5 Reasons to Make an Estate Plan
Passing away without an estate plan is a huge mistake that can tie up your estate for years in probate. Yet, many people fail to create a will, living trust and other key financial instructions.
"If you don't have an estate plan, instead of people knowing what you want, you force people to guess," says Chas Rampenthal, general counsel at LegalZoom, an online company that helps customers create legal documents. "That guessing can be the cause of a lot of pain, a lot of strife. (The estate plan) is one of the single biggest acts of love you can do."
Rodney Brooks
An award-winning journalist, writer and author and my specialty is retirement planning and other personal finance issues. I have written for many national publications, including USA TODAY, The Washington Post, U.S. News & World Report, AARP and National Geographic. I am available to speak on personal finance, financial literacy and the racial wealth gap.
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The author tells the history of the Freedman’s Savings Bank, how it grew much too quickly, why it failed and the impact on Black America. The Freedman’s Bank offered a safe depository for formerly enslaved people, expanded quickly and gained millions in deposits – mostly ranging from $5 to $50. But inexperience and corruption doomed it to failure, costing may of the small depositors their savings.
