MONEYIS4U

The Financial House: Building Your Legacy Beyond Death

• Jacqueline Divine Correia • Season 2 • Episode 2

Share episode

Send us a text

Estate planning isn't just for the wealthy—it's essential financial protection for everyone who wants to ensure their loved ones aren't left in crisis after unexpected illness, disability, or death. We explore how to approach difficult questions about the future and create a comprehensive financial safety net that protects what matters most.

• Building your financial house from the foundation up, starting with legal documents like wills and powers of attorney
• Understanding the limitations of government healthcare coverage—OHIP doesn't cover rehabilitation or most long-term care expenses
• Creating clear documentation for the "what ifs" of disability, critical illness, or cognitive decline
• Ensuring proper income replacement through disability and critical illness insurance to protect yourself during recovery periods
• Designating appropriate beneficiaries and updating them after major life changes
• Establishing trusts for minor children to protect their inheritance and future wellbeing
• Breaking cultural taboos around financial discussions to prevent family confusion and hardship
• Organizing all important documents in an accessible location that your executor can easily find
• Conducting regular reviews of your estate plan to reflect changes in your life circumstances
• Creating detailed instructions that speak for you when you cannot speak for yourself

Visit Amazon to purchase "My Farewell and Final Wishes" planning book to help organize your estate information in one place.

https://www.amazon.ca/Farewell-Final-Wishes-Organizer-Important/dp/1778203507/ref=sr_1_1

For more information, feel free to contact us at https://nwminc.ca/
Or follow us on our social platforms:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacqueline-correia-1b417727/
https://www.instagram.com/notablewm/
https://www.facebook.com/nwminc.ca
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/ ⁨@moneyis4u⁩  

Follow us on all streaming platforms:
https://open.spotify.com/show/2dIwP2K2wBOFEfvJzNuXDo
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/5a372120-38ef-4655-b650-c4c756265d86/moneyis4u

Visit Amazon to purchase "My Farewell and Final Wishes" planning book to help organize your estate information in one place.

https://www.amazon.ca/Farewell-Final-Wishes-Organizer-Important/dp/1778203507/ref=sr_1_1

For more information, feel free to contact us at https://nwminc.ca/
Or follow us on our social platforms:


YouTube https://www.youtube.com/ ⁨@moneyis4u⁩
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacqueline-correia-1b417727/
https://www.instagram.com/notablewm/
https://www.facebook.com/nwminc.ca

Follow us on all streaming platforms:
https://open.spotify.com/show/2dIwP2K2wBOFEfvJzNuXDo
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/5a372120-38ef-4655-b650-c4c756265d86/moneyis4u

Speaker 1:

What would you like happen if you became disabled?

Speaker 1:

Again, I want you to think about that, because these are questions that will help you plan for the future.

Speaker 1:

And what would you like happen if you were diagnosed with Alzheimer's a critical illness like heart attack, stroke or cancer? Debt management One of the things that you need to do is you need to make a list of all your debts and what would you want to happen? How do you want to have this paid off? Do you have a life insurance that will pay some of that off? Because if you pass, your debt will now be passed to your family.

Speaker 1:

My community, which is the west Indian community. We have such a bad habit of keeping everything private and under the carpet. You know it's a need-to-know basis, but we have to start trusting. We have to trust in the people around us, you know, because you could end up being in a sandwich generation, where you're raising children and you're raising grandparents or you're raising your adult mother in the same household, and if the mother is not telling people where the stuff is, then it causes problems.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Money Is For you podcast, brought to you in collaboration with Notable Wealth Management Inc. I am Jacqueline Correa, your wealth builder and your host on this journey. So today we're going to talk a little bit about as I said we're going to. It's about keeping your house, financial house, in order, and this is a huge, huge big talk right now in our community, especially in our Black West Indian community. A lot of the elders my age and over we are concerned about would we be able to finance. You know, our lifestyle as we age and one of the things that have been happening is, you know, especially after the pandemic, a lot more people have been diagnosed with a critical illness, whether it's cancer, a stroke, a heart attack and, mainly, dementia and Alzheimer's. So it's really it's a big concern. It's a huge concern. So we're going to dive into it because I know it's a concern, but there is ways that we can do it and if we start to plan for this now, or even if we plan for it from a young age, from the millenniums, even at the Gen Z, we can fix this problem with a combination of some of the funding from the government. There's not a lot. I think people have this myth that the government will take care of them and OHIP is an all-inclusive package. It is not what OHIP does. It actually pays for the surgery, but it doesn't pay for rehab, for you to get better, the rehab part of it. That's the part that has to be funded. And especially if you become a dementia patient or you have Alzheimer's like, it becomes even harder to stay home, like would you be able to have enough finances to go into a nursing home. So we're going to touch some of those topics.

Speaker 1:

So one of the things that when I sit down with my clients, I ask some very disturbing questions, and I'm going to ask you these questions today and, you know, grab a pen and a paper because this is very, very important. You know, we like to, we like to achieve, we like to plan and achieve for the best, but we also must plan for the worst. Right, it means that you know, even though we're living for today and we're trying to live a great life, we also have to plan in case something do happen, the what if? And so you know it's a disturbing question, but I make you think about it. And so then I ask the next question is what would you like happen if you became disabled? Again, I want you to think about that, because these are questions that will help you plan for the future. And what would you like happen if you were diagnosed with Alzheimer's, a critical illness like heart attack, stroke or cancer? Right and so? And what would you like happen if you die?

Speaker 1:

And you know, a lot of people think GoFundMe is a solution. Gofundme is not a solution. Gofundme is like the same thing when you're thinking, oh, hip will take care, it's all inclusive and it will take care of everything. No, it doesn't. So when you sit with me, one of the things I start with and this will be popping up is what I actually do is we start from the bottom of the house. Like, as I say today, our plan is about, you know, the fund is about getting your house in order, and the first thing that we look at is the foundation. Just like any home, when you're building it for the first time, the builder pours concrete and he builds the basement, and then, from the basement, he builds levels up. He builds the basement and then, from the basement, he builds levels up. He never starts from the top and then finishes with the basement. He starts from the bottom, where he starts with a foundation. So in our financial house, our foundations are your legal wills and power of attorney. That's the foundation. That is the bottom part of your house structure, right? So that if anything else happens after that, that is taken care of, especially if you have young children, and we'll go into a little bit more detail about that.

Speaker 1:

So the first thing is do you have a will? Do you have a power of attorney? And a power of attorney is? It's a living care, it's for when you're alive. A will is after you die. And what a will does? It actually allows your assets to be distributed to the people of your choice. Then you're allowing the government to choose who should get the assets. Same, with the power of attorney, you're giving rights to the people that you trust that will make the right decisions for you other than the doctor or the government. And, trust me, I've been in situations where the government take away the power of attorney and the will from the family and take over the individual and made all the decisions and also take away the money. So these things also happen. So it is very important.

Speaker 1:

When you are fully functional and you have all your faculty, these are things that you put in place, including if you have children. You put things in place. What would you want happen. If something were to happen to you, who would take care of your children, including if you have animals, like I do? So I have to state there that where would he go? And if you know again, if your children have allergies and so on and so forth, and we'll go into that a little bit more.

Speaker 1:

And then, once that is completed, the next thing we look at is income replacement, critical illness and life insurance. So there's a combination of, if you, as I said, a will and then also the life insurance. So there's a combination of, as I said, a will and then also the life insurance. Is that if you die? And the other one is, you know, living benefits. Statistics have shown that if you were diagnosed with a critical illness, it takes about two years for recovery and a lot of people believe that if they're working for an employer, the employee benefit will cover that. Now, most of the times, people are only covered $2,500 a month for disability. The question you have to ask yourself is that enough? Is that enough to cover your expenses? Because if you're making $,000 to 100,000, 2,500 will not cover it, but we can top that up right. So those are things that you have to look If you're self-employed, those are the first things that you should be Like.

Speaker 1:

If you're an entrepreneur or you're a business owner, those are the first thing you should cover, because you are the provider and you have to replace your income. You are the most valuable asset and without you, your business cannot function or your bills cannot be paid, so you have to protect it. So what you're basically doing is giving the insurance company 3% of your income for them to protect the risk. That's exactly what you're doing, right? So the income replacement, which is disability income, is the first thing that you should do, or check to make sure you have.

Speaker 1:

And then the next thing is critical illness. So what happens with critical illness is that, if something were to happen to you, it pays out a one-time lump sum and then again, based on statistics, it takes one to two years to fully recover, for you to go back to work. So what this is allowing you to do is for you to heal yourself properly, continue to pay the bills and you're not stressed out about not having enough to cover the bills. And then, in case of debt, the life insurance will replace your income, whether it's to pay off debts or to make sure that your kids continue to have the lifestyle that you want them to have. So those are what we call the basement foundation, when we are taking care of the house, right, and then after that, you know, go on. If you wanted to buy a house or you wanted to, you know, plan for legacy, it's above that. But you don't do that. First you actually start from the basement and go up. So if there was a crack, if there's something happened to you or something happened to the house, it would only have a crack, but you would not lose everything, right.

Speaker 1:

So, coming back to the will and the power of attorney is you have to create. When you say, you know, get a will, some people say you know, why should I have to pay for that? It's important to pay for it because if you sit with a lawyer, you can write all the details and you have to be detailed about what you want your assets to do and not to do, your assets to do and not to do. You know who you want you know, is it be the same person that will take care of you or take care of your care, that will take care of your finance part of it? It should be the same person, because if somebody is taking care of you and they can't have access to your money, then there's a problem. So you have to be able to trust that person to do all those things for you. So it's not just an easy quick fix and, as I said, especially if you have children, you should be doing those kind of things. You should make sure that you trust these people.

Speaker 1:

You know, I know a young lady that she trusted her mom with the life insurance because she was dying and she thought that you know, mom, grandma was good with the children, but then once she passed, grandma spent out the entire life insurance. The kids never got it because grandma was just good with taking care of the kids, but grandma was never good with money. So she just thought this was never good with money. So she just thought this was a lot of money and if she kept dipping into it, she figured they'll never know. But grandma spent that money within a six month period and it was gone. So you have to trust that the people that you're putting in trust for all this stuff will be able to handle it and do what you want them to do. And if this is written in your will, then you're making them accountable to doing what they're supposed to do. And we talk about trust when, again, when you have young children, you should have your stuff and you should have a trust for your children.

Speaker 1:

You know who are you going to leave your kids, even if you're incapacitated. If you're incapacitated, it means that you can't speak. If there was any monies to, if you're supposed to get any monies, nobody can claim any monies for you. So if you can't write, you can't speak or you literally incapacitated. If you don't have a will and power of attorney, nobody can get any monies for you, not even the money from the government. So if you had a critical illness or disability and you don't have these documents in place, nobody can go to your bank and get any money. Nobody can go to the insurance company and get any benefits claims for you. They can't speak for you. So this is the reason why you need a power of attorney and a will, because the power of attorney is for living and the will is after debt, right after that. Right Again, we talked about the healthcare director creating a living will outlining what would you want happen, you know, like, for instance, if you know you went into the hospital, do you want to be resuscitated?

Speaker 1:

All those things you have to put. You have to make a detail. Now, sometimes when you go and you create a will, the lawyer may not do all of that, but it's still your job to sit down and you write that stuff out. And this is also why I created this book my Farewell and Final Wishes because you could also put some details in there. But the information when it comes to your health issues and what you want to happen should be part of the written will. It could be an addendum added to your original will and power of attorney at the time and let the lawyer add it to there as an extra.

Speaker 1:

Again, beneficiaries you have to designate beneficiaries on these documents. Beneficiaries you have to designate beneficiaries on these documents Because if you don't put them beneficiary, everything will go to the estate. Number one it will be taxed at 55%. So if you have, you know it's taxed very different than if, let's say, you had a life insurance and it will be transferred to your beneficiary 100% tax free. But if you do not have a beneficiary on there, everything goes to the estate and then it's taxed at 55% I think it is and then disperse your beneficiary. So it's very important that you have beneficiary designation on all your products, even if you have investments or you know you have any life insurance or any, even if it's a group insurance, and if, if you want to put your children that are under 18 as beneficiary, you must have a trust, because the monies will not be transferred to the children if they're 18, if they're under 18. So, therefore, it will stay with the courts until they're 18 and then will be lump sum to them. And that could be a problem, again, when you know when all this money is given to an 18 year old, they don't know to manage money.

Speaker 1:

So, again, it is best for you to make sure you do what you need to do, do your due, diligent, upfront, so that when the time comes, everything could roll accordingly. That you know that you know if you were in a coma for three months, that everything will be smoothly taken care of and that you would not come out of a coma and realize that now you've lost your home or your kids is in. You know, foster care. You just put things in order. These are, these are why these documents are important. You know?

Speaker 1:

Um, it just seemed that people don't want to pay for these documents, but they they have a home and that home is worth sometimes 1.52 million, but they don't see it important. Or they have two or three or four beautiful children and they don't see the importance to making sure that they have it laid out to say what I want happen if something were to happen to me. You know, do the kids just go to you know grandma, or what? What do you want? And also make sure it's detailed enough as to what you want grandma to do with your money and with the children, because you just don't want the kids to be sitting in a basement playing Xbox, because if you want them to maintain certain sports or certain education and stuff, you've got to write all of that out. You have to be very clear about what it is that you want. It's like sitting down and writing your goals. That's what it is the same plans that you would have had for yourself and your family if you were fully functional and were here, family, if you were fully functional and were here. That's the same thing you have to do when you're preparing these documents.

Speaker 1:

It's not just one time, you know, put it together and forget about it, and by this time, when you look at it, you already had maybe two kids. You had sold one house. You bought another house, all these things. Every time there's a major change in your life bought another house, all these things. Every time there's a major change in your life, you have to go back and amend those things and change it. Or even the person that you might have put as the beneficiary that was fine three years ago. That person may not be the same person that you want to be your beneficiary today, because maybe circumstances would have changed, the dynamic might have changed. Maybe you had a new partner. You never know. Like how would you imagine you're in a coma or you're in. You're in a situation that you're incapacitated and your ex-husband is still your beneficiary on documents that should have been removed after the separation. So these are important thing. It's like we go for annual checkups. Your financial house should be an annual checkup. You go through everything every year to make sure there's no changes. Same thing your life insurance. You know you change a job, all that stuff. You have to continue to update the stuff so that everything is in line stuff. You have to continue to update the stuff so that everything is in line If something were to happen to you?

Speaker 1:

Tax consideration right Again. Debt management One of the things that you need to do is you need to make a list of all your debts and what would you want to happen? How do you want to have this paid off? Do you have a life insurance that will pay some of that off? Because if you pass, your debt will now be passed to your family member, so the debt just doesn't go away if you die, whoever you're leaving in charge for your finances or your children assets that you're leaving for them, they don't get that asset until the debts are paid. So these are also things that you have to think about. How are your debts going to be taken care of? Do you have insurance to offset these things? Right. So these are all things that you have to think about when you are sitting down and planning for your financial house, when you're putting your financial house in order right Again, inventory asset you need to sit down and make a list of all the assets that you have all the bank accounts, all investments whether it's benefit benefits or pensions with your group company, or you have them invested with different people out there, whether it's the bank, investors and any personal property, if you have a cottage and whatnot.

Speaker 1:

This book will help with that situation. You know you put all the passwords, the account numbers. This book would help Again. You can get this book on Amazon, you know you can grab a copy and again it's a real help in planning to put this house in order. Again, as a debt management, you list all your debts and when you finish listing the debt now one of the good things about with the debt when you do do your will, your lawyer will state in there that all debts have to be paid out before any monies are transferred to any beneficiaries. So that is in that part of the will Tax consideration, consult your tax profession to understand the potential estate taxes and strategy to minimize them.

Speaker 1:

So that's one area that you know. I mean life insurance is a great offset and um offset and entry because you will pay taxes upon debt. Now if it's a couple, a husband and wife, um the first debt there's no taxes, that everything will roll to the next partner. But on the last person that um dying, that's when taxes occur. So you have to think about that, right? You know, if Joe passed all his assets, all his debt, everything will roll to his wife, so the house and everything. But when the wife passes, that's when taxes will occur. So you have to think about that.

Speaker 1:

So it's not only that we're going to get taxed when we're alive, we get taxed when we're dead, especially if we have assets and it doesn't matter, it could be a car, you know you may figure, well, I don't have a lot, I'm a rental. But you still have to make a list of what you have, because you might have a phone, you may have computers, you may have jewelry from grandparents, you may have great work, artwork. So you know, you may think that you don't have because you don't have that big tangible asset, but you may have small asset, you could have jewelry, like I. You know, for me I have generational assets when it comes to jewelry. Like you know, my parents they're over 100 years old that I got from my parents, right? Those are valuable stuff that must be listed because they worth something. So these are things that you have to make a list of Organizing important documents, keeping the estate planning documents, financial record and insurance policy in a safe, accessible location, inform the executor and family members where to find these documents, and so at the end of it.

Speaker 1:

I'll show you what I did and it's all in one place, along with the book, to show how you can keep everything in order and so that, if something were to happen to you, your family is not going like trying to figure out if the stuff is at a bank or where is everything. Everything will be, you know, keeping track of everything in the book and then in the binder where all the most important things are, and make sure, as I said, review this stuff on a regular basis. It is important that every year, just like you do your annual checkup, this stuff is being done. You have to pull it out, you had a new baby, you need to check in to make sure and, with your advisor, financial advisor, this is a perfect way to do annual financial checkups to make sure you may have a new husband, or you may have divorced from the last time you did your will and you did your life insurance, or you may have a new baby, or you may have bought another home. So these are all things. Every time you have a different. I call it every four years. There's a life cycle. Something changes, right, whether it's change a job, had a new baby, something always happened within every four years. So it's important to also make the changes with these documents as the cycle changes, right? Sometimes it's every two years.

Speaker 1:

Communicate your plans Again. This book is great, there's different sections for that. But you have to state in detail, just like when you're planning out goal settings for your life. You know what do you want in two years, what do you want in three years, what do you want in five years, what do you want in 20 years? Doing this here, your estate planning is the same thing. It doesn't change.

Speaker 1:

You know, a lot of times people they don't want to deal with this part of it because for some reason this, this whole concept of debt or becoming sick, scares a lot of people. But it also brings you in a position of confusion. If your house is not in order, right, it causes more stress for the people behind that. You're leaving to take care of this stuff. Now they have to take care of you and then they have to figure out where your stuff is Right. So we just have to get better of doing all our stuff and especially, like you know, my girlfriends and I we talk about this quite frequent and you know we kind of laid back, going all the way from slavery days and whatnot. But we have to start trusting. We have to trust in the people around us, you know, because you could end up being in a sandwiched generation, where you're raising children and you're raising grandparents or you're raising your adult mother in the same household and if the mother is not telling people where the stuff is, then it causes problem.

Speaker 1:

I mean, there was a situation where one of my clients asked me to reach out to at the time they were 19 and 20 or 20 and 21. And the mother kept saying she's going to get her will done, she's going to get her will done and she's going to get her will done. And January 2nd she went on the TTC and she had an aneurysm and she died and those two kids were left in confusion because she didn't have a will and the beneficiary, which is she, even though she was divorced for 13 years from her husband. She never took off the bet, took those, took him off any of the beneficiaries. So the will was still in his name. Um, not the will. Um, the, the life insurance still had him as the beneficiary. The um investment she had at work still he was the beneficiary investment she had at work. Still he was the beneficiary. She didn't change anything, she just kept living life like she was married.

Speaker 1:

So, again, you know these, the, the investment companies, can't do anything for the children because that's not the beneficiary name. So who gets the money? The ex-husband, right? So these are things that, as I said, it happens and you know it is our job, my job, to help you, you know, understand that we can fix these problems. We can fix this problem. That is my job to do that. If you're my client, these are things that I do to help my clients avoid these situations.

Speaker 1:

You know one of the things about, you know, my girlfriend passed this week, last week, and one of the things that I know because we talked about a lot of stuff. I know she did a lot of stuff, so her kids will be okay because she put things in order so that they're like, because when I spoke to her son she said you know, mom was pretty open about where things were and how to get done and what she wanted. So I know that she was very open about everything and that made me feel good because I know that she did what she said she was going to do, right, right. And again, as I said, consult a professional, a professional like myself when it comes to this thing. I'm very passionate about estate planning, retirement and pension. That's my niche market, but I just love this area, you know, and when you're young you think that you're invincible. But as we get older we have to start, and if we start doing this at a very young age, trust me, we will become so much sufficient that when we actually get to the old age, our house will be in order right, our house will be in order. Be in order so when it comes.

Speaker 1:

I guess this part here that I'm talking about is the basic foundation, which is the will and power of attorney. We will go into in the next episode more about life insurance and the depth of it and so on and so forth. But before I end this session with you, I want to share something that I did for myself was I just got an idea because, you know, my stuff was a lot bigger, and so I had this one binder and I kind of put everything that I need. So if something had happened to me, like if something happened to me tomorrow, my executor can just go get this binder, and in this binder it has my plot, my will. It has all my life insurance, all my documents for my business, everything in it. It's a pretty big binder all my documents for my business, everything in it. It's a pretty big binder.

Speaker 1:

But so I thought I would bring this stuff to show you because I actually picked this up from Amazon. It was $11. You could probably check to see if Dollarama have it, but sometimes with Dollarama it's hit and miss. But I know for sure you can get it and it's like you can actually put your policies. The beautiful part now about the policies today is that you don't have the, the books like we used to, because a lot of our documents are electronic. So you don't really need the full um book because you just need, you know, the first six to twelve pages. That's where all the the meat and potato is, the real details.

Speaker 1:

So you could actually end up with a very small binder and all the details. But each package you can put it in there and you can actually label them right. I had made a cover page and I'd put in the table of content what it was and what number it was. So on the tabs I actually put what number and then in the table of content. I made a detail of what it was. This one I got from Timo and this one was like nine dollars.

Speaker 1:

Again, it's the same concept and this one was. It's a more sophisticated one. Again, amazon have this one and you can get it from Timo. Timo is a little cheaper. I think amazon is either, uh, 47 or 87 dollars for it. Again, you could put all the detail. This is nicer, um, but it's a little more pricier. Again, what I did, as I said, I went to dollarama, I got me a binder and I put it in. I use these and with it I wrapped it up in a beautiful bow with my, with my um, my farewell and final wishes, where I have all the passwords, where all my documents is, and, and I basically put it in one place where my executor can find it and you need to explain to them where can they find it. Again, if you want to get a copy of my book, you can go on to Amazon and you can grab a copy. If you like what you, if you like what I'm teaching here today, like, subscribe and follow me for more to come. And remember money is money is for you.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Jacqueline Correia

Host