Creating a Legal Will

Saturday, January 29, 2011

This beautiful Saturday morning Aaron and I are just lounging around. Well, he is in the living room playing Rock Band and I am curled up in my bed with some chocolate milk, my laptop, a couple of books from the library, my list of baby needs, and the Today show playing in the background. I love mornings like this. The past couple of days have been simply beautiful here in Asheville and it is getting me excited for spring!

Yesterday morning we had an appointment with our financial advisor and an attorney to talk about and build a legal will. Before we went to the meeting we had to fill out an extensive questionnaire asking us about children, guardianship, health care decisions, assets, etc. Aaron and I had talked about these things in the past when we first met with our financial advisor so we were already on the same page on just about everything. The main reason we are putting together a will this early in life (we keep hearing that we are very young to be putting something like this in place, but think it is a smart decision no matter where you are in life) is because of the little boy that is on his way. We wanted to make sure that a will was in place should something happen to both Aaron and I and so he wouldn't be  completely subjected to a judge to make the decision for us as to who would be his guardian. We also wanted to have a trust in place so our money would go to him and our future children. Even though this is not a cheap document to have, the peace of mind it gives us it worth the money.

The will is a part of our financial foundation we are working to build with our financial advisor. This foundation includes things like:

• Emergency Fund*
• At least 2 months worth of expenses* (we have our two months in place and are working towards building up to four months and eventually six months)
• Life Insurance*
• Disability Insurance*
• Health Insurance*
• Debt reduction (We are diligently working our monthly budget to save as much money as possible to pay off our student loans even faster.)
• Will

*Already in place.

Right before the new year I felt it placed on my heart that we needed to really dig in and know where our money was going each month. Sure, we had a budget in place and knew we were living within our means, but we weren't really watching where we spent the money. So we signed up for Mint.com and I have totally loved using this program. You set budgets, it records your transactions and lets you know if you have gone over budget in a certain area. I LOVE IT! It is a great source of accountability. In a couple of days I will be looking at the amount of money left over for the month of January and we will be sending that money to the student loan we are currently working down. And because it is almost the end of January I will do an update on how we did with our budget this month and how some of our other goals are working out. I feel pretty good about the habits we are building and cannot wait to share some of our successes!