5 Healthy Holiday Nutrition Tips for Seniors
Yuletide is just around the corner. They say it’s the most wonderful time of the year. However, you should take care of yourself during the holiday, especially if you are a senior. Proper nutrition is [...]
Free and Inexpensive Meal Delivery Options for Older Adults
Many older adults face difficulties accessing and preparing meals. Yet eating a nutritious diet is essential for maintaining health, particularly as we age. For those with barriers getting to the grocery store and preparing food, [...]
Resources for Caregivers of Older Adults with Dementia
Every year, 16 million people in the United States care for family and friends with dementia, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports. Caregivers of people with dementia provide care for longer durations than those who [...]
Estate Planning for Older Parents
A combination of advances in medical science, longer life spans, people marrying later, second marriages, and other factors mean that many Americans have children later in life than was the norm just a generation ago. [...]
Five Estate Issues You Shouldn’t Tackle on Your Own
When you’re planning for your own future and providing for your loved ones, it is always beneficial to have the knowledgeable guidance of an experienced estate lawyer. Though forms and software abound to help you [...]
Estate Planning is for the Living – Asset Management for Every Circumstance
Once upon a time, estate planning revolved largely around disposition of assets after your death. This was most often managed through a will, though some property might be titled to pass automatically to a surviving [...]
Who is Responsible for Debts When a Family Member Dies?
Whether you are putting together your estate plan or you have recently lost a loved one and are working toward putting his affairs in order, it is important to understand who is responsible for the [...]
What to Expect from the New Jersey Probate Process
Most people know that when a person passes property through a will or dies without having made provisions for distribution of the property he leaves behind, the estate must pass through probate. However, many don’t [...]
5 Easy Tips to Simplify Your Year End Charitable Giving
Are you planning on making charitable donations before the end of the year? The IRS reminds us that you must itemize deductions on your tax return to claim a deduction for these gifts. In addition, [...]
Living Trust Maintenance is Key
Many people opt for a living trust over more traditional means of estate planning because of benefits such as: A smoother, shorter transition after death Lower costs of administration after death Flexibility during the grantor’s [...]
Take These Three Steps When Your Child Turns 18
Up until your child reaches 18, you are absolutely entitled to access your child’s medical records and to make decisions regarding the course of his treatment. And, your child’s financial affairs are your financial affairs. [...]
Long-Term Care Planning is a Critical Part of Your Estate Plan
If you’re like most Americans who have worked hard, saved for retirement, and taken the time and trouble to structure your assets so that they will provide for you and for your heirs, you have [...]
Plan Your Estate to Avoid New Jersey Probate Conflicts
The loss of a loved one puts stress on individuals and on the family dynamic. Adding money and property to the mix can be a recipe for conflict—conflict that sometimes ends in estate litigation. When [...]
Tips for Working with a Law Firm
Get the Most Out of Your Work with Your Lawyer When you hire an attorney for estate planning, help with a loved one’s estate, or any other legal matter you want to make sure that [...]
Proving Age Discrimination Is Difficult
As baby boomers continue to work past retirement age, age discrimination lawsuits are becoming more common. Two out of three workers between ages 45 and 74 say they have seen or experienced age discrimination, according [...]
Study Finds That Social Security Workers Often Provide Incomplete Information
Americans are misinformed about many aspects of Social Security, and local Social Security offices may not be helping, according to a study by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The study found that the Social Security [...]
Short-Term Care Insurance: An Alternative to the Long-Term Care Variety
A little-known insurance option can be an answer for some people who might need care but are unable to buy long-term care insurance. Short-term care insurance provides coverage for nursing home or home care for [...]
Aging Drivers and the Law
For better or for worse, our current culture is very car-dependant; in many places, cars are the only convenient link to the outside world. Unfortunately, as people age, driving can become more difficult and more [...]
Life Insurance and Estate Planning: Protecting Your Beneficiaries’ Interests
One misconception people have about life insurance is that naming beneficiaries is all you have to do to ensure the benefits of life insurance will be available for a surviving spouse, children, or other intended [...]
Trump Delays Rule That Retirement Advisers Put Their Client’s Interests Ahead of Their Own
President Trump signed an executive order calling for a review of the so-called fiduciary rule, which was intended to prevent financial advisers from steering their clients to bad retirement investments by requiring advisers to act [...]
Avoid Living Probate: How to Keep Guardians and Conservators Out of Your Estate
While most proactive individuals know the importance of having a well-rounded estate plan, it is typically considered as something that will take effect after they have passed away. But there are in fact many ways [...]
Do It Now: Name a Guardian for Your Minor Child(ren)
We know it’s hard. Thinking about someone else raising your children stops us all in our tracks. It feels crushing and too horrific to consider. But you must. If you don’t, a stranger will determine [...]
The Top 2 Ways the Court Gets Involved in Your Estate, and How to Avoid Them
No one wants unnecessary court involvement in their life. But without careful and proactive estate planning, chances are that some aspect of your estate will end up being decided there. Here are two of the [...]
How to Pick a Trustee, Executor, and Agent Under a Power of Attorney
While the term fiduciary is a legal term with a long history, it very generally means someone who is legally obligated to act in another person’s best interests. Trustees, executors, and agents are all examples [...]
How to Deduct Long-Term Care Premiums From Your Income
Taxpayers with long-term care insurance policies can deduct some of their premiums from their income. Whether you can use the deduction requires comparing your medical expenses to your income in a complicated formula. Premiums for [...]
Watch Out for Mistakes in the List of Doctors Covered by Your Medicare Advantage Plan
Medicare Advantage plans are a popular alternative to regular Medicare because the plans often offer lower out-of-pocket costs, but buyers need to make sure they know what they are paying for. A government review of [...]
New Medicare Rule Encourages Doctors to Test for Alzheimer’s Disease and Offer Care Planning
A new Medicare rule will promote earlier diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. Medicare will now reimburse primary care doctors who conduct an Alzheimer's evaluation and offer information about care planning to elderly patients with cognitive impairment. [...]
Better to Play it Safe: Proactive Estate Planning and Cognitive Impairment
Most financially savvy individuals begin planning their estate when they’re in peak mental shape. The idea that this might change at some point in the distant future is an unpleasant one, and they would rather [...]
A Powerful Exercise to Surface the Values You Want to Pass on to the Next Generation
Every one of us receives and passes on an inheritance. The inheritance may not be an accumulation of earthly possessions or acquired riches, but whether we realize it or not, our choices, words, actions, and [...]
Is It Better to Remarry or Just Live Together?
Finding love later in life may be unexpected and exciting, but should it lead to marriage? The considerations are much different for an older couple with adult children and retirement plans than for a young [...]
3 Famous Pet Trust Cases and the Lessons We Can Learn from Them
Not long ago, pet trusts were thought of as little more than eccentric things that famous people did for their pets when they had too much money. These days, pet trusts are considered mainstream. For [...]
3 Tips for Overwhelmed Executors
While it is an honor to be named as an executor of a will or estate, it can also be a sobering and daunting responsibility. Being an executor (sometimes called a personal representative) requires a [...]
The Perils of Promises…Marlon Brando’s Story
Legendary Oscar-winning actor Marlon Brando left the bulk of his estate (worth approximately $26 million) to his producer and other associates. Brando created a valid last will and testament. However, he did not include his [...]
Celebrities Who Failed To Recognize Unborn Children in Their Wills: A Teachable Lesson
Having an estate plan that protects and provides for your loved ones is not only smart, it’s necessary. Without one, your family, friends, or the charitable organizations you wish to provide for may not receive [...]
Sonny Bono’s Procrastination in Creating a Will Led to Years of Estate Battles
Sonny Bono, the singer, songwriter, restauranteur, and former Congressman, died in a tragic ski accident in 1998 at the age of 62. His net worth was just under $2 million at the time of his [...]
Flo Jo’s Tragic Mistake: A Missing Will
If you’ve created a will, congratulations! You have made your intentions clear to the world and have provided for your loved ones based on what you determined was best. One caveat, and Rule #1 when [...]
Dennis Hopper Saves Heirs with Last Minute Estate Plan Changes
Dennis Hopper, known for his role in Easy Rider, wanted to leave his fortune to his family. Well, not everyone in his family. Hopper made numerous estate planning changes in the last months of his [...]
Have You Prepared Your 2015 Year End Gift Plan?
With the end of the year fast approaching, now is the time to fine tune your gift planning before you get caught up in the chaos of the holiday season. Aside from making annual exclusion [...]
Aging.gov: A New Resource for Older Americans and Their Families
More than 10,000 people turn 65 in the U.S. every day according to Aging.gov, a new website recently launched by the Obama administration. The goal of this website is to act as gateway for older [...]
How Will the 2015 Supreme Court Decisions Affect You and Your Family?
While approximately 10,000 cases are appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court each year, only 75 to 80 make it to oral argument. Of those cases, only a handful grab the media’s attention. Below is a [...]
Four Steps to Stop Mail Addressed to a Deceased Person
One of the first things you should do as a newly appointed executor of a deceased person’s probate estate or successor trustee of a deceased trustmaker’s trust is ask the post office to forward the [...]
Year End Estate Planning Tip #5 – Make Gifts that Your Family Will Love but the IRS Won’t Tax
Don’t let the chaos of the holiday season prevent you from avoiding federal gift tax by making “annual exclusion” gifts, medical payments gifts, and educational gifts. Make Annual Exclusion Gifts “Annual exclusion” gifts are transfers [...]
Year End Estate Planning Tip #2 – Check Your Beneficiary Designations
With the end of the year fast approaching, now is the time to fine tune your estate plan before you get caught up in the chaos of the holiday season. One area of planning that [...]
AB Trusts – Do You Need to Get Rid of Yours?
Are you married and is the last time you and your spouse updated your estate plan more than a few years ago? Then chances are your estate plan contains good old “AB Trust” planning (also [...]
U.S. Supreme Court Rules Inherited IRAs are Not Protected from Creditors
On June 12, 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court—in a unanimous decision—ruled that Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) inherited by anyone other than a spouse are not retirement funds and therefore are not protected from the beneficiary’s [...]
The Three-Year Review and The Three-Year Plan
Review your life’s circumstances from three years ago. Think about what you knew and what you didn’t know about managing your wealth. What were the top five lessons you learned? How have your views about [...]