Embrace A Low-Tech Foundation For Your Estate Plan
By Melinda Gustafson Gervasi
February 7, 2025
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| Geroges -- everyone paid attention! |
“Rome is a lasagna,” said Georges, our tour guide for Palatine Hill, the Forum, and The Colosseum, “we have built layer upon layer.” Spry and a fountain of information on Roman history, Georges filled my brain not only with basic facts about Rome, but he planted a seed in my mind to reinforce the importance of a quality foundation in my verbal and written work as an estate planning and probate attorney.
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| Roman Holiday |
For just about twenty years I have spent my working days counseling on the ins and outs of estate planning and probate. As a result of my work in this often gloomy area of life, I know that tomorrow is never guaranteed. Rather than wait until my retirement years to travel, I work travel in whenever our schedules and budgets allow. That is why this past December, Santa pulled out the passports and delivered my family a Roman Experience as a holiday gift.
As we toured the modern capital city, its lengthy history was constantly visible. The sun soaked structures upon which Rome was built reinforced the power of a solid foundation. Foundation – the word means the underlying structure or backbone of a building or enterprise. It provides essential support, allowing for stability and longevity. For those interested in building a solid and sound estate plan, start with your fundamentals. Specifically, review what foundation do you have in place for your estate plan. Can it be built on overtime?
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| Roman Foundations, the Lasagna Style of Building |
In addition to my wanderlust, I am also a luddite. My interest in travel fits well with my spouse’s travel habits, but my resistance to technology leaves him baffled. In his defense, he is an electrical engineer who spends his working days designing the green printed circuit boards in medical devices (and other electronics). He loves the digital world, while I am a bit more skeptical. That is why our estate plan is built off of a 3-ring binder rather than a digital application.
My resistance to digital estate planning approaches is how quickly they become obsolete. If I were to attempt to access files from my undergraduate days at UW-Madison I would hit a brick wall. Back in the early 1990s everything was stored on floppy disks. I cannot just open those up. Yet, I can easily flip through writings from my middle school and high school years because they were on paper and stored in a trapper-keeper. And, not only can I just flip that trapper keeper open, so can my kids. Ease of access is my primary draw to using a tangible system upon which to create an estate plan.
Examples of low-tech, easy to access, and affordable foundations for your estate plan include:
- three-ring binder;
- drawer in a filing cabinet;
- portable plastic storage box; and
- small home safe
Thank you for reading. Please remember that a blog is not legal advice; it is intended to spark thought and reflection. It is always best to seek legal advice from an attorney licensed in your state to address your own unique situation. If you found this post helpful, consider sharing it on your favorite social media platform. And never miss a post; become a “follower” of this blog by entering your email in the prompt above (upper right). Again, thanks for reading and be well.
