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Overcomers Approach
“The Overcomers Approach” podcast showcases stories of resilience, where individuals transcend challenges to achieve personal and professional success. With a focus on spiritual, mental, emotional, physical, and financial growth, the podcast inspires listeners to embrace their potential and thrive in all areas of life. Join us to learn how overcoming adversity can lead to evolution, healing, and lasting success.
Overcomers Approach
Inspiring and practical conversation with Oscar Vasquez on unraveling estate planning, safeguarding family legacies, and empowering future generations through proactive and accessible strategies.
Estate Planning Made Simple: Why It Matters for Everyone and it's not just for wealthy people.
In our latest episode of The Overcomers Approach, we dive into the often-overlooked but essential topic of estate planning with special guest Oscar Vasquez, the founder of EstateDocPrep.com
Estate planning isn’t just for the wealthy—it’s for everyone, especially homeowners. With 68% of Americans lacking an estate plan, understanding the basics of wills and living trusts is more important than ever. Oscar breaks down how estate planning protects your assets and helps your family avoid the costly, time-consuming probate process. He also highlights the importance of knowing your state’s probate threshold—a key factor that can determine whether your estate goes through probate. (Pro Tip: Google your state’s probate threshold to see where you stand.)
What You’ll Learn:
• The key differences between a will and a living trust
• How a living trust can safeguard your family’s legacy
• Why estate planning is critical for families with special needs children and with blended families.
• The role of power of attorney, guardianship arrangements, and healthcare directives
• Real-life stories that show the impact of proper (or poor) estate planning
Oscar shares powerful insights and practical advice to help you navigate the complexities of estate planning with confidence. Whether you’re securing your family’s future, protecting your assets, or planning for unforeseen circumstances, this episode is packed with actionable information.
Interested in Learning More?
• Visit: EstateDocPrep.com
• Call: 805-909-4689 (Ask for Lisa about their AI-powered software; she can transfer you to Oscar for in-depth questions and further consideration).
• Special Offer: Use the discount code “Overcomers”—the first 10 people will receive $1,000 off their estate planning services!
Thank you for tuning in, sharing, and being part of this important conversation. Your support helps us bring impactful stories and vital information to help you and your loved ones thrive. Stay connected, stay informed, and keep overcoming!
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Thank you for listening!
Good day people. This is Nicole Ellis McGregor, the founders of the Overcomers Approach podcast. This is a podcast where we have people from different walks of life, different experiences, different journeys, but the overarching goal is that we can win and overcome, no matter what barriers we face, if we're educated and empowered. Today we have Oscar Vasquez here, founder of the estateprepcom, joining us. He's an expert in estate planning who helps families and homeowners protect their assets from the high cost of probate. From creating living trust to avoiding costly estate planning mistakes, oscar's insights could save you thousands and provide peace of mind. If you're a homeowner, you definitely don't want to miss this episode. Welcome, oscar. I really appreciate you being present here today.
Speaker 1:This is such a conversation close to my heart. There was a house in our family for four generations and when my grandparents died, the house was lost to taxes, and it really impacts me. My grandparents had 13 children and they were together since they were like 16. And once they transitioned, the house was lost to taxes and whatnot. Every time I drive past the house I'm a native of Minnesota I do visit my family. My heart kind of skips a beat because that was a part. I grew up in that house. My grandparents raised me, so if we can help empower people for that not to happen to your family, they want to create generational legacy and keep it in generations to come. I think this is an amazing conversation, oscar. I would love for you to dig deeper about the importance in educating us on living wills and trust. Where do you want to start? Go right ahead. Thank you, okay great.
Speaker 2:Well, first of all, nicole, I would like, first of all, I'd like to say thank you for allowing me and helping me, giving me this time to be able to do my crusade of bringing awareness to estate planning, because 68% of homeowners don't have an estate plan in place in America right now and because of that, it only comes to. It came to me that once, because I think that people don't know what happens when you die to your things that you leave behind, and when you don't know, you don't know. I mean, there's no, it's no fault, but now, if you're listening to this podcast today, grab a pen, grab a paper. I'm going to tell you, I'm going to give you a lot of. But now, if you're listening to this podcast today, grab a pen, grab a paper. I'm going to tell you, I'm going to give you a lot of nuggets. Now you're going to know, by the end of this, the end of this podcast, you won't be part of the 68% that don't have one. If you don't have one by the end of this podcast, it's going to be because you really don't care about your kids. No, just kidding, but it's going to be hard. It's going to be hard for you not to have an estate plan or be on there, because once you understand it and I'll tell you you know I want to always start off with the very bare basics of an estate plan.
Speaker 2:What is an estate plan? And it's a I call it the end of life documents that you're going to need to put in place. But it all starts with the foundation of protecting your assets, and that's called a living trust. Every state in the land has a minimum threshold that you have in assets that says if you meet this threshold, you have to go to probate. I'm going to tell you what this word probate really means and what happens to it and everything else. But, more importantly, a living trust is a actual legal contract between you, which is the parents and the kids, which are the beneficiaries that the courts help to enforce. Because it's a legal binding contract, so it's legal. And because of that, because it's a legal binding contract, so it's legal, and because of that, that's the only document that prevents you from going to probate, and that is a will is not enough knowing that right.
Speaker 2:So the biggest misconception I think the biggest misconception that I already have a will. I'm not going to go. Well, I'm going to give you the Reader's Digest version of the will and the trust. A will is two pages long and it says I love you, I leave you everything. A living trust is about 145 pages on average. 145 pages on average and it says and it leaves specific instructions on what you want to each one of your items that are precious to you, like you know, your retirement accounts, your home, the family home, who's going to maintain it, who's going to get it. And the living trust is the only document that prevents you from going to probate. So, so scary thing, and that's like you know. Like there's there's hundreds and hundreds of cases like your, your grandparents, that had that you know.
Speaker 2:That reminds me of a story of I had a customer cause I've been in the real estate space and the real estate business here in Southern California for about 28 years, okay, and about probably about two or three years ago.
Speaker 2:I had a client come up, mario, and he came and said you know, mom didn't get, she never got the trust, but I had an attorney call me, um, and that we want to try to refinance it. But the attorney said, oscar, that it was going to be $50,000, but not to worry, that I can pay him when I sell the house. And I said I don't want to sell the house, right, how do I? How do I? How do I not do that? And I said well, unfortunately, mario, because you don't have a trust, you got to go to probate, you got to have the attorney. So ask the attorney for a provision in the agreement that he gives you six to 12 months after you get legal possession of the house, you get title to be able to refinance. Okay, and they were able to save the house by being able to add that provision. Luckily enough, the attorney was there so was nice enough to say yeah, you know what? I'll give you an additional six months to refinance.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you don't have to sell the family home.
Speaker 1:Got it. That is amazing, because we want to keep those homes within our family. Number one I believe you gave me great insight on a will and what that is, and a trust, because we need to delineate those two because there can still be issues if you only have a will. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I always tell people a will won't prevent you from going to probate now and and I'm gonna say, well, you know really how bad can it be. I'm gonna say, let me, let me, I'm gonna break it down. There's like four major things that happen in probate, five. But I'm gonna give. I'm gonna give them and I'll try to give you as short as a an answer on each one. And if you want an example on it, I'll dive very deep. So the first thing that happens is that and I'm going to go based on the state of California, so one is understanding who has to go to probate. So I always tell people Google what's the threshold for me to go to probate in my state and then put in your state of Arizona, your state of. I'll give an example California is $184,500. Utah is $100,000. Colorado is $60,000. Indiana is $50,000. That means if you have a total asset of more than $50,000 in Indiana, that means if your house is worth more than $50,000, you're going to probate. That means probate.
Speaker 2:So now what happens in probate? The first thing that happens is they publish it. It becomes public. Okay, it tells everybody what you had. You died. If they owe you money or they feel they're a beneficiary to come to court and make a claim. That's what it does, so it publishes it. Okay, the second thing that happens in court is that the court decides on what happens to your things when you die. They make the final decision, right, not you. You don't make that decision, the final decision.
Speaker 2:Now, don't get me wrong when I say that. Don't take it into conception that the court's going to undisinherit your kids. I've never seen them not give it. But what I have seen is give up some of the claim and divide it amongst more people. Divide amongst more people, like I had one case. The guy had four kids. He didn't want to give the other three kids anything. He didn't have a case.
Speaker 2:The judge decided to divide it by seven. They go, you guys don't get along. Just divide it by seven. They go, you guys don't get along. Just divide it by seven. Close case, move on. Next case. Right, wow, now it's the third. So that means that one your kids will not be get the full amount that you're entitled. They're entitled to, cannot, cannot.
Speaker 2:The third thing. The third thing is is probably is the cost to be able to go to probate In California. Probate costs, attorneys, courts and everything else start at anywhere about $30,000. That's what it costs to go to probate. Wow, you can Google it Now. Every state has it, but it's usually anywhere from 4% to 8% depending on the size of the estate and the complexity. The complexity of your estate like, like, you have business, you have a business, you have this, okay.
Speaker 2:And then, and the fourth and final thing, um, what that happens in probate is that you there could be possibility of tax consequences. You can have inheritance tax, you can have a capital gains tax. Like, if you know, mom and dad had a rental property in florida that gets sold. It wasn't there. There's a possible capital gains tax because it doesn't get reused, it may not get reassessed.
Speaker 2:At the new tax basis, with a living trust, you don't have to go to court, you don't have to go. You don't have to go to court, which means you're not public, it's private. Two, you don't have to pay the $30,000 in court fees and attorney fees. Three, you have it to be private, you have the privacy. And then you don't have the new tax basis. I'll give you an example. And most people don't realize this. This is why, um, when we we love out-of-state children that inherited property. Because the first thing they say is do I pay taxes? No, your mom had a trust. You pay no taxes because the property gets reassessed. Give me an example you bought a property at a hundred thousand dollars and and when you pass, your kid's new tax basis is now worth a million dollars. So they get a million dollars tax-free.
Speaker 1:Tax-free.
Speaker 2:That's why we get everybody from the East Coast or anywhere outside of California. That's like I don't pay taxes. Sell the house and send me the money.
Speaker 1:Right, okay.
Speaker 2:I ain't moving back to California. It's too expensive, I don't want to pay, you know, $ six dollars for a hamburger and fries at McDonald's. So those are. Those are the benefits, some of the major benefits of of not going to probate and be being trust.
Speaker 1:Yes that is so helpful to me because we want to empower and educate our listeners and I think the one thing you said that really was really simple is Google the threshold for the state that you live in to see what your assets are, what the threshold for each state it's different and then within the living trust, like if there's a property out of state which I have some listeners and some people that I know that have several properties, some in different states how their children are protected in the event that the parent transitions or something happens, and how the kids don't want to inherit that tax if it's not in probate. Like you said, there's an amount that's like tax free. Where it won't, they won't be impacted it won't be impacted.
Speaker 2:So so that means that they get a hundred percent of the asset, yeah, of the real estate. Because you know, here's one thing I always tell you and I always tell people if you're a homeowner, you're guaranteed. If you own real estate in the land, anywhere in any state, that meets the threshold, that meets the threshold, that meets the threshold of going to probate, you're going to go to probate, yes, so get a living trust. There is no way around it. The only way to avoid probate is to get a living trust.
Speaker 1:Get a living trust.
Speaker 2:So 100% of homeowners get that. Now there's added benefits and I think that our government, I think that one of the reasons why each state has a threshold it goes to based off of the average home value, because in California, I mean, a mobile home is more than $184,500. So it depends on where you're at and I mean I talked to a couple of customers and even Indiana, that's $50,000. Even the average homeowner is still above 50 000. Yes, and I think the government puts that provision in there, or that minimum, so that way you have enough. Yeah, the courts, yes, because if you don't have enough, if they can't take anything from you, yeah, what are you going to pay with? Right? So think about that and I look at it in this way If you worked hard, you saved money and you have enough to pay, then you should pay your fair share of the money.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:But they give you an out Now that you know now you cannot know that a living trust will prevent that. Now an estate plan comes with additional documents. Yes, one of the one of the most documents is I call it's a guardianship, a guardianship plan for children. I'll give you an example your young children. How would you use a guardianship plan? Mom and dad leave the kids with the babysitter, they go out to dinner and they don't come back. They become, they get in a car accident, they become incapacitated. What happens to your children? I'll tell you. They go to social services and I call social services child jail. They get traumatized, because that is trauma I've never been.
Speaker 1:I agree 100%. I mean, I work in human services, I'm now in public safety, but I intersect with all those systems and I would agree that it is bondage and it is jail and so we're going to agree on that. That's up for another book, but I agree with you yeah great.
Speaker 2:So, and I say the only way to prevent that is that you have, with part of your estate plan, if anything, get a guardianship plan put in place. I mean, we don't have that available yet, but because there's so many young families that don't have a guardianship, we're going to try to create a guardianship. That's good. We have it going through several states now, just the guardianship one that we can have so you can be able to purchase that. But let me tell you, a comprehensive guardianship plan should have three sections. One is a temporary guardianship over your children. That means anywhere from six to 12 months, because the courts take forever and hopefully you wake up before then and that'll happen and you'll be able to do that. The second provision is long-term.
Speaker 2:That means, if you pass, who do you want your kids to grow up with? And we always say choose three. Right, because sometimes life gets in the way, sometimes the person that we chose moves out, sometimes their religious beliefs change and you don't want that. After all, you just don't know. Right, because life, um, we become different people in different stages in our lives. Right, yeah, um and so, so. And then that's that one, and then the third one. I call it, the drunk uncle clause. Who do you not want your kids with?
Speaker 1:there is a drunk uncle in our families.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, I think everybody's got one you know, and people always say, like, why do you call? My wife always says, why do you call it that? And I said because let me ask you something, would you want the kids to grow up with louis? No, I don't. I said, well, that's exactly the point. Right now, tell me why. Because he's always partying, he has football, you know, he has the best super bowl parties and he has the best you know christmas party he has about he's just a party kind of atmosphere and you don't. Sometimes it's okay, but just sometimes it's just not something where you want for your kids. You always want something better for them than what you had for you, right? I agree? Yeah, I agree, wow, that is amazing.
Speaker 2:So so the guardianship, that's part of your comprehensive estate plan. So not all living trusts are created or estate plans are created equal. The second document that comes with your estate plan it's called a power of attorney. Power of attorney helps you in case you become now a lot of these are if you become incapacitated. They become worthy, they become needed, they become used, and those are the documents that you really don't want to have only when you need them, kind of like insurance, right? I don't want to think about that. Unless I need it, call up the insurance other than that we don't want to think about it.
Speaker 2:But, um, a power of attorney gives you the financial, gives you the financial ability to be able to get your bills paid. Now in a lot, of, a lot of. We don't give full, full authority because you're still alive. Yes, you get what's called a spend thrift provision. It limits the amounts that they can spend. They don't. They don't get the keys to the kingdom. I like that. They get key to the front room, and that's to be able to pay the, to be able to pay the things that are absolutely necessary. Now I'll give you an example.
Speaker 2:One of the ways that and this story is it's been a while, but that is been was an aha moment, and I always tell people. Let me tell you he was a client of ours. They got a living trust and he got in a truck. He was a truck driver, got in a truck driving accident and became incapacitated. He was unconscious and she called me and says Oscar, you know what? Charlie got in an accident. What can we do? And I said well, how are you doing? What do you do at your finances? Because you know we have all the money, the 401k.
Speaker 2:I called and they said he can't touch it. I can't touch it until he's dead. And I said what you have, what's called a financial power of attorney. Yeah, and you, because of that, that financial power of attorney, you're his spouse. He gave you the rights to take out money because he's incapacitated through his 401k. Yes, she stayed with them in the hospital every day for six months. He got out. You know he always jokes. It says you know, I, if I were to give her that, probably would have been out three, but she made me stay longer, but, but. But those are things that you go like wow, imagine to be able to have that.
Speaker 1:The the ability to be able to spend time with your spouse.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's that's. I think that that's you know why we, we got married, was to be there when you're sick and and not available to do that. And they had the resources and because they had that instrument, yeah, it was able to save. It was able to save them. So a living trust not only can prevent you from going to probate and having the courts decide on what happens to your, decide what happens. Yeah, it has these additional documents that can make your life a whole lot easier when things go sideways.
Speaker 2:Sometimes in our lives, it just rains and it doesn't stop raining and we don't know when it's going to stop or what's going to happen. We just know that it's up to us as adults that we should prepare for the worst to happen, and this is what an estate plan does the things that are going to happen. Yeah, and the. The next document is called uh, it's called a guardian. Um, not a guardian. We already talked about the guardian. It's called a health care directive where, if you become incapacitated and they need to do a procedure, who's going to make that decision for you? And I always say choose wisely what you can choose. You don't want.
Speaker 2:You don't want the one that always says I hate you mother you know my kids are older now but but, um, I have, I never had that, but but my sisters have. I've heard them. I've heard their kids telling that I'm like. You know my kids ever said that I'm gonna, I'm gonna throw my uh, my mother, my mother's syndrome. You know my mom. She would hit you with a thing. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:I would do that right you know, but but it's, it's there. So, so that's called the health care directive and that's who's gonna make that one decision, right, that hard decision, right, you know, hey, they're gonna amputate mom's leg. Is that gonna be okay? Yeah, in order to, you know. And the first question is she can, is it gonna save her life? Yes, then do it. Yeah, you know they could do, but anyways, every situation is different.
Speaker 2:And with that health care directive comes what's called a HIPAA waiver, because now we live in the state, in every state now says if you don't release your records to your family, they can't give them to them. Period. It's a state law. They will not. And they're like well, how, what happens if I? Well, when the papers that you sign when you, when you're in the hospital and you go to the emergency room, what are the first? You sign two things a health care directive and a HIPAA yes, the ones that come with your estate plan are for when you show up incapacitated, yes, or if you didn't get a chance to fill out the paperwork, or for that one reason, who do you want to have hunt? So those are some of the most known documents and should have documents in your living trust that you would have. Yes, wow A few things came up in my trust that you would have.
Speaker 1:Yes, wow. A few things came up in my mind as you were talking about this, especially when you talked about those additional guardianship documents, when you spoke about temporary guardianship, because the courts do take a long sometimes it can be pretty lengthy and there's a wait and then having three family members to consider in the event something happens to you. And then the family member that you may not want, that drunk uncle. You love him and he gives great parties. I want the kids to be raised by them.
Speaker 1:I do work in that space of public safety and I work with children who are in DHS, which is they go over to the government if they can't find any family members, and some of these kids have come from really established backgrounds, but because there was no plan and we're in a crisis, once they get steeped into that system, it's hard to get them out and it causes a lot of trauma. So I think, too, in public safety, I'm aware that car accidents happen. There are deaths, people becoming. You know they're not conscious if they have a car accident and they don't think of these things that are going to happen, but they do and we all are going to transition one day, and the healthcare directives and the HIPAA forms that we do sign sometimes. I'm going to be honest when I first started signing those forms, I just wanted to see a doctor.
Speaker 1:I didn't go into much detail about that, and the healthcare directive is really very, very important because I have been in situations where family members disagreed on the care of a family member, and you don't want that crisis going on when your family member is either trying to get healthier or it's meant for them to transition in peace. We don't want that chaos, and so I think it brings a level of you know, it's being really proactive versus reactive, because we don't want to be working from behind. Another question that I have is is living well, estate planning, only for the wealthy? Can people who are just middle class, regular folks, have that, and what are your thoughts on that? Well, there's two.
Speaker 2:One is no, it's not just for the wealthy. But here's one thing that you gotta, guys, if you own a house, you are wealthy. Believe it or not, you are considered wealthy. It may not feel that way, but you are. You are wealthy. But here's the most important thing. That's why I always tell people Google the threshold, because sometimes I'm going to tell you I've had people that weren't homeowners but they worked for Northrop or they looked for AmGem, which is a local pharmaceutical company, and they got a nice big retirement account or a stock that they saved over time.
Speaker 2:And guess what you want that? I mean, if you use them as a beneficiary, those kids or the beneficiaries will get the lump sum of money. And if they're underage, when you put them as a beneficiary, they get the lump sum of money. And and if they're under age, when you put them as a beneficiary, they get the money and you don't put any provisions like for I'll give you an example a lot of our families that have young kids in their 20s. They say I don't want them to have them, I don't want them to have in their trust. They say I want a provision in there, that I want them to have access to the money if they go to school, if they need housing and and and if they're unemployed, maybe they can get enough to pay the rent. Yeah, some, some, some, um, what they call the maruchas they call them in spanish, but the cup of noodle soup, or something that's it I don't want them to go out and have a steak dinner on it until they're like 45, because we don't.
Speaker 2:You know, the average homeowner today the first time buyer today in America is 33 years old. 20 years ago it was 20 years ago was 18 and 19 years old. Now it's taking longer to buy something because, you know, the priorities are a little different and I think they probably grew up a little different than a lot of us. I mean, I want new shoes. My mom said you know, son, I can give you two things a warm bed, a warm home and some food. Anything else extra. You got to go get a job. You got to go work. You got to go find a way to generate, because I can't raise five kids as a single mother and work three jobs and be able to provide you all these nice fancy toys Right In today's world. They don't know what that's like. I kid my nephews all the time and I used to walk to school. I used to walk in this uh to school with no shoes, uphill both ways and like deal. How do you walk both ways to school, uphill in?
Speaker 2:the snow there's no snow here, there's no hill. I said, well, that's, that's what it felt like, right?
Speaker 1:right, no, I, I love that and I love you made the the relation of that because me and my husband were talking about, you know, we're going through our life insurance, our assets, and we, of course, we're just regular middle-class folks or whatever you want to. Whatever that is, we have a home, we have, you know, some stocks, we have some retirement, I have pension, you know, and after we got to looking through all that, it was like, okay, this is more than we anticipated. All that. It was like, okay, this is more than we anticipated. And also we were a blended family of six and so a lot of you know we have kids in different phases. Most of them are out of the home, doing their own thing, independent. But we got to talking about like, okay, if we divide it up this way, my husband was like, well, I don't want to give the lump sum. I think I want to give payments out to because I know this child, I want to ensure that they're you know it'll be applied monthly. I don't want to do the lump sum, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because you know us is I think in our, the older we get. Yes, we have. I think there's two things that we come into life. I think there's phases, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, into life I think there's phases, right?
Speaker 2:yeah, the phase that we know we're never gonna die and then we're gonna die. And then we know we're gonna die and then, and then we always say you know what? I don't want to outlive my money and I, and I don't want my kids to outlive and want them to have as much as a comfortable life so that brings me to to a subject, another benefit of the Living Trust.
Speaker 2:Right, the Living Trust is designed to be able to protect your kids. Now I'll give you an example of the benefits of being able to give, instead of giving your kids all the money at once. If they get a divorce, guess what? They lose half their inheritance. Wow, because they do that. But if you give it to them on a monthly basis, it becomes immune from that because that inheritance is part of their trust, and that's a trust. That's what they would call the trust fund, baby, right, and that becomes immune from the divorce case. Yes, and that means they don't have to start over, and sometimes we do that to protect our children.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:I'll give you another provision that was an aha for me a few years ago. We work a lot with educators. Yeah, and her son was a recovering alcoholic and a drug addict. Yes, and one of the provisions that she put in there that she wanted to get monthly payments to him, and the older he got, the more he got.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And one of the provisions was that he had to come in with a drug and alcohol test and went back 30 days and if he showed up and showed up dirty, it would skip 30 days. Right, another chance to stay clean. And I'm like, wow, yeah, that was that. Was like really actually I go, I go, just, you know, mr john, is that just a little bit? No, no, she says oscar, I love my son. Yeah, he's going to be sober whether I'm dead or alive around me and he's not going to be drunk with my money. I said I, you know, and I said, well, you know, that's the purpose of the living. Trust is what you want to have happen with your money, exactly it's not that she goes.
Speaker 2:I don't want to control him, but he's gonna be sober. I'm gonna help him.
Speaker 1:I'm his mother yes, and if I have control.
Speaker 2:I going to do it. I said that's a fair one For people that have special needs children. There's called a special needs provision trust and I want to talk a little bit about that because there's a lot of special needs children or young adults or adults out there that we still care for. That's right. And if they inherit a lump sum of money, what's going to happen is that the federal government's going to seize their assistance until they run out of money. That's right. So what you do is you create one part of the provisions and there's no additional cost for this.
Speaker 2:By the way, I'll go into a little bit about how it is to work with a state doc prep and why the benefits it is. But when you do a special needs trust, the provision is that the child has access to it and you leave provisions on what he can have access to. And then you leave somebody that's a loved one, usually an older child or one of the siblings of the special needs adult or young adult or child. That is the executor that follows your instructions, right, and so you leave that. So then that way the government doesn't exclude them for any additional benefits.
Speaker 2:And I have an aha there was another teacher had a special needs child and when she put a provision she put $10,000 in. She goes. I'm not planning on dying, but I want this money to accumulate for her. We put it into an annuity and she said I want the provision to say that every year because we have a ceremony, oscar, it's been 10 years. For every year they put 365 days on the refrigerator in paper and every day she tears one off, and when it gets to one that means that the next day they always have a plan to go to an amusement park oh, I love that yeah and I go, wow, what I could that.
Speaker 2:And I told tell my wife. And then my wife said that just goes, that that's how important that tradition is and she wants somebody to keep that tradition alive for her because they've been doing that for 10 years and that is more of a ceremony than Christmas for her. Wow. And I was like, wow, what an amazing. But those are the provisions that you can say. So I say this that the limitations of the instructions that you could leave on your living trust are only limited to the instructions of your imagination.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love that.
Speaker 2:So you think about that. I mean you could change the trajectory of your kids, your grandkids. Change the trajectory of your kids, your grandkids, your grandkids. Um, I had another teacher that said that she was a seventh generation. Because one of the questions that come into the trust is do you have a bet? Are you a benefactor of any living trust that you want to forward? When you're back okay, and she's. She said yeah goes, I'm the seventh generation. My great-great-grandfather.
Speaker 2:I don't remember his name left us money that we only can go to school, and if we went to school it was the money that was there. And then if we didn't go to school or if we wanted to start a business or one thing, he let us start anything. We get one lump sum at 45 years of age and then the rest stays in the trust for the next generation. Oh, I love that I was like oh, my God.
Speaker 1:I was like seven, she goes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's how I went to school. Actually, you know, I said do you have to pay it back? She goes some of it. I did pay it back. She goes some of it. I did pay it back because you know he, you know you don't have to, but I did that because that that changed my life. Yes, that education changed my life. I became a teacher now she was, I think at the time she was a principal and now she's getting ready to retire. But when she was setting up her trust, she was telling me that story and I said well, what a, what a beautiful story to hear that right.
Speaker 1:That is marvelous, that's incredible, and I love the fact that you share the story because it shows the impact of how far reaching a trust could go like, how far reaching for generations even after, and how it does so much to build up the sustainability of the family and your family name, because that's really what it's all about At the end of the day. It has ripple effects, it goes into community, it goes into family, yes, it goes into your family name and legacy and I love the. I love. And then I also love the fact we brought up the story of the special needs child because I, like you said, we're seeing more special needs children.
Speaker 1:I have a close friend who has seven kids, two of her their special needs and that's one of the conversations that are always on my mind, like what is going to happen if I go?
Speaker 1:You know like, and I'm like, well, you don't want to stress yourself out while you're living, just thinking about this, cause you can do that, and I think you know having a trust could also help support her in that aspect to have, like, a peace of mind and with special needs children not all, because there's so many different spectrums and diagnoses but one thing that's really important with some of their purposes is that they want to have, like, a tradition or ritual or daily activity or something they can look forward to as a reward, and to incorporate that into the child's life is phenomenal.
Speaker 1:I know we're closing in on the podcast and I just want to make sure I know there's so much more to cover and there's so much more, yeah, and I know we're going to leave your web link and some contact information too, before we close out Just in terms of how can people begin to prepare their your suggestion in terms of, like, knowing that we're going to transition, we're all going to go, how do you think? What do you think gives people more comfort and ease to kind of get into that mindset of creating a living, a trust.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm going to tell you, to get into the mindset is I always tell people, I leave them with this, you know, should you get a living trust? Well then here's. The first thing is that you need to think about is six, 10 years ago, a living trust in California to have an attorney do it would cost about $600. Today, it's going to cost anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 to have an attorney do it. Okay, and so I always ask and I always lead with this if you knew for sure two things were going to happen? One, the cost to create a living trust was going to be higher tomorrow than it is today, yes. And two, if you knew for sure you were going to die someday. If those two things you knew for sure, would you create a living trust? Now that you know that you're going to go to probate and that your, your beneficiaries, are going to have to go through this, through this probate court and through this probate process, if you knew that that was going to happen for sure, would you move forward, would you get a living trust? So that's how I could say listen, it's going to happen and, depending on where you are in your life, it'll give you a good analogy. It'll give you a good assessment to know where you are.
Speaker 2:And listen, we all have an estate. Everybody has one, and wealthy, I believe, all starts. My mom used to say I always told her when I was selling. I said, mom, I'm going to be rich. She goes, son, you are already rich. As long as you got God in your heart, you don't need anything materialistic. And I said, I know, mom, but it helps to go to this. When I grew up, I said, mom, it helps to go to the store they don't take thank yous. It helps to have some money. But you see, yeah, but you don't need it. We are all wealthy, so I'm going to leave you.
Speaker 2:The first phone number I want to leave you is 805-909-4689. That's 805-909-4689, that's a one eight, that's a 24-7 phone number that you can talk to. Uh, her name is lisa. She's artificial intelligence. She'll answer any question of any state, about any if, of how you could use estate planning. Okay, no pressure, it's an educational phone call. It's kind of like having a one-on-one with somebody that talks about it, and if you want to be transferred to me, you can, or you can book a call.
Speaker 2:The second gift I have for you is a free comprehensive estate guide, and what I mean free it's a guide that there is a human element. Now you can create a living trust in as little as an hour and a half, 45 minutes, yes, but there is what's called a human element that I talk about and it talks about in this guide, and those are questions that we never thought to talk about, right, and we never thought what am I going to do when this happens and this happens? So the state guide, the comprehensive guide, it's about 31 pages and there's a bunch of lines in there so you can fill it in Full disclosure. Just because you fill in the guide doesn't mean you have an estate plan or a living trust. Okay, it doesn't mean that. But if you can accomplish it, that means you can go through our entire software and get it done as rapidly, um, as rapidly as you can awesome. So give you a quick rundown on what it's like to work with us, okay, I'll give you the final gift we do is we do zoom calls and we help prolong or not prolong, expedite the human delay of the thought process by giving you the stories on how other people have used the living trust in your situation, or in that way. We do not give legal advice, but we have that. We've helped hundreds of people create living trust and have different scenarios, that we can share those stories with you.
Speaker 2:Yes, one, two. We give you the layman's terms of how, how and what that means so you can best understand it. I mean, there's verbiage on there. Sometimes if you read it and you hear it, it's it's an easier and it's a quicker process. I agree, we help you through the entire process. The the third thing that and the third thing that we do is we help you fund the trust.
Speaker 2:95% of attorneys in the estate planning industry do not fund your trust. They give you a nine-page document. They say here's the instructions to fund the trust. What does that mean? That means all of the assets have to be named in the trust to be protected. If they're not in the trust, they're not protected. So they give you a nine page. We walk you through the process and we help you follow up and we kind of stay with you along the process to kind of say hey, did you get the letter from the bank confirming that it's now in your trust? Did you get the letter from the retirement account confirming that it's now in your trust that the trust is the beneficiary. Did you get this? Did you get the homeowner? We followed through that process with you to be able to provide you the value.
Speaker 2:Yes, that we do is with our software. We are a software company that helps provide affordable, affordable estate planning that has unlimited updates. Unlimited updates means that every time that there's a that you need an update, you get a. You get a. You get a new family member, you want to make a change, or whatever it's called, the restatement, and the average attorney charges 1200 to 1800. With us, unlimited updates for life. Oh there, there is every year that you have an update it's a 129, because we have all the states we need to cover. We need to cover the, the provisions and update it. So that's what the 127 is for. Yeah, and with that said, we have a coupon code that's um, that's what the 127 is for and with that said, we have a coupon code that's called Overcomers. It's a discount code where you'll save $1,000 on our retail price of $2,497. You use the discount code Overcomers and you'll save $1,000 for the first 10 people. Wow.
Speaker 2:So, take action. Don't wait for tomorrow. Tomorrow is not promised. Yesterday is gone, but today is the day that you should take action.
Speaker 1:Awesome, oscar, that was amazing. You gave so much nuggets of wisdom. You made it practical. You gave us lived experiences and stories so people can actually hear and relate to that. And then I love the steps that you have the Zoom, the updates for different states. The follow-up is critical and I think that that is just amazing. And tomorrow's gone. We have today and this move forward for future thinking, for our family, for our legacy. Oscar, this has been great. I want to thank you for the gifts and I'll make sure all that is in the description of the podcast as soon as I'm completed and editing it. It has been a wonderful experience. I always love when I'm empowered and educated. My listeners will be as well. Let's protect our assets. Let's have this conversation. It's not anything to fear. It's actually being very proactive and ensuring generational legacy and planning. Thank you, oscar, it has been a pleasure. Thank you very much. Thank you.