Why Estate Planning Is Essential for Millennials
Young adults are a financially savvy bunch. Many millennials are starting out on their own while managing substantial student loans, which has led many of them to educate themselves about how to budget carefully and spend wisely. Some millennials are more cautious about incurring consumer debt than many of their older counterparts, as evidenced by choices like choosing to save up for things like a home or a car instead of financing them. This interest in financial responsibility is a good thing, because an awareness of financial concepts and how they work can often make the difference between making choices that bring a person in the direction of prosperity and unwittingly making choices based upon what seems like the right thing to do at the time and ending up with a mountain of debt.
Since millennials are interested in managing their money well, it is a good idea for them to take that sense of financial responsibility and focus on the future as well as the present time. Estate planning is as essential for millennials as it is for adults with children and those who have accumulated a substantial amount of assets. The problem is that many millennials do not realize that, due in part to the fact that they are young and the need for such things seems so far in the future. Most Americans (nearly eighty percent) under the age of thirty-six do not have a will. That is a large population whose hard earned and carefully managed wealth could be subject to default probate rules in the event that something unexpected happens.
Fortunately, once millennials hear the reasons why estate planning is important, even at their age, they often take steps to make it happen. After all, they are careful about taking care of the financial resources that they have, so they would want to have a say in what happened to those resources if death or incapacity came unexpectedly. What’s more, the health care decision-making documents that are a critical part of the estate planning process can ensure that millennials’ strongly held personal values get respected and honored if emergency decisions regarding their care must get made. Estate plans can also help to make sure that the businesses that entrepreneurial millennials work so hard to create could continue in the event of death, illness, or incapacity if it is the business owner’s wish that they do so.
Understanding the need for an estate plan is half of the battle for young adults. Fortunately, once you learn about the benefits of estate planning, there are professionals available to help you make it happen. Your Kansas estate planning attorney understands that as a young adult, you have unique estate planning needs and they can work with you to create an estate plan that fits your life, your dreams, and your goals. Contact Wichita estate planning attorney J. Joseph Weber today, by calling us, to schedule an initial consultation. Alternatively, you can contact us through our website. We offer appointments Monday through Friday, between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., and occasionally in the evenings or on weekends.