett has earned all of his money through you know investing and things like that i’ve heard that he doesn’t particularly want to leave everything to his kids So he’s going to donate a lot of it to charity. I’m sure he’ll leave some to his kids. But I think he’s one that he’s like, well, you know, I started off with nothing. I’ve earned my way to having, you know, billions of dollars. But I don’t think that leaving billions of dollars to my kids would leave them in a good spot. Like, I totally get that. I don’t have that problem. I don’t have billions of dollars to give away. So I’m not particularly sure that it would be super helpful to my kids to give them billions of dollars that I don’t have. The hundreds of dollars that I do have, I can pass along to them. And maybe by the time I die, it’ll be thousands or maybe tens of thousands or hopes and dreams of being hundreds of thousands of dollars. That’s if I manage to pay the house off. And then I die and the house doesn’t have any loan on it. Then it can be sold and split three ways between the kids. We’ll see. Certainly not doing this to become rich, just doing it to help people. So it’s the same thing as Christmas presents. I’m like, I don’t really want things for me. I want to make sure you’re okay, that you’re taken care of. And that good things will happen to you. And I want that to be… That’s kind of what I do right now with my kids. That’s why I try to help them learn and grow up to be good people and to be helpful people of service people. And that’s what I want to do even when I’m gone. Because when I’m gone… What’s left of me will be my kids and the legacy that they pass on to their kids and so on and so forth so they can remember that Grandpa Michael or Great-Grandpa Michael or Great-Great-Grandpa Michael was one who took care of his family and did everything he could for them. Long ago, when I was in college, I read the book Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville. As my professor said, often quoted, never read, except by American Studies students at BYU. So we read the whole thing. One of his observations was that wealth doesn’t tend to last for multiple generations in America the way that it did in Europe because… Wealth in Europe and aristocrats was they had land and they would rent the land out to the farmers or the people who were there. And so that’s kind of how the aristocracy kept their power was they had their land and then they could control rents and things like that. Well, the United States kind of came around after the feudal system and after that was how things developed. There’s not a lot of knights in America or not a lot of noble families in America the same way. that there was in Europe. So he was kind of drawing a distinction between Europe and America. But you think about wealth lasting, you know, long, you know, multiple generations here in the U.S. I mean, you think of someone like George Washington or Thomas Jefferson, you know, they were landholders, they lived in the South. But do you hear a lot about the Jefferson and Washington families now and how they continue to control all sorts of land in the South? Not so much. So the, you know, am I going to be, you know, I guess if I was someone like Bill Gates and had, you know, hundreds of billions of dollars that I could pass on, that probably must last more than a generation or two, but I’m not, you know, so as we’re, as we’re passing, because, you know, normal people like you and I, and most of the people listening who have comfortable lives, but aren’t rich by any stretch of the imagination, um, We don’t necessarily, we’re not going to, I mean, I’m not going to have something where I’m like, oh, well, you know, maybe I too will become a billionaire like, insert your billionaire person here, and then I can pass along massive amounts of wealth. Well, the chances are that’s not going to happen to me. I’ll have modest amounts of wealth that I can pass on to my kids so that they can also be comfortable and hopefully also have modest amounts of wealth so that they can take care of themselves and their families. And whether it’s Christmas presents to our kids or estate planning is the final present to our kids, or we’re in a new year and a new beginning and we resolve that we’re going to do everything the right way to take care of everybody, all those things are there so that we can pass on what we have to our children, take care of them the best way possible, and do everything we can to ensure that our children and what we have is taken care of and safe and protected and available for their use. So that’s estate planning. It’s the final way to do that of what we’re already doing as parents. So thank you so much for listening to Mobile Estate Planning with Michael Bailey. John Rush and Rush to Reason are up next. And I’ll be back next week and I’ll talk to you then. Thank you very much and goodbye.
