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The typical formula for financial planning is to earn enough income, so you can invest a portion of it with Wall Street in hopes that one day you’ll accumulate enough wealth to retire. The plan is to sock enough money away over 30+ years and pray these investments eventually grow ample enough for you to stop working and live off the interest.

This “accumulation” model is based on Wall Street’s promise: Give us control over your hard-earned money for 30 years, and through the magic of the market and compound interest, one day you’ll retire rich.

At least that’s the plan anyway.

But as we all know, whether its due to market downturns, poor investment strategies, or other unforeseen risks, this promise often falls flat. Plus, it takes all of the control over your future out of your hands. Even worse, the mistaken belief that accumulation is the only way to generate retirement income leaves people blind to the numerous other investment options available.

What if instead of investing your money so that one day you might have enough income at the end of your life, you could generate more income now and know you can rely on it continuing for the rest of your life?

What if instead of giving control of your investments over to Wall Street and bankers, you could retain complete autonomy over your financial reality? And what if all you had to do to achieve these goals is to change your mindset about investing?

This new mindset simply requires you to stop focusing on accumulation and begin focusing on cash flow.

To generate increased cash flow, you could invest in income-generating assets that aren’t tied to the market’s interest rates, but instead to that which you’re connected and control. These kinds of investments can provide you with income in the near term (often on a monthly basis) rather than decades down the road—and it continues for life.

At some point, the cash flow from these assets becomes self-sustaining. When this happens, instead of waiting 30 years to retire from your business, you can retire into your business in 5-10 years or even sooner.

When done well, creating a cash flow model centered around what you truly enjoy, you may not want to retire from your business for a long time, if ever. By focusing on cash flow instead of accumulation, you don’t have to sacrifice your happiness now and wait until your 60s to really live life.

Cash-flow-based investing lets you enjoy life now, with the peace of mind that your financial objectives are already being met.

Just like water stagnates when it’s left to accumulate, so does money. The key to cash-flow investing is to keep your money in motion. Rather than letting it sit in retirement accounts for decades, while your banker and broker uses it to make more cash for themselves, you could leverage your money to generate income for yourself now.

Investing your money in cash-flow-generating assets is absolutely doable, and the exploding popularity of the “side hustle” shows that just about anyone can do it. Best of all, since you’re already a business owner, you know you’re capable because you’ve created at least one successful income stream already.

Some of the most popular of these assets include rental properties, equity investing, and cash-rich small businesses like car washes and coffee shops. Today, however, web technology has created a boom of new opportunities through online crowdfunding, eBay, peer-to-peer lending, Uber, online business, and many others.

And though you may think you should invest in an entirely new business, it’s often easier and more efficient to produce multiple income streams from the business you already own. For example, if your business has a website, there are all kinds of potential revenue sources, from online ads and affiliate marketing to podcasting, e-books, and membership programs.

And no matter what kind of company you run, you can always use your business expertise to make money through consulting, public speaking, book royalties, and franchise opportunities.

With so many investment opportunities to choose from, it’s never been easier to secure your financial future by creating multiple income streams. If you’re ready to shift your investment strategy from accumulation to cash flow, contact us so we can help.

We’ll ensure your current business is as financially sound as possible, so you have ample cash on-hand to fund new ventures. Then we’ll help you find ideal new assets to invest in, and work to ensure that each one generates maximum income with minimal risk.

We can coordinate your legal strategies, tax planning, insurance policies, and financial systems for all of your business assets, so you can keep your money in constant motion and working for you, not Wall Street.

We offer a complete spectrum of legal services for businesses and can help you make the wisest choices on how to deal with your business throughout life and in the event of your death. We also offer a LIFT Start-Up Session™ or a LIFT Audit for an ongoing business, which includes a review of all the legal, financial, and tax systems you need for your business. Call us today to schedule. Or, schedule online.

These days, lots of people consider their pets to be members of their family. Indeed, pets can become our closest companions. As such, it’s only natural you’d want to make sure your furry friend is provided for in your estate plan, so when you die or if you become incapacitated, your beloved companion won’t end up in an animal shelter or worse.

However, unlike your human family members, pets are considered your personal property under the law, so you can’t just name them as a beneficiary in your will or trust. If you do name your pet as a beneficiary in your plan, whatever money you tried to leave to it would go to your residuary beneficiary (the individual who gets everything not specifically left to your other named beneficiaries), who would have no obligation to care for your pet.

Since you can’t name your pet as a beneficiary, your first alternative might be to leave your pet and money for its care in your will to someone you trust to be your pet’s new caregiver. While it’s possible to leave funding for your pet in this manner, it definitely isn’t the best option.

That’s because the person you name as beneficiary (the new caregiver) in your will would have no legal obligation to use the funds properly, even if you leave them detailed instructions for your pet’s care. In fact, your pet’s new owner could legally keep all of the money for themselves and drop off your beloved friend at the local shelter.

You’d like to think that you could trust someone to take care of your pet if you leave him or her money in your will to do so. Yet it’s simply impossible to predict what circumstances might arise in the future that could make adopting your pet impossible.

For example, when you die, the new caregiver might be living in an apartment or condo that doesn’t allow pets, or the individual could be suffering from an unforeseen illness that leaves them no longer able to care for the animal. Or, when faced with the reality of the situation, the person could simply change his or her mind about wanting to look after your pet for the rest of its life.

Additionally, a will is required to go through the court process, which can last for months or even years, leaving your pet in limbo until is finalized. Not to mention, a will only goes into effect upon your death, so if you’re incapacitated by accident or illness, it would do nothing to protect your companion.

In order to be completely confident that your pet is properly taken care of and the money you leave for its care is used exactly as intended, ask us to help you create a pet trust.

By creating a pet trust, you can lay out detailed, legally binding rules for how your pet’s chosen caregiver can use the funds in the trust. And unlike a will, a pet trust does not go through, so it goes into effect immediately and works in cases of both your incapacity and death.

What’s more, a pet trust allows you to name a trustee, who is legally bound to manage the trust’s funds and ensure your wishes for the animal’s care are carried out in the manner the trust spells out. And to provide a system of checks and balances to ensure your pet’s care, you might want to name someone other than the person you name as caregiver as trustee.

In this way, you’d have two people invested in the care of your pet and seeing that the money you leave for its care is used wisely.

To ensure your pet trust is properly created and contains all of the necessary elements, meet with us. With our guidance and support, you’ll have peace of mind knowing that your beloved pet will receive the kind of love and care it deserves when you’re no longer around to offer it.

Proper estate planning can keep your family out of conflict, out of court, and out of the public eye. If you’re ready to create a comprehensive estate plan, contact us to schedule your Family Wealth Planning Session. Even if you already have a plan in place, we will review it and help you bring it up to date to avoid heartache for your family. Schedule online today.

With people living longer than ever before, more and more seniors require long-term healthcare services in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. However, such care is extremely expensive, especially when it’s needed for extended periods of time.

Traditional healthcare insurance doesn’t cover such services, and though Medicare does pay for some long-term care, it’s quite limited, difficult to qualify for, and requires you to deplete nearly all of our assets before being eligible (or do proactive planning to shield your assets, which we can support you with). To address this gap in coverage, long-term care insurance was created.

Intensive Care

First introduced as “nursing home insurance” in the 1980s, long-term care insurance is designed to cover expenses associated with long-term skilled nursing services delivered in a nursing home, assisted living facility, or other senior care setting, though some of today’s policies cover care delivered in your own home as well.

Such intensive care is required when you are no longer able to care for yourself, often at the end of your life. These policies cover the cost of skilled nursing services that support you with basic self-care tasks, such as bathing, feeding, and using the bathroom.

These are known as activities of daily living (ADLs) and generally include:

• Ambulating (walking or getting around)
• Feeding
• Bathing
• Dressing and grooming
• Using the toilet
• Continence management
• Getting in and out of bed or a chair

Before your coverage kicks in, most policies require that you demonstrate you have lost the ability to engage in at least two or three ADLs. Most policies also have a deductible, or elimination period, which is a set number of days that must elapse between the time you become disabled (eligible for benefits) and the time your coverage kicks in.

Many policies offer a 90-day elimination period, but others can be longer, shorter, or even have no elimination period at all. Of course, the shorter the elimination period, the more expensive the premium.

Additionally, long-term care policies typically come with a predetermined benefit period, which is the number of years of care it will pay for. A benefit period of three to five years, for example, is a quite common duration for such policies. Most policies also come with a cap on the dollar amount of coverage that will be paid for care on a daily basis, known as a daily benefit amount.

Getting Covered

Obviously, the younger and healthier you are when you buy the policy, the cheaper the premiums will be, so the sooner you invest in coverage, the better. In fact, most policies exclude certain pre-existing conditions, so if you wait until you become ill, it can be impossible to find coverage.

For example, if you have any of the following conditions, it generally disqualifies you from obtaining coverage:

• You already need help with ADLs
• You have AIDS or AIDS-Related Complex (ARC)
• You have Alzheimer’s Disease or any form of dementia or cognitive dysfunction
• You have a neurological disease, such as multiple sclerosis or Parkinson’s Disease
• You had a stroke within the past year to two years or have a history of strokes
• You have metastatic cancer
• You have kidney failure

Increasing Premiums, Decreasing Benefits

With the elderly population booming, there has been a surge in demand for long-term care services, which has led to a marked increase in the cost of such policies. At the same time, many insurers have been cutting back on the benefits their policies offer.

Given this, other types of hybrid policies are springing up. One increasingly popular type of hybrid policy combines long-term care insurance with life insurance. With this type of policy, if you don’t use the long-term care benefits, the policy pays a death benefit to your family when you pass away.

If you are looking to purchase long-term care insurance, you should speak with multiple insurance providers and compare their benefits, care options, and premiums. Different companies may offer the same coverage and benefits, but they can vary dramatically in price. Always ask about the insurance company’s history of rate increases, including the amount of the most recent increase.

Choose Wisely

For the best chances of success when shopping for a policy, get help from a fee-only planner, who is not compensated based on your choice of coverage. Or, if you are working with a commissioned agent, meet with a lawyer like us with experience in elder law, who can review the policy terms to ensure it’s a good fit for you before you sign on the dotted line.

When meeting with an insurance provider, you must get answers to following three questions about your policy:

1. How long is the elimination period before the policy begins paying benefits?
2. What capacities, or ADLs, must you lose before coverage kicks in?
3. How many years of care are covered?

Buying long-term care insurance should be a family affair, because you are going to need your family members to advocate for you and file a claim for the policy when you need to use it. Given this, make sure your family knows what kind of policy you have, who your agent is, and how to make a claim.

What’s more, you should pre-authorize the right person to speak to the insurance company on your behalf, and not just rely on a power of attorney. That said, you should definitely have a well-drafted, updated, and regularly reviewed power of attorney on file as well.

Keep Your Policy Updated

Once you are in your 40s, your long-term care policy should be reviewed annually to evaluate new insurance products on the market and update your policy based on your changing needs. Whatever you do, once you have a policy in place, make sure you don’t miss a premium payment, because if you stop paying, even for a short period of time, you’ll lose all of the money you invested and will have no access to the benefits when you need them.

Reach out to us, as your Personal Family Lawyer®, for support in finding the right long-term care policy for your particular situation. Long-term care insurance, along with life insurance, are key components in your estate plan. When combined with the right estate planning vehicles, you can rest assured your family will be protected and provided for no matter what happens to you. Contact us today to learn more.

Proper estate planning can keep your family out of conflict, out of court, and out of the public eye. If you’re ready to create a comprehensive estate plan, contact us to schedule your Family Wealth Planning Session. Even if you already have a plan in place, we will review it and help you bring it up to date to avoid heartache for your family. Schedule online today.

A celebrity’s image and likeness can continue to produce considerable income after death. This type of intellectual property is considered part of your estate, and the IRS can tax its value. In the case of pop star Michael Jackson’s estate, that recently meant an IRS bill to the tune of $64.5 million, years after his death, which is about 40% of his likeness’ valuation of $161 million. We can all learn tax lessons from celebrity estate plans.

Michael Jackson’s estate planning fail could certainly have been avoided by using one of these estate-planning strategies that minimize the taxable value of a person’s image and likeness.

Robin Williams made a charitable bequest of his image and likeness to a foundation. It was set up in his name, allowing his estate to get a charitable deduction against the estate tax.

Williams also established a 25-year time ban to prevent any future exploitation of his image. A time restriction lowers the value of a celebrity’s name and likeness because the value is typically lower at the end of the ban than at the date of death.

Some states don’t recognize inheritable postmortem rights to likeness. This means the estate can’t profit from it. Consider your state’s laws when estate planning so you can benefit from any available tax breaks.