Thursday 22 November 2012

FREE EXECUTOR KIT: A checklist for choosing an executor

1. Make a list of the people you know and trust who could do the executor job well 2. Consider the advantages of appointing more than one executor to work together. Perhaps neither one alone has all the tools necessary to get the job done, but as a team they do. This also has the benefit of sharing the load on more than one set of shoulders, and providing checks and balances - two heads may well be better than one. 3. Consider the value of a corporate executor, to reduce strain on family relations and ensure an impartial and expert estate administration 4. Ask your preferred executor if he or she is willing to accept the role. Be realistic about what the task will involve to elicit a meaningful response, because if your selection is unwilling or unhappy about taking on the responsibility, far better to find out now than to make it an issue after your death 5. If your executor agrees to act, inform affected beneficiaries to prevent unwelcome surprises at the time of death 6. Leave your executor written guidance about what the estate assets consist of, where to locate them, which advisers should be involved, whether family heirlooms require special treatment, and any funeral wishes to be follow. Send me an e-mail at wafa@setyoufree.ca or call me at 416-300-6774 for your FREE copy of The Exectutor Kit (Retail value $40)

Friday 16 November 2012

Every Canadian Should Have a Will and Estate Plan



1. Your family won’t starve in the cold.
Without an estate plan you may not leave enough money to your family to make sure they’ll always be warm and well fed.

2. Less of your estate will pay a permanent visit to the income tax department.
Without an estate plan you won’t be able to take advantage of tax-saving strategies

3. Your family won’t have to weep before a judge to get the right to manage your estate.
If you don’t make a will naming an executor, someone close to you will have to start a court proceeding to be appointed the administrator of your estate. Until the court makes a decision, no one will be able to touch your property

4. Your estate will be able to pay off your credit cards and still have something left for your family to go on a shopping spree.
With an estate plan, your estate may not have the money it will take to pay off your creditors and hand over a good sum to your family

5. Your family will be able to keep the heirloom brass spittoon lovingly handed down from generation to generation instead of getting cash with no sentimental value.
Without a will, your administrator may have to sell your property and hand out cash

6. The business you built up from scratch can be more easily passed on to the person of your choice — or at least not sold at a loss.
Without an estate plan, you can’t be sure where the business will end up and how much it will be worth when it gets there

7. Your children will be cared for.
Without a will, your wishes about who will look after your children may never be known

8. Your provincial government won’t be playing piggy bank with your children’s money.
Without a will that sets up a trust for young children until they come of age, the provincial government will hold any property you leave the kids — until they reach the age of majority

Wednesday 17 October 2012

Nine Things That May Disappear in Our Lifetime






As part of the Zoomer Generation it's hard to believe these things may not be part of our children and grand childrens lives. I posted this back in October but felt is was worth sharing again!

Whether these changes are good or bad depends in part on how we adapt to them. But ready or not, here they come .....

The Post Office 

Get ready to imagine a world without the post office. They are so deeply in financial trouble that there is probably no way to sustain it long term. Email, Fed Ex, and UPS have just about wiped out the minimum revenue needed to keep the post office alive.

The Cheque

Britain is already laying the groundwork to do away with cheque by 2018. It costs the financial system billions of dollars a year to process cheques. Plastic cards and online transactions will lead to the eventual demise of the cheque.

The Newspaper

The younger generation simply doesn't read the newspaper. They certainly don't subscribe to a daily delivered print edition. That may go the way of the milkman and the laundry man. As for reading the paper online, get ready to pay for it. The rise in mobile Internet devices and e-readers has caused all the newspaper and magazine publishers to form an alliance. They have met with Apple, Amazon, and the major cell phone companies to develop a model for paid subscription services.

The Book

You say you will never give up the physical book that you hold in your hand and turn the literal pages. I said the same thing about downloading music from iTunes. I wanted my hard copy CD. But I quickly changed my mind when I discovered that I could get albums for half the price without ever leaving home to get the latest music. The same thing will happen with books.

The Land Line Telephone

 Unless you have a large family and make a lot of local calls, you don't need it anymore. Most people keep it simply because they've always had it. But you are paying double charges for that extra service. All the cell phone companies will let you call customers using the same cell provider for no charge against your minutes

Music 

This is one of the saddest parts of the change story. The music industry is dying a slow death. Not just because of illegal downloading. It's the lack of innovative new music being given a chance to get to the people who would like to hear it.


Television

Revenues to the networks are down dramatically. Not just because of the economy. People are watching TV and movies streamed from their computers. And they're playing games and doing lots of other things that take up the time that used to be spent watching TV. Prime time shows have degenerated down to lower than the lowest common denominator. Cable rates are skyrocketing and commercials run about every 4 minutes and 30 seconds. I say good riddance to most of it. It's time for the cable companies to be put out of our misery. Let the people choose what they want to watch online and through Netflix.

The "Things" That You Own

Many of the very possessions that we used to own are still in our lives, but we may not actually own them in the future. They may simply reside in "the cloud." Today your computer has a hard drive and you store your pictures, music, movies, and documents. Your software is on a CD or DVD, and you can always re-install it if need be. But all of that is changing. Apple, Microsoft, and Google are all finishing up their latest "cloud services." That means that when you turn on a computer, the Internet will be built into the operating system. So, Windows, Google, and the Mac OS will be tied straight into the Internet. If you click an icon, it will open something in the Internet cloud.

Privacy

If there ever was a concept that we can look back on nostalgically, it would be privacy. That's gone. It's been gone for a long time anyway. There are cameras on the street, in most of the buildings, and even built into your computer and cell phone. But you can be sure that 24/7, "They" know who you are and where you are, right down to the GPS coordinates, and the Google Street View. If you buy something, your habit is put into a zillion profiles, and your ads will change to reflect those habits. "They" will try to get you to buy something else. Again and again. All we will have left that can't be changed are "Memories"... And then probably Alzheimers will take that away from you too !

I hope you enjoy reading my Blog!