the Price of Estate Planning Services

At the beginning of the year, my husband and I paid $500 for estate planning. This included an initial meeting with our lawyer outlining our assets and liabilities, our desires for our kids, setting up trusts for them, designating power of attorney in case of something happening, etc. It also included his drafting copies of our will, meeting with us to go over everything, making the changes we wantes, and drafting the final will and filing it for us.

Our lawyer was great, and amazingly helpful with our estate planning. We are relatively young, but decided that it was time for us to draft wills in case something happened to one or both of us. We have three young kids, so they were our primary concern and motivator for going to see the estate planning lawyer. He listened to everything we had to say and gave some amazing advice. He also brought up options and other facets of estate planning such as setting up trusts for our kids that we had not previously thought of. He was so thorough and took his time talking things through with us and explaining those parts of the process that we did not understand. He created a draft of all the documents and then we had another meeting to go over everything. Then he drafted the final copy for us incorporating our desired changes, arranged the notary for us to sign them and filed the documents for us. He even, with our okay, of course, sent copies to the executor of our wills and the named guardian of our kids for their reference. He absolutely thought of everything for us.

Educate yourself on issues before going in to see an estate planner so you know what questions to ask and have an idea of what you want and need. Don't be afraid to ask questions because this is one of the most important things you will do to secure your spouse's and/or kids' futures.