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10 Things To Think About With Burial Instructions
In many cases, burial instructions or funeral wishes are prepared as a way to reduce stress in a family. However, Edwards Group has been involved in situations with families who were in court or threatening to sue over burial wishes. Of course, these are extreme and...
Life Estate Deeds May Not Be Your Best Option
So, what are life estates or life estate deeds? Sometimes, instead of using a trust, people will use a life estate deed to try and protect a house or farmland. This means they deed the land to their kids but reserve the right to still use the house or the farm as long...
3 Proven Essentials That Will Make Your Plan Successful
Every estate plan has three elements that determine whether it succeeds or fails. The ultimate measure of a plan's success is, "Does it do what I want it to do in my absence?" With the following three components in place, your plan is much more likely to succeed. 1....
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Guess What Was on the Front Seat? A Lesson in Security
Elisa, who helps with our newsletters and marketing, saw something interesting recently. I asked her to share it with you. Read on to find out what she saw: Protecting Your Info I was at Jimmy John's in Bloomington a while back, on my way to visit Edwards Group, when...
Bailey’s Office Signs
Bailey loves coming in to the office with me. When she's here, she usually does a little redecorating by making her own signs for the office doors. You can read more about Laura Peffley, our Senior Asset Coordinator, here. And read about Liis Casey, Asset...
Season Tickets and Estate Planning: When Is It Time to Reevaluate?
The email from the University of Illinois said, "We still have not received your payment to renew your 2012-13 Men's Basketball season tickets." But that still didn't change our decision. I always had season tickets during college and most of law school. And after a...
Large Amounts of Cash On Hand Can Spell Trouble
Cash may be king, but keeping large amounts of cash at home is a big estate planning mistake. There's nothing like cold hard cash right? Not where estate planning is concerned. Some people have a tendency to keep large amounts of cash at home. In our experience, this...
Helping Our Kids to Be Prepared Never Ends
"No, I don't want you to take me on my first day. I want to ride the bus!" That wasn't what my daughter said to me last week before going off to Kindergarten. That's what I told my mom when I started Kindergarten back in the 70's. Bailey's question was, "Daddy, what...
How to Prevent a Family Feud
Did you catch Hatfields & McCoys on the History Channel recently? I really enjoyed this great mini-series starring Kevin Costner. (Seeing him shooting and riding a horse again made me think of the movie "Dance With Wolves.") I liked it so much that I bought a book...
Top Five Regrets of the Dying (and other interesting stuff we found around the web…)
You may have noticed that we live and breathe estate planning around here. We're subscribed to many a list on the topic and are constantly attending conferences to brush up and make sure we're at our best for our clients. We also surf the web a lot. Periodically we...
Dave’s Vacation Photos
Every year we go on a trip with my parents and brother's family. We usually make great memories, and this year was no exception with a great trip to Glacier National Park in Montana. Here are a few pics! ...
Missing mail from the Social Security Administration?
If you're like me, you were a little disappointed this year when you didn't get your annual "birthday card" from the Social Security Administration. An annual tradition like that is hard to part with, but they did for those of us who are under the age of 60....
Thank you!
We appreciate your interest in the 5-minute Phone Checkup! Every day counts when you're paying for nursing care. Someone from our office will be in touch soon to help you find missed resources for offsetting the expense of a nursing home. In the meantime, feel free to...