Who are the six categories of people you need to plan for in life and consider in your estate plan?
Every person is said to have to plan for the well-being of at least six categories of people in life. Categories of care change as you age and get extended just like your family. This article goes through the changes in life and how people and priorities change your estate plan as you get older. So, who are the six categories of people you need to reflect or consider in your estate plan in an emergency?
You gather up all of your resources for the six categories of people in your life throughout time.
When you are in your twenties, it seems that you only need to take care of yourself. Well, that concept soon changes in your thirties and forties.
As soon as you have a spouse and children, you start thinking about what would happen to your spouse, or kids if you are not around. If your spouse is self-supporting, your thoughts don’t go to your own demise very much.
It really does not hit you until your first child arrives that your existence or nonexistence can impact other people!! Then, the big boom occurs and you have your first kid, and your life is never the same!
When your kids are toddlers, it hasn’t hit you yet. When you start to attend your kids’ sporting events, other lessons or recitals, you sort of, every once in a while let yourself think of what would happen to them if you are gone, but even then you don’t let yourself go to those thoughts.
The thoughts of incapacity or death only start to take a reality when an older family member falls ill, or when you are about to travel. This seems to be the time when most people start to think of the six categories of people they care and plan for, if you are not around or if you cannot support them.
In your forties, you watch your parents struggle with the care of their parents. You just don’t get it at that stage. You may participate on occasion in taking grandma or grandpa to a doctor when your mother or father is unable to do it, but for the most part, you are focused on your own little family
In your fifties, categories of care change again. Now, you may not only have a spouse or children, you now have parents and grandparents in their 70’s and 80’s.
Now, you think of not only caring for your spouse, kids and parents, but you start to think of your grandparents and estate planning for your extended family. You wonder what it would take to take care of your parents. What are the categories of caregiving help will they need? Medical care, caregiving, and cost of senior housing all start to become areas of concern.
Because people are living longer, people In their mid to late fifties and sixties who are in the sandwich generation are not only taking care of their own kids, who are coming back from college, and return home often, but are taking care of their elderly parents, and often their grandparents who are in their nineties. This is when things start to get really difficult if you don’t have a plan.
So, thinking of the six categories of people you care for, they are:
- Your spouse; [Domestic Partner or Significant Other]
- Your kids;
- Your mother;
- Your father;
- Your mother-in-law and your father-in-law;
- Your grandparents.
When you plan your estate, you should think of the needs of each of these categories of people. Think in terms of 3 years, 5 years, 7 years, and 12 years from now. How old will they be? Do they have any special needs? What are their resources? Who will be there to take care of them? Of course, life is unpredictable. So, planning eases the anxiety of care.
Our lawyers gather data about your family situation and plan your estate with all of the above factors in mind. We guide Los Angeles attorneys with estate and family care issues and have done so since 1993. You take care of people and we take care of the documents to let you carry out your care for your family.
Let us help you plan for your six categories of care. Call Los Angeles area Sirkin Law Group’s skilled Family Estate and Elder Attorneys of San Fernando Valley. 818.340.4479 or email us at [email protected].
Use our articles below to help plan for your family:
