Don’t Wait Until You Have An “Estate” To Plan - Expert Edition Episode 7
Portia Wood, Esq our Estate Planning expert joins us to discuss why estate planning is important for every adult. Learn the three aspects of estate plans that are a must. Understand the difference in using AI generated estate plans versus working with an estate planning attorney.
Estate planning is an important step in making sure that your wishes for the future are clearly put in writing. That way, your wishes will be followed no matter what happens. You also want to make sure that your beneficiaries are informed and that they understand how to access your assets after you pass away.
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About Our Expert:
Portia works tirelessly to help people protect their assets and provide for the transfer of resources and values to their families. She helps clients avoid probate, save on taxes, protect their hard-earned savings and preserve wealth at the generational transfer. She concentrates in the areas of Legacy Wealth Planning and asset protection planning.
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TRANSCRIPT:
[00:00:00] Naseema: What's up? What's up? What's up Financially? Intentional crew. Super excited to be able to bring my very own estate planning attorney, Porsche Woods here to join us, our estate planning expert on the podcast. Hey Portia.
[00:00:17] Portia: Hey girl. Hey, . So excited to be here with you on Financially Intentional. This is such a needed platform and you do such a great job.
Delivering and this information to the community. So I'm so excited to be able to partner and share with you today.
[00:00:37] Naseema: Yay. I'm, I'm excited because I know you bring the gyms and in a way people don't expect, like they think about a state planet or it's like, oh my God, all this legalese is like stuff I don't understand.
But the way you break it down and make. So relevant and so important. And so I want, you know, you to share kind of just your story or not your story, actually just what people need like and why people need it. And I think we're gonna go through like the basics of what everybody over 18 needs to have as far as.
Their estate planning, like, and then we'll, we'll dive into like why those things are so important, why they're important for women, why they're important for people with kids, all of those things. But we're just gonna flow and talk like we usually do because inevitably you're always gonna drop a lot of
[00:01:25] Portia: knowledge.
Oh my gosh. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate that. You know, oftentimes people do think about estate planning and they. Instantly either eliminate themselves from the conversation, right? They go, I don't have it in estate, so I don't need a plan. Not realizing that they themselves are the estate, right?
They're physical personhood themselves. They are their estate and everything else. Anything that they built, anything that they own, their kids, all of it that is all their estate. Also, people hear estate planning and they think you gotta be. Like I, I'm, I'm supposed to be old when I do this, and the reality is it's no, you're supposed to be at minimum 18 or an emancipated minor inside of our society.
If you are an emancipated minor or you're 18 years old or older. You need an estate plan. The difference is we don't all need the same estate plan, right? There are estate plans for people who are single and have no assets. Maybe your, your kid is going off to college who needs some of just the basics.
The bare minimum, there are estate plans for people who have just gotten married, people who've bought a home, who have a bank account, who have a retirement account who have houses, who have businesses. I mean, they just keep going depending on what your individual needs are. So one of the things I like to tell people is that no matter what, if you're over the age of 18, there are three basic components that should be inside of your estate plan.
And if you don't have them, you're essentially leaving your family and everything you've worked for up to chance. That being, that being said, if you walk outside your door one day and you don't have these three things, your family can come get into, have to go through a court process. They might have to ask a judge for permission to take care of you.
They might have to ask a judge for permission to pass your assets, et cetera, et cetera. So, , what are those three things? Right? One, it is gonna be your property power of attorney. This is a legal directive that actually allows someone to step up and take care of you in the event you are unable to do so for yourself.
So that may look like you were in a car accident for many college students. It can, you know, when we see this show up, it can look like a hazing incident or a car accident or something that's happened at the school where this student. 18 year old or above can't take care of themselves. And if we don't pick, then we leave it up to a court to pick on our behalf.
And that means a judge gets to decide who can legally access our bank accounts, our school records take care of us, make decisions about us, et cetera. Number two is gonna be your medical directives. Who gets to make long-term medical decisions for you? People Auto, always. Always. And this, I'm sure you see this in your, in your job, right?
Always assume, oh, I'm their spouse, so automatically I'm the one who gets to do this. No , no, that is not how that works. Or parents will walk in and go, but that's my baby. And I, they haven't been, you know, they are your baby in love, but not in law. Under the law, they are adults and if they didn't pick, then the judge has to pick.
Someone from that group of people to decide who is gonna be the one that can make those kinds of decisions. Those first two things that I've mentioned have nothing to do with how much money someone has. It has everything to do with autonomy and with how you want to be treated in a time when you can't make decisions for yourself.
That could be temporarily. You might have a temporary breakdown, or it might be more permanent. Something like dementia, something like a coma, something, something where you're not coming back from that, right? Those are the first two things. The third piece is your distribution plan, and the distribution plan is where you see variety.
The distribution plan is gonna be based on, again, three things. Your family structure, your asset levels. And your goals, what you are ultimately trying to achieve with everything that you've worked for. And that might say that your trust, your your estate plan is gonna include a trust or a multi-generational trust, or a trust in LLCs and business structures and family limited partnerships, et cetera, et cetera.
Your estate plan is really going to be tailored to who you. That's where you see the diversity come in. The first two, they're the same for everyone. As soon as you are a legal adult in this society, you need those things. So that's the baseline that pretty much everybody needs because nobody has a default.
And so we gotta, we gotta start making sure that people realize that it is for.
[00:06:23] Naseema: Yeah, and I think people don't understand that. And yes, it does drive me crazy because of course I admit patience in labor and delivery, and every day I ask at least 20 people, do you have an advanced directive? First of all, most people don't know what that is.
Second of all, they're just like, no, my husband is with me. But what if your mom walked up? . You know, like people don't like understand that. And then another thing people don't understand is, you know, they're coming to labor and delivery to have a baby. So of course they're healthy, they're young. What is gonna happen to me?
I mean, and can't my husband make these decisions? Well, sometimes your husband can't make the decision between saving your life and a baby's life. And so you have to consider those things. And most people don't. I've been a labor and delivery nurse for 13 years. And in that time I've seen about five people with advanced directives.
One was an estate planning attorney and the rest of 'em were Jehovah's Witnesses because they don't get blood. Mm-hmm. and blood products. And so they, they have a little card that they carry in their wallet that says, You know, these are the people that can make decisions for me and these are the things that I won't accept.
This is what I will accept. Mm-hmm. . And so they come to the hospital prepared. But other than that, most people are clueless. And so I think like people need to understand once you are of legal age, these should be the minimum things you should be considering. And yes, people think estate planning is for old people, and no, you need to establish.
As an adult, this should be adult planning ,
[00:08:01] Portia: you know, and the thing that's so complicated for me, right, because it is adult planning, it is how to legally adult in society, how to take care of yourself, how to take care of your family. We don't teach anybody this. You know, we, we came up with a webinar estate planning with minor kids because when I was pregnant, I went through all the classes, right?
The CPR classes, how to not kill the infant, how to do all this stuff, how to not die, how to check yourself. Like all the things right, that people teach you about caring for an infant and not a single one of those classes was on the legal elements of protecting your. , none of them. Not an advanced directive class, not a, how to put together an estate plan, not a life insurance class.
Nothing about how to legally or financially protect this child. It was, you know, let me scare you so you never sleep again. Cause I'm gonna tell you about sids or like, you know, you're just like, wait. . Wait, you mean that babies just stop breathing cuz they forget to breathe? Mm-hmm. , thank you for for telling me that I will never sleep again.
Exactly. Because I'm like watching this child like a hawk. But you don't gimme any information about how to care for this child or how to set up guardians or what I should be looking for in guardians. So for us, we set up a webinar because nobody was teaching us how to adult. Nobody was teaching us how to.
And parent. And so, you know, a big part of what of what we've been doing has been education and information and asima. You've got young kids too, right? Yes. So when we're thinking about guardianship planning, what were some of the big considerations that came up for you about guardianship?
[00:09:39] Naseema: I mean, first of all,
I mean, the reason why I even started my platform was because I realized that if something were to happen to me as a single mom, I don't know who would take care of my baby. Mm-hmm. and I didn't have the financial means I felt to protect her. Mm-hmm. and so it was like just thinking around like what financially.
Help her if something were to happen to me. So I thought about that at a financial level, but it wasn't until I really started thinking about, wait, wait, somebody has to like physically take care of her, right? And who would I want to take care of her? Is it going to be her father who's probably not the best person and that you know, or do I wanna leave that decision up to someone?
And no, I didn't want that decision to be left up to someone else because there's no one who knows the intricacies of my life like me. Exactly. And so I really had to sit down and say, . Okay. If I'm really protecting my daughter, what does that look like? And for me, it was gonna be her being with my best friend who is, who was not a blood relative, who would not be someone.
Someone was like, oh yeah, she would go with her. No. And then having that conversation. Yeah. And then financially, who is gonna be responsible enough to make sure. That she has the assets in place and it's not gonna be the same person. And so I'm like, then my sister, then my sister needs to be able to do that, right?
And or, and then the backup, one of my other best friends is gonna be able to do that. And so just like thinking through that. is like, was like one of the most empowering things that I had to do, and that's just not about getting my finances in order. It's really about understanding that if something were to happen to me, which, you know, things happen all the time.
If something were to happen to me, like I really have to be intentional in that aspect with what 100%, what is going to happen
[00:11:40] Portia: with my. 100%. And the thing that people fail to realize all the time as parents, right? It's our job. Our kids cannot do it for them, particularly our babies, right? They cannot make these decisions for themselves.
They can't walk in and say, oh, you know, mom, I think this person's gonna be the right one to manage my finances. Or I can, I can balance my portfolio myself. No, they cannot do those. We have to be incredibly specific and so when we have minor children, there are even more considerations than than the standard person doing estate planning.
One, we need temporary guardianship or emergency guardianship. Who takes our kids in the event of an emergency who is legally able to keep them if we go on vacation, right? People often think, oh, I dropped my kids off at my parents' house and my. Obviously now have have legal right to keep them. That's not true.
That is just not true. Your parents have the legal right to keep them if they have assigned a notarized directive from the parents or guardians or a court order. Absent that, they have no legal right to hold onto your children, right? So in the event of an emergency or something happening to you, if you haven't given them a signed and notarized directive, then in theory the state can come.
and take your kids and put them into an emergency shelter or a tender heart shelter. Because they, nobody has legal authority, right? And so in the event of an emergency, you need temporary guardianship. Who can legally have my kids second. You need permanent guardianship. If, god forbid, I'm not coming home.
Because of something, right? Car accident, whatever. And I am no longer here, who is going to raise my kids to adulthood? Who's gonna be legally responsible for them? So those first two pieces are about protecting our children's wellbeing. The third piece is gonna be who manages their money? Right. Who's in charge of making sure that the money's still there, making investment decisions for them, providing them with the economic guidance, deciding where they go to school, whether there's enough money for them to go to school.
All of those pieces need to be outlined in the plan, because otherwise, the default is whoever the court name's guardian is going to be the one who manages their money. And for a lot of families, that means that the person you absolutely do not want managing your children. Is gonna come outta the woodwork because your children have dollar signs on their foreheads because they know if they take in your child, they get whatever money you've left behind.
basically unrestricted, and your children can end up at 18 with nothing left. You don't think that that's not true. See the stories, right? There are horror stories that you can go back to about people who are completely broke because somebody else was in charge of their money and spent it all right, so that's three.
Then four is making sure there's actually enough resource. For your child. Mm-hmm. . And some of that is investing, but we, we are in the accumulation phase, right? So we typically don't yet have enough in our coffers to support our children without us working. And so if we were to pass away, we need to leverage that with something else.
And leveraging that with something else typically looks like having some form of life. Now, not just any form of life insurance. We need the right amount of life insurance for our economic replacement to our households. We have minor kids. If they're three, we gotta get them at least to 18. That's 15 years.
If we wanna try to support them through college. We're looking at 20 years right of of income replacement that we need to have. If we have more than one kid, then we need probably 25. You know, you need to have enough. Life insurance to replace your income. And most people come into my office and they go, Porsche, I've got life insurance.
I am adulting. I got life insurance. How much life insurance do you think they have in this sema? How much labor insurance?
[00:15:52] Naseema: $50,000 maybe. Maybe 50,000. Typically,
[00:15:56] Portia: they come to me and they go, I have life insurance through my job.
[00:15:59] Naseema: Oh yeah. I'm like, that is on
[00:16:01] Portia: average, one to two years of salary. And I would say, and it's great that you have something, but that is not adulting.
Adulting is not just, I accepted this benefit from my job. Now I'm.
[00:16:13] Naseema: What, and then if you leave the job, you get fired and you go somewhere else. You lost the life. I, insurance, insurance, it's gone. Most
[00:16:20] Portia: of these policies are
[00:16:21] Naseema: group policies. They don't follow you around.
[00:16:23] Portia: It's not your, you don't even own it.
The company owns it. So, so at the end of the day, right, people get these they get these policies from work and they think. I'm covered. And the reality is they're not. If you have a three year old and you only have two years of salary, what happens when your child is five? That money is gone because it's about the money that you would've made if you were still working.
For two years. How do you pay the mortgage? How do you pay or the rent, or how do you pay for school? How do you pay for food? What happens to the fact that there used to be two parents and now there's only one? So now you've gotta pay for childcare. In addition to right now, you've gotta pay for someone who's gonna come and help drive or lean on your community.
All of these pieces require economic, And that two years of salary is insufficient. So what I always, what I often talk to people about is to say, take whatever you make in a year, or if you're a creator or someone who has a varying salary in terms of what you make, take the average of what you've made in the last two or three years and multiply that by 20.
That's approximately how much life insurance you need to re replace your economic value to your house. , right? So if you make a hundred thousand dollars a year, you're looking at about 2 million of I. I mean, it's just math, right? like, and, and people always get so caught up in it. So it's, there's four things.
You need an emergency guardianship forum for your minor kids. You need permanent guardianship, which is located in your will. You need a plan for who manages your child's economics, and that's gonna be your trust and your successor trustee. And then the fourth thing is you need to make sure there's economics in there to take care of.
And that's gonna be your life insurance. And so when we think about young people and adulting and what adulting looks like, those four basic things, if you have minor kids, if you don't have them, you're leaving your child in the court's hands. Period. Because if something happens to you, the court now is responsible for picking who raises your kids, picking who manages their money, checking in, taking fees, all kinds of things that eats away at what you've been able to accumulate and takes it away from your child.
[00:18:35] Naseema: But let's talk about not only are they making the decisions for you, but how expensive is that process? Oh girl, .
[00:18:44] Portia: Oh girl. It is expensive. Let's be clear. So, you know, in it, in it varies state by state. So probate and orphans court differ by state. If we talk about here in California probate court is set by statute based on the gross value of your estate.
So if you say, my estate's a a million dollars gross, it doesn't matter how much debt I have, but it's a million dollars gross. But maybe you have $900,000 in. You really only have a hundred thousand dollars in equity, right? Million gross, 900 debt, a hundred equity. Well, the probate court for personal representative fees and attorney's fees by statute is about $46,000.
That's almost half of the equity that would be available for your family. That doesn't include court fees. It doesn't include Probate referee fees. It doesn't include if anybody starts fighting, it doesn't include any of that. And there's a reason why states often end up insolvent particularly
For the average American family, I mean, 2 billion is lost annually in the probate process here. In the United States, probate is a hundred percent avoidable. So when we think about the economic cost of what is lost to families by going through this process, it can be everything.
Now that's just probate If a parent dies without in estate plan or just with a will, , the guardianship part will last until your children say, children are 18. So now they're coming back to court every single year, checking in to make sure that the people that they placed your children with are doing a good job.
They're spending their money decently for the benefit of the child. And that costs money every single year. And so where does that money come? , it comes from whatever you've been able to create and save, or the life insurance or the retirement accounts or whatever it is that you've been able to save.
It comes from you. And if you haven't planned for that to avoid those extraneous fees, then there may not be anything left for for your children to be, to thrive. Right? Or even just basic survival.
[00:20:53] Naseema: It's sad. It's really sad because, you know, the majority of the population do not have these things in place for their kids.
And so where, where can people get started when it comes to getting there and stay planned in order?
[00:21:09] Portia: Yeah, I mean, we realize that there are a lot of questions that people have, so, mm-hmm. on our website, wood legal group.com. We have a free resource library that helps to outline some of these pieces, helps people to understand what they need in our estate planning with minor children Webinar, we actually give away the temporary guardianship forms to all the attendees.
So that people at least walk away with the forms. Obviously they still have to get them executed, obviously, you know, to make them effective. But we give them the forms because no child should have to end up in an emergency shelter or in CPS p s custody because a parent didn't sign and notarize a document.
What if you ask any. , any parent if they said, if you told them, Hey, you can sign this document, or your child's gonna go to CPS custody, what do you think They're gonna pick
[00:22:01] Naseema: the form. But people just don't know what they dunno. Right. Exactly.
[00:22:06] Portia: And that's the piece. People don't know what they don't know.
Right. Which is why your, your podcast is so important. You know, and being on this podcast, thank you again for having me, is so important because what you are doing is educating your. And being able to, to also do it on TikTok means we're educating more people as, as we go along with this information.
There's, it's not easy and it's not anywhere, right? , if you, if you go on any parenting website, they're not talking to you about, you know, all the different forms of guardianship. They just say you need guardianship, and then they expect you to go figure it out, right? And people are like, Deer in the headlights.
I don't know what this is. So on our website, wood legal group.com, there is a resource library. So if you go to the dropdown menu, it's right towards the bottom. It says Access Resource Library. It's a hundred percent free, so you can go in there and look at the information. We also have webinars, will's, trust, and Generational Wealth, which is general Estate Planning information, and then one specifically tailored for parents of minor children.
which is estate planning with minor children. They are both coming up in the early parts of February, so anybody who's interested in joining them, you can log into them. We do give those temporary guardianship forms out so that parents can have them.
[00:23:25] Naseema: Yeah, I think they're, and I get the newsletters. They are so in like they're packed with so much information and it's just stuff that.
Like we weren't taught this, so how do you expect to know it? You have to learn it and you have to go out and seek this information, but the fact that you have so much free information on your website is great. But then I know there, there are people out there are just like, well, you know, we're in, you know, 2023 and we could probably just figure it out on our own.
Or you know, there's these services now that will create your estate plans for you. Why do we even need to go to an estate planning?
[00:24:03] Portia: Yeah, good, good question, right? Why do you need to go through an estate planning attorney? First of all, those systems do not operate under the uniqueness of you. Those systems operate under the general consensus, right? I can come on TikTok, or I can come on your podcast and I can give you a general idea of an estate plan.
I can tell you what's gonna avoid court. I can tell you this, but it's not gonna protect your estate or your. And your family is different than my family, which is different than the next person's family, which is different than your family and your family, right? And because of that, those nuances, those specifics, those strategies, they can't be encompassed in those ais.
And what we find is that people know just enough to be incredibly dangerous to themselves. The majority of people that I talk to are like, I just need a will. And I'm like, great, let's talk about a will. Why do you think you need a will? And they go, well, you know, I wanna say who gets my stuff. Excellent.
That's great. What kind of stuff do you have? Oh, well, I have a house. Okay. Well, a will goes to probate court if you have a house. Oh, well I don't wanna go to probate. Right. So you don't need a will. Well, what do I need? I need a trust. Just in that conversation, I've saved them at least $46,000. Let's keep going, right?
like in that one conversation, I've saved you, you know, almost 50 k. Now, let's talk about it. You've got three kids in one house. What are they gonna do? Oh, they're just gonna sell it. Well, how does that let that asset continue to be leveraged in their family? How does that let them sell it? Help them? Build their portfolios.
It doesn't, cause if they sell it, they get a third of what it is, right? Because our scenario, we've got three kids, but not only that, they've had to pay cap gains on it, right? Potentially other taxes potentially for those sales. And they've divided it, plus they've set a new comp for that neighborhood.
Whatever they sold it for. They can't take their third and typically buy back into the neighborhood. They just. They definitely can't at the property tax rate they were at. So why would selling it be the right idea? Maybe what we need to do is actually strategize what your goal is so that we can figure out how to u leverage that asset to create more assets.
Because if your goal is I want them all to be able to have their own homes, then maybe instead of selling it, what we say is okay, they can't live. Nobody can live there. Let's take the emotion out of this idea of the family home and say nobody can live there. Now let's say we're gonna put a tenant in there, they can't sell it.
We're gonna put a tenant in there. They can leverage it. You can take $200,000 out, let's say 300,000 just for easy math. You can take $300,000 out. A tenant's gonna pay back that mortgage, right? The kids are each gonna get their own hundred thousand dollars. To put on another property. I always recommend the multiplex, but to put on another property, et cetera.
Right? and the tenants paying back that money. Also, it was tax free to them because it's a loan, and so they got a full hundred thousand dollars each. Unimpacted by taxes because it's a loan, but they don't have to pay back that loan because the tenant who's renting that house they inherited is paying off that loan.
And they took that hundred thousand dollars and went and used it as a down payment on a fourplex. So now they may be living in one unit and the other three units are paying the mortgage sad. They live for free. Well guess what else they can do with. Especially if they did fha. A year later they can go buy another fourplex and a year later they can go buy whatever house they want because they have assets that are paying their lifestyle.
Mm-hmm. that one house, that one house, properly structured and leveraged with the appropriate ideas for how you can leverage that and prepare and plan for it. Had the ability to just create multiple units for each one of those kids. Yeah. And we, and we did that in five seconds. Your Exactly. your, your online sites can't do that for you.
They, they cannot sit down and talk through the specifics of, of your family structure. They just can't. And, you know, let's not even add in people who are receiving special, you know, who are special needs or require a supplemental needs trust because that's different. Let's not even talk about, you know, Particularly in black and brown communities, that there are so many beneficiaries who have had contact with the carceral system.
And so there are issues of restitution, perhaps back child support, other things that have come up that will impact their parents' ability to pass them wealth. And because people don't know what they don't know, they often come in and go, well, I don't want this to be ruined for my other kids, so just exclude them.
And I go, you don't have to exclude them. There is a plan for that. There's a way to plan around these different issues if that's what you wanna do. Does it? Does it take a little bit more on the front end? Of course. But the reverberating impact of that throughout generations is transformational. Yeah. So, you know, we think about estate planning and I promise, see this is what happens when you give a lawyer and a former litigator a mic.
We just go on and on and on. But you know, when we think about estate planning, it's not just what happens with all of our stuff after we're gone. The big goal, right, is how do we want the people that we love? To live and to thrive. That, that's really the question. And so when you're thinking about it from that perspective, it is incredibly personal to you, to your family, to the people that you, you, you want to support, and the goals that you have for how you want, you know, the seeds that you plant today to be enjoyed by generations beyond you people you've never.
And that's really the question of, of what a good comprehensive estate plan looks like. So, yeah, it's you can't capture that in an ai.
[00:30:33] Naseema: No, you can't. You can't, you can't capture the intricacies. And I've, I have done both and I know that it was the process that I went through, like trying to do it on my own through AI software versus when I sat down with Porsche, because there's so many things, I mean, Three baby daddies, you know, like
You know, it's so many things to consider, like where my kids are gonna go, how they're gonna get funded, how my money is gonna be distributed, how they're gonna use their, even their own money. Like all those kind of things need to be factored in. And she just walked you through like one of those considerations, like what do you do with the house, but then what do you do about education?
What do you do? How life insurance is gonna be allocated. What do you do about future plan planning for their kids? There's so many questions that these things cannot walk you through, and they just don't take into into consideration because they cannot factor that stuff in. And then culturally, there's things that, you know, first of all, Even soap, decen, inserters can't even pick up our skin tone, you know,
So like, how can we expect these computer systems to understand the intricacies of the things that, you know, we face intergenerationally that can affect our wealth. So yes, I love the answer to that question because a lot of people do not think about that, but now everybody wants to work with you and so they wanna know.
Again, how can they get in contact with you? Where are you at? I know you show up on live all the time. You're always, always giving away information. But people, everybody wants to know because they, everybody wants to be in contact with you now, Porsche, cuz you're the IT girl.
[00:32:14] Portia: Oh. Well thank you for that.
I am, you know, I. Easy to find, right. Wood Legal group.com is our website. It's our law firm. It's the mother-daughter team. My mother and I are the owners and lawyers inside of that firm. We are one of the only mother-daughter black woman owned generational wealth funding firm in the country. We operate in multiple states, so we do California, Maryland, DC and Virginia.
And we have partners in New York, Chicago well, New York, Illinois, Georgia, Florida Texas. , we got partners in a lot of different states so that we can try to make sure that we're helping as many people as we can. I also have my platform on TikTok and Clubhouse, which is the Block Trust Fund Kids where we are normalizing intergenerational wealth transfer and trying to meet people where they are to provide fun but informative wealth saving tips so that people can protect themselves.
What I find is that if you don't know what you're up against, you don't know how to create APL plan to protect yourself. So we have to remove the mask that most people are living with and really expose them to what is at is happening, right, and what's at stake for their wealth. 70% of African Americans have zero estate planning at all in this country, which means we have no preparation for what's coming, which is the inevitability of.
The end
[00:33:34] Naseema: and we, and we know it's not dependent on how much money you make either, because it's usually the wealthiest , wealthiest of us that don't have this stuff
[00:33:42] Portia: together. Can we just talk about, I'm sorry. I know I hate to speak Ill of the dead, but you know, when I think about Chadwick Bozeman and I think about this incredible portrayal, That he did of the Black Panther and the fact that he spent so many years battling cancer and keeping it very quiet and being very proud and all of this just to come out in all of these intimate details of his life being so public through the probate court because he didn't have a plan.
It is the most amazing thing to me. You were, he was such a private person. and never wanted all of this drama even around his illness. Never wanted this drama. And now that he's gone, his family could not avoid it. His wife took you know, there was a 3.8 million estate. His wife took 1.15. His parents took 1.15, and the court as well as the government, took 1.5.
They took more than a third of his. And $900,000 of that was the probate court itself. It's insane to think that we are leaving these our families to battle. I mean, for years they were battling for years. And then we go on to talk about. Then we go on to talk about, you know, Aretha Franklin, prince Michael Jackson, you know, all of these people who are our heroes who did not have these kinds of conversations or did not execute on these conversations.
So it's not about how much money you have. Because there are some people, I have clients who have done incredible estate planning that have been able to build and perpetuate wealth in their family. Already we've seen the benefits of the estate plan that we put together, and unfortunately that meant that somebody died.
but we saw the life insurance pay into the trust. We saw the trust being really guarded and protected. We saw a child get sued and have those funds be protected, right? So we have all of these pieces that we know work , right? Like we know will protect your wealth. You know, I think about. and I will, I promise I will shut up.
But , we don't want you to , but I think about, you know, Kobe Bryant, right? And Kobe Bryant is such a great example of good estate planning. Not perfect estate planning, but good estate planning because we don't know really very much about Kobe Bryant's estate. We only know anything about his estate at all because he and his wife Vanessa, had not timely updated their trust and they had to go to the probate court and ask the judge to add their youngest daughter because, you know, no, none of us think we're gonna pass away.
Right? Like they're like, we just had a baby. We've got our four beautiful children. Nobody thought that Kobe Bryant was gonna pass. , right? And it's like, we have time. We have time. We'll get to it. We'll, we'll get to it. And then what happened is they couldn't get to it. And in, in this freak accident of this helicopter crash, he's gone.
And Vanessa Bryant, during her grief, has to ask the court for permission to add their baby. She's grieving her husband, she's grieving her daughter, and, and I've gotta go to a judge and ask for permission. I have no idea what she felt. I don't know her right. I don't know her, but I'm watching it online and I'm, I'm watching what's happening because it's public, because she doesn't get to grieve in private, it's public and it's, you know, thankfully was not a huge process for her because they had a very comprehensive estate.
We don't know the, the details of the plan. We don't know how much money was in there. People speculate day in and day out, but nobody knows because they had, they had created and crafted a plan that protected them. The only thing they missed was adding their daughter and updating it. And so there's a stark contrast between what happened with Kobe Bryant's estate.
What happened with Aretha Franklin? With Prince, with Michael Jackson? With With Chadwick Bozeman. I mean with Anne Hesh. Gosh, did, did you hear about Anne Hash? I mean mm-hmm. , I know this was a little while ago now. She had, you know, again, some freak accident, a car accident she's beating down the street in her mini Cooper, and she's, you know, something happens.
I, I think it maybe a bit of brain ur something. I, I'm not quite sure exactly what happened, but she gets into this car accident and she's in a com. and you know, the articles are popping up that her son is battling for control over her estate and over her. And it's like at a time when you are in this huge emotional turmoil, the last thing you wanna start doing is battling fam family members.
When your mother is laying in a hospital bed, the last thing you wanna do is go talk to a judge about getting the ability to care for. , all you wanna do is be able to care for them. , right? And unfortunately too many of us leave these decisions in the hands of the courts because we make this assumption that everything's gonna be fine.
[00:39:20] Naseema: And the reality is we have time. That we have Time is gets you every time. Every time you don't. Nobody knows when they're going to leave. That is a given. Okay. We all know that. So why do you assume that you can put stuff off? ,
[00:39:37] Portia: right? Because cause nobody wants to talk about it. It's not fun. , nobody wants to talk about the fact that their life might end.
It's not fun for them. And I get it. It isn't fun, right? It's not a fun thing to do, but it's necessary. And when we think about, you know, what happens once we've got it in place, how? How did you feel once you finished your estate? It.
[00:40:03] Naseema: There was so much relief. Yeah. It was like done. Like, especially because of just how complicated my life is, but to know that my kids are going to be okay and the decisions have already been made so that they're protected.
Yeah. It was just an overwhelming sense of
[00:40:21] Portia: relief. Yeah, and like the basics, right? The, the baseline plan that we talked about, so your property, power of attorney, your medical directives, and your distribution plan, that is the baseline for everybody over the age of 18. Now, that doesn't mean. That there aren't other things that you can add onto your planning.
There's a lot of other stuff you can add onto your planning. You know, you might look at family limited partnerships, you might look at LLCs, you might look at S-corp. You might have multiple trusts, depending on what you're doing. You might have eyelets, you might, all of these things are in addition to the core base.
Your baseline is gonna be your property power of attorney, your advanced healthcare directives, and your your medical powers of attorney, right? And your distribution plan. Everybody over the age of 18 or an emancipated minor needs to have those three basics and then we can build on top of But, but without it, we are literally getting up and going to work every day, living our lives, trying to accumulate and create.
without any protection. One thing, right? , one illness, one death, one incident can completely erode everything that you're working for and literally leave your family with nothing. And so when we think about what's at stake, it is imperative that we do so. Right now, today, right? Take the first step and get Educat.
[00:41:56] Naseema: Yep. And that's why you have so many good resources over on your website and you're always going live and you're always sharing. And so we appreciate what you do, Porsche. I know. I definitely appreciate it and I'm so grateful for you being able to join us here because just the knowledge that you've been parted in this podcast episode can really.
Someone's life and change the next generation's life. And I just think about like what would happen to me? Like where would my little girl be if something were to happen to me? And I don't want to leave that decision up to somebody else cuz nobody knows the intricacies of my life like I do. And so I appreciate you sharing those things.
And so this is a call to action to everybody that is listening. There is something that you can do today, even if it's just gathering the information, but there is a. First, there is one thing. There is one thing. There's a first step that you can take immediately after listening to this to get your estate planned together, and I would just recommend everybody go to Porsche's website with legal group.
She has free re resources there. She gets webinars all the time. Follow her on her platforms, listen to her lives, because you are always gonna come away with a lot more knowledge. But it's o it's not okay to just accumulate knowledge unless you're taking action. So this is a call to action to do something today to get your estate plan together.
So thank you so much, Porsche. You know I, yeah,
[00:43:25] Portia: you're welcome. Oh, no, I love you too. Thank you, . Thank you for having me on your podcast. You know, I love what you do. The Financially Intentional podcast is so important and impactful. Your story, by the way, is magic, right? What people don't realize is that your story is the story of, of overcoming, of triumph, of financial success, the the way in which.
a plan. Being intentional about your finances can change your trajectory. It shows that everything is in your power, right? It's not just, you know, the things that are happening. Yes, inflation is happening, right? , all of these things are happening. The government is doing all kinds of stuff. Wall Streets make, you know, buying up all the single family homes, turning us all into you know, some of us into perpetual renters.
But the reality is you were very intent. Do you wanna, I mean, I don't wanna tell your story, but do you wanna tell your story just quickly? Cause I think it's important,
[00:44:24] Naseema: So, yes. So just really briefly, you know, when my oldest daughter, this is my baby, my, when my oldest daughter was turning one, I, you know, set out on a path to become very intentional about my money. And so that led me to Paying off a million dollars in debt and rapidly building assets so that I do have things in place for me to be able to make work optional.
That help me be able to speak up in my workplace and do some other things. But it also allowed me to create this platform where I share this information because, you know, a lot of stuff has been gate kept from us, but instead of making excuses, we, I like to build a path. And so, yeah, that's why the platform is here and that's why I.
You know, expose people like Porsche because just people just don't know what they don't know. And this stuff isn't taught. And unless we take the initiative to teach ourselves, we're always gonna be in the dark and it's unnecessary, especially in this information. Age.
[00:45:22] Portia: 100% . Yeah. I tell people all the time, it's like you either have an estate plan or like the one that you wrote or the one that the state wrote for you.
There is a plan for your finances. There is a plan for your family. There is a plan for all of these. It just isn't necessarily a plan that's going to benefit you , right? It's the default plan, the same thing for your money. There is a default plan and that default plan is to keep you a perpetual consumer, is to keep you perpetually in debt, and then if you follow that plan, you will never get out of that cycle if you take a different approach and get really intentional and specific about working the system.
Right. Following the rules and working the system, you will end up like Messima paying off a million dollars worth of debt and building all these assets to be financially free. It's a game. All of this is a game and. What we know is that the laws are, are kind of the rules to the game, right? The ta, the tax code, the estate code, you know, the consumer law codes, like all of these are the rules to the game and the more you understand them and can use them to your benefit, the better you can play the game.
But if you never educate yourself on the rules, you're winging it and you can't keep winging it cuz it's costing us everyth.
[00:46:46] Naseema: Yep. And we ha we keep on starting over from zero and often at a deficit, so we can't, so no, let's change that.
[00:46:54] Portia: We changed the night here today. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me on your podcast.
Yay. Thank you. I'm excited. Thank you.
Hey there I’m Naseema
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