Why Rich People Go Broke
August 19, 2009 by Erik Folgate
Filed under Insurance, Investing, Spending and Saving
I was reading Sports Illustrated, and I came across this statistic:
78% of former NFL players go bankrupt or are under major money stress due to joblessness within 2 years after retirement. 60% of NBA players are broke within 5 years after retirement.
Does that surprise you? It didn’t surprise me that a lot professional athletes end up squandering their wealth after they retire, but this number really caught my attention. How can it be that almost 4 out of 5 NFL players bo bankrupt? I think there are several reasons for this:
Are You Financially Preparing to Live to be 100 years old?
May 23, 2007 by Erik Folgate
Filed under Investing, Planning, Spending and Saving
Check out this article about preparing for retirement assuming you’ll live to be 100 years old.
This is not a far-fetched idea. There’s no doubt that a positive correlation between technological advances and increasing life spans exists. The article describes how 20 to 40 year olds should plan on living a long life of retirement and planning to pursue multiple careers, because we’ll be awfully bored if we retire at 65 and live another 35 years!
Estate Planning 101: Taught by Anna Nicole Smith
April 28, 2007 by Erik Folgate
Filed under Planning
Whether you liked it or not, the media force fed us every minute of the details of Anna Nicole Smith’s death, custody battle, and estate planning nightmare. One of the biggest mistakes that Smith made when writing her will in 2001 was she put a clause that no future children would be a part of the will. Her intentions were good at the time. She wanted her son, Daniel, to take full control of her estate upon her death. However, when he died, the will lapsed and state intestacy took over and made Danielynn the sole heir of the estate. Had Daniel not died, Danielynn would have been out in the cold in terms of her estate. Although, she probably would have changed the provision eventually.
Do You Need A Will?
February 22, 2007 by Erik Folgate
Filed under Planning, Random
The answer to that is probably, YES! Generally, if you are worth over $10,000 in assets and cash then you need a will. A will takes all of the guesswork out of what you really want your assets to do when you part this life. And let’s be honest, do you really want some over-worked judge figuring out how to divide up your stuff? I will try to answer some common questions based on my limited knowledge about wills. My suggestion is that you use an attorney that specializes in estate planning to help you draft your will. You don’t need an attorney to write a will and notarize it, but this is something that you want to do right, and they can help you consider the tax ramifications.
