Safe Base for Your Children
What’s Appropriate? Not all children are created equal. Some blossom early while others bloom late. Still others never quite “get it” at all. Some children are good with money, while others squander it and have no concept of its value or potential legacy.
Now that you have gone through the SafeBase® planning process and know that your concerns have been addressed, you would like to explore ways of transferring your excess wealth (wealth that will not be consumed during your lifetime) to your heirs and children. Now comes the tough part. Do you give it to them today or wait until you are both gone? Do you give them everything or just what’s left after the government takes its share? Is there a philanthropic craving that needs to be satisfied? And the most important question of all continues to go unasked and unanswered – “What’s Appropriate”? Obviously, every family has different needs. “One size fits all” rarely fits anyone well. Some parents want their children to get everything. Some fear that giving too much will spoil them.
Estate planning is so much more than mere legal documents, but people commonly forsake the former for the latter. For many, it is easier and less emotionally challenging to let standardized wills and trusts replace a family wealth transfer process. By far, the most difficult part of the process resides in the complexities of the emotional life of money for families. Without a good forum for discussion and a way to ask the right questions, most people will default to standardized documents and not confront the thorny issues.
Children’s SafeBase® Process
If mom and dad go through a financial sufficiency process for their children similar to what they did for themselves, via the SafeBase® analysis, then they will be able to start defining the parameters of a meaningful and appropriate inheritance. The Legacy Process helps clarify what is right for your family, whether it is:
- Outright gifts or gifts with strings.
- A lifetime allowance or time-released distributions.
- Distributions based upon meeting certain personal benchmarks or Philanthropic participation grants.
Once “What’s Appropriate” has been determined, implementation goes quickly. With an accurate understanding of your deep-seated goals and concerns, legal counsel can draft appropriate language customized to your family’s needs.