3/14/25 Protecting Your Legacy: The Estate Planning Conversation You Can't Afford to Skip

The Moneywise Radio Show and Podcast Friday, March 14th BE MONEYWISE. Moneywise Wealth Management I "The Moneywise Guys" podcast call: 661-847-1000 text in anytime: 661-396-1000 website: www. MoneywiseGuys.com facebook: Moneywise_Wealth_Management instagram: MoneywiseWealthManagement Guests: Michael George, Executive Vice President - Marketing at Safe 1 Credit & Kevin Danley, Partner | Business & Estate Planning Attorney at Young Wooldridge LLP. website: www.youngwooldridge.com/ www.safe1.org/

• 0:00Speaker 00

  From the padded radio room off Stockdale Highway, here is Money Wise. Call or text in at 661-396-1000.

• 0:09Speaker 01

  I need a dollar, dollar, dollar, that's what I need. Hey, hey. Well, I need a dollar, dollar, dollar, that's what I need. Hey, hey. Said I need a dollar, dollar, dollar, that's what I need. And if I share with you my story, would you share your dollar with me?

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  Securities offered through SEF Securities, Inc., member FINRA/SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through SEF Investment Advisors, Inc. SEF Securities, Inc. and Money Wise Wealth Management are independently owned and operated.

• 0:40Speaker 00

  Now, let's start the Money Wise Show.

• 0:43Speaker 03

  Welcome, welcome, welcome to the Money Wise Show. We're live from the Gero Ellis padded radio room off Stockdale Highway. ESPN, Bakersfield, 1230 AM, 101.1 FM. And as always, we're streaming live, MoneyWiseGuys.com. Steve Z, am I gonna see LeBron on Monday?

• 1:04Speaker 00

  Hmm, maybe.

• 1:07Speaker 03

  I don't know. I think he's gonna be out for the rest of the next week, too.

• 1:10Speaker 00

  Do you want to see LeBron is the real question.

• 1:12Speaker 03

  I honestly, for spending that much money, yes.

• 1:15Speaker 00

  You'll see Luca.

• 1:16Speaker 03

  I'll see Luca.

• 1:17Speaker 00

  That's what I would pay to see, but who are they playing again? San Antonio?

• 1:21Speaker 03

  San Antonio.

• 1:22Speaker 00

  Oh. What happened to LeBron?

• 1:25Speaker 03

  Groin strain. He's up day to day, week to week.

• 1:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's a good, I mean, that should be a big game for them.

• 1:32Speaker 03

  Should be.

• 1:33Speaker 00

  As they're fighting for, you know, playoff seeding.

• 1:35Speaker 03

  Well, they're still in second place, right? Second place in the Western Division?

• 1:38Speaker 00

  Is it?

• 1:39Speaker 03

  They're still second? Are they fourth now?

• 1:40Speaker 00

  I thought they were fourth or fifth.

• 1:42Speaker 03

  I think they had climbed at one point up to second.

• 1:44Speaker 00

  If there was only a way, we could find out.

• 1:46Speaker 03

  If there was only a device that could tell us where they stand in the standings. I'm your host, Justin Leland, here with... Debbie Lewis. Miss Debbie. Hi, happy Friday, Justin. It is Friday.

• 1:57Speaker 00

  And they are fourth.

• 1:58Speaker 03

  They are fourth. They slipped.

• 2:01Speaker 00

  So, yeah, they need to, they probably need the LeBron for the next couple of weeks before the season ends.

• 2:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, they probably do. They probably do. Anyhow, was it green on the screen today? We had a good day in the market, even if it is still a kind of a negative pall over the week. Markets have been roiled over the last few weeks with tariffs as we've been talking about for basically all year. And so today was a little bit of a respite. The Dow was up over 2%, as were the NASDAQ and the S&P. Green on the screen is a good thing to see. Now, all of the indices had technically fallen into correction territory.

• 2:51Speaker 03

  Correction territory means that all of them had fallen by in excess of 10% from their most recent high. And to be quite honest, the S&P 500, its most recent high was literally three weeks ago. It fell 10% in less than three weeks. That's, that's pretty rapid to have the correction of that, of that size. Dow was very similar. NASDAQ was a little bit faster. And that's all basically based on the, the uncertainty in the market. We've talked about this all the time on the show. So if you've, if you've been a listener for a long, long time, I apologize for the, you

• 3:34Speaker 03

  know, beating the dead horse, but one thing that Wall Street hates above anything else is what, Debbie?

• 3:41Speaker 04

  Uncertainty.

• 3:42Speaker 03

  That's the word.

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  Volatility.

• 3:44Speaker 03

  Uncertainty. And the king of uncertainty and the king of chaos.

• 3:49Speaker 04

  DJT.

• 3:50Speaker 03

  DJT.

• 3:52Speaker 04

  I had literally the headline that I have up from an article is Wall Street is turning its back on Trump and flashing an economic warning.

• 4:02Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 4:05Speaker 03

  And it's absolutely, if you read the article, really, it does say, Wall Street itself, and we're talking about, Wall Street is known for not being necessarily very liberal, let's just say. They're very, um, you know, pretty right wing, right? Business oriented, very, you know, capitalist, it's the whole point.

• 4:32Speaker 03

  And when you're, when you've lost Wall Street,

• 4:36Speaker 03

  hmm, we got some problems. So, here's the problem. We have the on again, off again tariffs, mass government layoffs, funding cuts, immigration crackdowns. We got all these other things going on. And all of that is basically spooked Wall Street.

• 4:53Speaker 03

  And while we've had a good day today, I do want to talk about one thing in particular that we, we have to start thinking about the ripple effect of some of these, some of these things. So the most, the first thing that really happened, that kind of kicked off this whole thing, was the tariffs for aluminum and steel for Canada and the European Union.

• 5:19Speaker 03

  And so, Canada retaliated, um, the European Union recently retaliated with their own tariff of a 50% tariff on bourbon and whiskey in the European Union.

• 5:38Speaker 03

  Okay, that, that hurts America, right? Don't!

• 5:42Speaker 03

  Jack Daniels is gonna be a little more expensive out there in Paris, right? I don't know how much Parisans drink, you know, good old JD. But immediately thereafter, DJT, and this is not gonna be a political thing, but it, you know, Donald Trump puts a 200% tariff on all wine and spirits coming into America from the European Union.

• 6:05Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 6:07Speaker 03

  Let's think about the ripple effect. I actually came from a, um, before I was in finance, I was actually in the transportation industry, did finance in the transportation industry.

• 6:19Speaker 03

  And one of my largest clients was a nationwide wine and spirits distributor, trucking company.

• 6:29Speaker 03

  And knowing that industry, these guys, some of the smartest guys I've ever met, they knew down to the penny,

• 6:40Speaker 03

  down to the penny, how much profit they were gonna make on every delivery that they made in transporting wine, spirits to their point of origin, to where they were gonna be sold.

• 6:54Speaker 03

  And yes, in California, we have Napa, Paso Robles, Sonoma, we got all the wonderful places, we got, you know, but those trucks are not filled exclusively with American spirits and American wine and everything else. This is going to cause a problem ripple effect here is if you're no longer able to sell European wine, French wine, and as Debbie loves, Italian wine, coming back from Rome recently.

• 7:23Speaker 04

  True story.

• 7:24Speaker 03

  True story.

• 7:28Speaker 03

  That business model no longer pencils out.

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  Because that truck is now gonna be half empty, or one-third empty, or whatever it is. And so

• 7:41Speaker 03

  transporting an empty truck just doesn't pencil out. They're not gonna do it. They're not gonna spend that money transporting a half-empty truck. So what do you think that's gonna do for the cost of our own wine that we're producing here? Even if there isn't a tariff, what do you think that cost of because supply and demand?

• 8:05Speaker 03

  If I can't go down to Wet Bevmo and buy my Sonoma or Napa or Paso Robles wines?

• 8:14Speaker 03

  Because that company is no longer transporting it or making that instead of a three times a week delivery, it's now a once a week delivery.

• 8:23Speaker 03

  Guess what? That cost is going to go up. It's going to be much more expensive.

• 8:27Speaker 04

  I have a little statistic I pulled up just to show how much more popular European wine consumption is versus the California, specifically the Californian wine market.

• 8:40Speaker 04

  In terms of revenue, the European wine market significantly outstrips the Californian wine market with the European wine market generating a combined revenue of 166.7 billion in 2025. We're only in March.

• 8:57Speaker 03

  What?

• 8:58Speaker 04

  Compared to California's 43.6 billion in retail value.

• 9:02Speaker 03

  So nearly triple.

• 9:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:04Speaker 03

  Nearly triple.

• 9:06Speaker 04

  And some would argue Californian wine is already very expensive.

• 9:11Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 9:12Speaker 04

  Which you get into the bigger stuff coming out of Napa, and that is definitely true. As a budget wine buyer, I typically go for $20 bottles of European wine and you get a good value. So that's going to have a huge dent.

• 9:27Speaker 03

  You're not getting two Buck Chuck from Sonoma?

• 9:30Speaker 04

  I didn't say that.

• 9:35Speaker 03

  But anyhow, that's, I mean, I'll get off my soapbox, but that is really, when you think about tariffs and you think about the ripple effect of these retaliatory effects,

• 9:50Speaker 03

  one, one action begets another action, begets another action, and then the ripple effect for other businesses beyond that. And you have the European Union almost playing like three dimensional chess while we're over here playing checkers on the back of a Chili's, you know, child's menu with crayon.

• 10:09Speaker 04

  That, this just means people, more people are going to be California sober.

• 10:14Speaker 03

  California.

• 10:15Speaker 04

  Marijuana industry.

• 10:16Speaker 03

  Marijuana industry going straight.

• 10:18Speaker 04

  Come on, baby.

• 10:19Speaker 03

  There you go. Yeah, that's basically what's probably gonna happen. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of where we're at. I mean, it's, it's very difficult to, to make that, to make that jump. But either way, we have a little bit of a respite right now. The markets were up today, but even, even so, it still is kind of a negative feeling overall in the market. We may, you know, bounce from this, but we may, we may have another round down depending upon whether or not we continue on this path of retaliation and, and one-upsmanship. So we'll see what happens next week, but that's kind of where we stand right now. We have a great show for you today. We have Kevin Danley and Michael George here.

• 11:03Speaker 03

  We're gonna be talking about some estate planning things when we get back.

• 11:07Speaker 00

  Are you nearing retirement and currently working with a financial advisor? Are you not sure if you're invested appropriately? Call our offices at 661-847-1000 to sit down with a Money Wise financial advisor.

• 11:29Speaker 03

  Welcome back.

• 11:32Speaker 04

  Is this Kiss?

• 11:33Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 11:36Speaker 04

  I thought we were getting some Lil Wayne today.

• 11:42Speaker 03

  Oh, you will.

• 11:45Speaker 04

  What era of Kiss is this?

• 11:47Speaker 03

  This is 80s.

• 11:48Speaker 05

  Yeah, late 80s, early 90s, yeah.

• 11:50Speaker 03

  No Kiss or no makeup.

• 11:51Speaker 05

  No makeup, domino.

• 11:53Speaker 03

  Just leather.

• 11:54Speaker 05

  From the Revenge album.

• 11:54Speaker 03

  Just leather.

• 11:55Speaker 05

  Just leather.

• 11:56Speaker 03

  Lots of leather. Pleather.

• 12:01Speaker 03

  Welcome back. That's when I walked away from the Kiss Army. This is right around that time.

• 12:07Speaker 03

  Just for a minute.

• 12:10Speaker 03

  Welcome back to the show. As you heard, Michael George is here, Vice President of Safe One Credit Union. We're also joined by Kevin Danley from the Law Offices of Young Wooldridge.

• 12:22Speaker 03

  We're going to be having a, as you've heard on the show, you've heard some commercials here recently, where we're going to be doing a free estate planning workshop coming up, hosted by our own Dustin Weaver, going to be giving the talk. So we'll be getting into that in a little bit.

• 12:37Speaker 04

  Along with Kevin Danley.

• 12:38Speaker 03

  Along with Kevin Danley, going to be doing that, absolutely, very much appreciated. So we're going to be getting into some, we have a couple of things, like recent news, obviously. We'll get into that, but we did get some messages over the break. Let's see, what's the first one there, Debbie?

• 12:56Speaker 04

  Uh, let's see, heard the beginning of the show yesterday, and I'm excited to learn more about the stress tests that you guys can do nowadays. Have a wonderful weekend.

• 13:06Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 13:06Speaker 04

  What kind of stress tests are we talking about here?

• 13:08Speaker 03

  So we have, we have a new software we've been using. You know, it's, yeah, you get on a treadmill. And, no, so what happens, we have a new software that we're using now, where we're able to actually project.

• 13:22Speaker 04

  As financial advisors.

• 13:23Speaker 03

  As financial advisors, financial planning software that we're using, that we put in the inputs, we put in all of your information as far as your income, your expenses, your savings, your 401K, the asset allocation, all of those types of things. And we can basically randomize the events of your retirement. And we can pretty accurately project what your retirement is going to look like. Good, bad, or indifferent, right? Give you the good news or bad news. And then beyond that, we can also add in certain things, like it says here, stress tests. What happens if inflation, because we're expecting inflation maybe to be 2%, 2.5%? What happens if inflation is higher by 1% or 2% than what we're expecting it to be?

• 14:07Speaker 03

  What happens if, right after you retire, the stock market tanks by 50%? What happens if our estimation of your rate of return is off by 2%? It's a little bit lower. These are the types of things that we can look at and stress test, and look at what that might do to your projection as far as your retirement savings are concerned. So all of those things are some software that we can, can put in there. And actually, it's, it's really slick, really robust software we can use.

• 14:36Speaker 04

  Very nice. Feel free to call the office if you would like to go through the stress test.

• 14:43Speaker 03

  We have an EKG in the back too.

• 14:46Speaker 06

  That's mine.

• 14:50Speaker 03

  Next one he has is, "Good afternoon. I have a new job for the state, starting in the middle of April, yet I have some debt. Nothing crazy, under $10,000, but would like to be smarter to file, would it be smarter, would it be smarter to file for bankruptcy or hold off till I start my new job and consolidate or pay it off so I'm not screwed for five to seven years? I have three kids and just want to do what's best for our future. Thank you. Love the show." Debbie, what's your first instinct on that?

• 15:23Speaker 04

  Pay off the debt.

• 15:24Speaker 03

  Yeah. It's not that much. $10,000 is really, $10,000, there's more questions I would have on that is, what is your, what is your expected income and what is your other bills, right? Like, how much is your expected spending? So, if your, if your expected income from your state job is, let's say, $5,000 a month, but you're spending $7,000, well, we got a bigger problem, right? The $10,000 is the least of your problems, right? But if you're making $5,000 and your normal expenses are, say, $3,000, okay, we have something to work with. So, there's more than just how much debt you have, it's what are your spending habits beyond that? And what are the behaviors that need to change, right?

• 16:06Speaker 03

  That's the bigger question than whatever the number is. Makes sense? All right. So, with that-

• 16:14Speaker 04

  Which also, we will be having a bankruptcy attorney joining us from Young Oldridge. Mr. Leonard Welsh will be coming back to the show, I believe, on April 1st.

• 16:24Speaker 03

  Yep, on April Fool's Day. So, he'll give us really bad advice.

• 16:31Speaker 04

  So I do, I encourage, I encourage the listener that sent in this message, maybe tune in on that day.

• 16:37Speaker 03

  Download that app, that podcast, yeah.

• 16:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 16:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:44Speaker 03

  What was it, what was it, two weeks ago, a week ago, two weeks ago, three weeks ago now, Gene Hackman died?

• 16:50Speaker 05

  Passed away.

• 16:51Speaker 03

  Passed away. Not just him. Such a weird story, yeah.

• 16:55Speaker 04

  And his dog.

• 16:56Speaker 03

  I was worried, like, what happened to the dog?

• 16:58Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 17:00Speaker 03

  And I think I was with everybody else, the, the initial thing I immediately went to was carbon monoxide. Like, I think a lot of us, the first thing we thought was...

• 17:10Speaker 05

  Well, first I thought murder or something, but then, but then, when they said no foul play, I thought the same exact thing, yeah.

• 17:16Speaker 03

  The first thing I thought when you have multiple, and the dog as well, I was like, okay, when they said the dog was like... What the hell happened to the dog? Yeah, carbon monoxide, I'm thinking, right? Um, but then when it's like, uh, no foul play, but we're still gonna do an, I'm like, okay, this is weird. There's no, okay, then they start coming out with other stuff, and then if we come to find out that

• 17:39Speaker 03

  his wife, Betsy, passed away like a week before he did. And he's 95, she's 30 years younger, 65.

• 17:50Speaker 03

  And the dog passes away as well. Now, we find out the dog was actually in a kennel and was dehydrated.

• 17:56Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 17:56Speaker 04

  Oh, no, I hadn't heard that.

• 17:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, I didn't hear any of that.

• 18:00Speaker 04

  Oh, this just gets worse.

• 18:01Speaker 03

  It gets worse. Come on, man, it's Friday. Yeah, I know, I know.

• 18:05Speaker 05

  Dog wasn't on the pills or anything, yeah.

• 18:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, the dog, dog, no, the dog was stuck in a kennel and couldn't get out, and that's what happened to the poor dog, so. Um, not the dog's fault. Um, but Betsy, I guess she died from huntavirus. Right, which is a rodent-borne illness. Now, what I, what I mean to say by this is not to come up with like the horrible story of all of this stuff, but because it's an estate planning deal, here we have a guy who's worth $80 million.

• 18:33Speaker 03

  He has a will. He's got multiple trusts. We won't get into the weirdness of the trusts, like, we can dive really deep into the weirdness of all of the...

• 18:41Speaker 05

  Many layers.

• 18:42Speaker 03

  Many different layers of the Gene Hackman, uh, fortune.

• 18:47Speaker 03

  But one thing that I wanted to ask, and Kevin, please help me with this because this is the, this is the part that kind of makes my brain turn to mush. Betsy was Gene Hackman's sole beneficiary on pretty much his entire fortune. She predeceased him by about a week. How does that work if she predeceases him and she is the sole beneficiary of those assets?

• 19:21Speaker 07

  Yeah, well, first off, thank you for having me here today. Appreciate it. So as, as, as Mike said, there's, this is a very unusual circumstance in terms of just, you know, discovering these bodies and, and, and what happened in this case. And I think they had to unravel the puzzle of, of how things happen and the order and so forth. So typically, if you are a beneficiary under a will or a trust, you have to survive in order to

• 19:54Speaker 03

  Receive the benefits.

• 19:55Speaker 07

  Receive the benefits of that. So, so I, I mean, that's, that's probably not a mush brain concept, but, but, but, but let's, let's just say, I mean, the, the basics are that you're going to have to survive. And so if the, the identified beneficiary is not living to receive the assets that are to pass on to that beneficiary, then in this, you, you always want to have a contingency plan, right?

• 20:21Speaker 03

  Right.

• 20:22Speaker 07

  So that, that person, there's no vesting of interest. They didn't survive. And so it would move down to your next selection of, of either persons, people, entities that would be receiving those assets, right?

• 20:40Speaker 03

  Right. So in, in most cases though, in most trusts, is there not a delineation? And then at the very end, it's like, look, we've run out of everybody. Now what?

• 20:52Speaker 07

  Yeah, so, so, um, you know, when I'm, when I'm walking through, talking to clients about, uh, what is the plan? And, and there's always a, a pretty clear, uh, first plan, uh, as far as how you would want things to go. I mean, you know, the most common, most typical is, uh, you know, spouse, then, then surviving children and so forth. Uh, but we, you know, it's, it's important to, to, to at least think about what is the God forbid, but what if plan? What is the doomsday plan? If, um, if in fact, uh, things don't go in the order that we expect them to go. Um, and so, um, in this case, clearly, uh, with a spouse that's 30 years younger, um, this didn't happen

• 21:37Speaker 07

  in the order that was anticipated, right?

• 21:39Speaker 03

  Right.

• 21:39Speaker 07

  So, um, so I think, I think that's, as, sitting down and talking through that, um, is helpful, uh, for, for anyone to think about, well, what, what do I want to have happen? Do I want it to pass to my grandkids? Uh, do I want it to pass to charities? Do I, do I, do I want it to pass to other important people that are part of my life? Um, and so, so, and, and knowing what the consequences are of not having that.

• 22:06Speaker 03

  If you don't have that plan in place. Yeah, this is one that's gonna kind of, you know, pique my interest for a while because I'm looking at some of the other issues here because there's multiple trusts and I, we won't get into the complexity of it, but I'm probably gonna be following this for a while because there's, there's a lot of different layers to, to what's going on with this particular case. And, you know, we look at things like Michael Jackson's estate, Aretha Franklin's estate. We look at some of these other.

• 22:34Speaker 07

  Prince.

• 22:34Speaker 03

  Prince. I mean, there's a lot of these estates where you're like, you look at it and say, man, there's a lot of really, I mean, these are really smart people or really wealthy people. You'd think they'd have their stuff together. And in most cases, they don't.

• 22:49Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 22:49Speaker 03

  And in Gene Hackman's case, it looks like he had a pretty good plan. He had things pretty well set up. However, like Kevin said, didn't go in the order that he had anticipated, or that anybody really would anticipate.

• 23:05Speaker 07

  And in his case, what makes it even stranger is that, so the wife was the primary, but you know who was underneath the wife? The second one.

• 23:13Speaker 05

  Was the dog. And the dog didn't make it either, so you've really, you've really thrown it into a loop.

• 23:19Speaker 03

  There were three other dogs that lived.

• 23:21Speaker 05

  Oh, okay. Well, they're, they're living large.

• 23:23Speaker 03

  They're living large.

• 23:23Speaker 04

  But were they the favorite dogs?

• 23:25Speaker 03

  They were the favorite dogs. I don't know.

• 23:26Speaker 04

  My dog is...

• 23:27Speaker 03

  Oh, this is going off the rails. We're gonna be right back with Kevin Danley and Michael Jars. We'll be right back.

• 23:33Speaker 00

  Don't forget, Money Wise is more than a radio show. We're an independently owned, local wealth management firm with 60-plus years of collective experience. Our financial advisors are here to help you, Kern County. Together, let's be smart, be safe, be money wise.

• 24:10Speaker 04

  Kevin, did you get your tickets to the Lil Wayne Juvenile Show that's coming up at the Dignity Health Amphitheater?

• 24:17Speaker 07

  Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You'll, you'll actually have to buy them from me because I bought them all.

• 24:23Speaker 07

  You'll have to go on StubHub.

• 24:25Speaker 04

  That's your side hustle? Estate attorney by day, black market scalper by night? I love it. I knew I liked you.

• 24:35Speaker 03

  Nice. We got a message in the break here. Oh, God. This show is Happy Friday.

• 24:42Speaker 04

  You gotta, you gotta have some laughs.

• 24:44Speaker 03

  Yes, we do. In times like these, God, it's good to laugh. Hey, got a question here for actually both of our guests, but this might be a great way for us to kind of segue into a deeper conversation. But how can I incorporate charitable giving into my estate plan? And secondly, will the seminar be online? Thank you, guys. R.I.P. Gene Hackman.

• 25:07Speaker 03

  So I do know that the seminar will be online. There is a way to do that. Mike, do you want to give us a breakdown on what that's going to be?

• 25:14Speaker 05

  When you RSVP for the workshop?

• 25:16Speaker 03

  Yeah. Give us the deets on the workshop as far as, go ahead and give us that.

• 25:22Speaker 05

  Absolutely. You can RSVP by calling 327-3818. That's the SafeOne number. You can RSVP that way. Or by shooting an email to [email protected] and that's the number one. So marketing@safe number one.org. In fact, to give you a closer, a better number would be 617-6065. That's just my direct line, 617-6065. Area code? Area code 661, yes.

• 25:48Speaker 03

  And we are going to make sure that all of that, the details on that are all going to be on the podcast notes. So wherever you get your podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get it, the podcast notes will have all of that information and links to sign up.

• 26:04Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 26:04Speaker 03

  And yes, there is going to be a webinar online portion to that as well. So absolutely. But getting back to the main question there is how can I incorporate charitable giving into my estate plan? Great question. I know a lot of people want to do that as part of their, their giving strategy. Kevin, how do people do that?

• 26:25Speaker 07

  Yeah. So I mean, absolutely. You can have charitable contributions from, from your, in your estate plan. The beauty of having a plan is that you get to direct those assets wherever you want them to go. And so that's one of the important parts of, of putting a plan together. And so it's just important to, you know, specifically identify those charities and, and how, what you want them to receive. And, and that can be part of your plan. There's some other strategies, I think, that from a, I guess, a investment and tax planning strategy that, that, that you might want to touch on.

• 27:05Speaker 03

  Yeah. And so, I mean, there's, there's other ways to do it as well. If you're looking to get that maybe out of your, your income prior to, the ways to do that is through, say like a donor advised fund or. Other charitable giving ways. One way is if you're in a position where, let's say you're, you have an required minimum distribution, you know, you're, you're of the age of 73 or soon to be 75 when they changed that rule. And you have an IRA, 401K, 403B, or whatever alphabet soup retirement plan you have. You are in a position where you're going to be required to take some money out of that eventually. And sometimes there's people that are like, "Look, I don't need it. I don't want it. I've got enough income from my social security pension,

• 27:48Speaker 03

  whatever. And I don't necessarily want to pay taxes on it." Well, there's what's known as a QCD. Write that down, QCD. That is a qualified charitable distribution. If you have a charity in mind, or multiple charities that you want to give money to, that you give money to throughout the year, but you're not able to maybe deduct that on your taxes because the tax rules are a little bit different. Hey, if you're able to do it through your IRA, now you're able to get the full tax write-off on that, plus you're able to meet your RMD requirements. So it's a strategy that a lot of people are using nowadays because of the way that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act really kind of changed

• 28:30Speaker 03

  charitable donations, in-year charitable donations. So it's a really quick-

• 28:36Speaker 04

  I just had a conversation about that yesterday at lunch with somebody over at Cal State Bakersfield-

• 28:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:41Speaker 04

  And she works in the planned giving department-

• 28:45Speaker 03

  Right.

• 28:45Speaker 04

  Over there. And this, a huge piece of her job is, as an ex-financial advisor, educating legacy donors on-

• 28:52Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 28:53Speaker 04

  That as an option.

• 28:54Speaker 03

  Right. It's, I mean, it's a big thing, especially because, you know, with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, they changed that rule so where when you're not able to get as much back when you give that charitable donation. And so if you're not able to, it's actually kind of cut down on the amount of people that are actually donating money to charities. That's the, that's the unintended consequence of some of those laws, that it's actually reduced the amount of money going to these charitable organizations. And so, in an effort to maybe- Kind of increase that again. Let's start using those RMDs. Let's do it the right way.

• 29:29Speaker 07

  Yeah, another thing from, you know, what I see is if, if you're not sure exactly which charities you want to give to, but you know that the kinds of charities you want to give to using some of these vehicles, those charities are already vetted to make sure that they're legitimate, that the, the funds are going to go where they're supposed to go. And so it's a, it's a way to take some of the burden off of you and working to try and figure out, you know, if I, if I write this check, is it really going to go where I want it to go? These are, some of these have already been looked through and already vetted to make sure they're legit.

• 30:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, they, they meet the Gold Star Guidelines and all the other things that go for 501(c)(3)'s and, and all of those things. So yeah, donor advised funds are a great way to do it. Qualified charitable distributions are a great way to do it.

• 30:13Speaker 04

  So this is separate from say, an entity like Kern Community Foundation?

• 30:18Speaker 03

  Kern Community Foundation actually does do donor advised funds within that foundation. Yes. That is a, that is a vehicle in which a lot of people do donor advised funds through that foundation. And they, they're able to write grants to charities from those donor advised funds there. So yeah, that is a, that is a vehicle that a lot of people are using. It's a great, great option.

• 30:39Speaker 04

  And those exist nationwide. It's not just

• 30:41Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 30:42Speaker 04

  unique to Kern County and Bakersfield.

• 30:44Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 30:45Speaker 04

  That's just one of our big entities here.

• 30:46Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 30:47Speaker 04

  Has a great reputation.

• 30:47Speaker 03

  You can open those up anywhere really. Donor advised funds are really easy to open. It's just making sure that you're opening it properly so that you get the tax deduction for doing so. Cause it is, it is a tax, but you have to remember, once you put that money in there, that's, that money is gone. You, you cannot use it for yourself. It's not like an IRA that you can then take that money and use it for your own personal good. You have to use it for charitable donations from that fund and it has to go to a charity that, that you, you pick at that point. So, yeah. So, yeah. And so Kevin, I have a question though, about the estate planning piece.

• 31:27Speaker 03

  And I don't want you to, to steal the thunder of the seminar or anything like that. But if you were to pick the top three biggest mistakes that you see from people making, that you see people making in creating their estate plan, what would you say are the top three mistakes that people make?

• 31:49Speaker 07

  Okay, well, just, you know, you didn't prompt me with this before we came here. This is, you just hit me with this.

• 31:55Speaker 03

  Pop quiz.

• 31:56Speaker 07

  Pop quiz, right. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna say that I reserve the right to change my top three if necessary.

• 32:02Speaker 03

  You can do that before the seminar.

• 32:04Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah. So, you know, one of the things, and this is just, it's a mistake, and I say, waiting too long to get a plan put together.

• 32:18Speaker 03

  Where none of us are guaranteed tomorrow, right?

• 32:20Speaker 07

  It really is one of our, you know, sort of tragic times when we get, you know, calls and requests because it's, you know, it's almost too late, and maybe too late to put certain things together. So, I mean, part of a plan, it's not just about what happens after your passing, it's about what happens during your lifetime, having the right agents in place to operate for you for financial or healthcare-related matters. And so, so that's, I mean, number one, that hits me, and, you know, that I feel, you know, is really difficult for families, is waiting too long.

• 33:05Speaker 04

  So, my question to you, and you and I have spoken over lunch offline about, like, my personal situation, can you maybe speak to those of us out there that aren't married, don't have children, you know, I'm a young professional, so in my mind, I don't really have a lot of wealth, but I do have, I have some stuff, I'm in the process of trying to purchase a house. At what point, you know, outside of the traditional sense, would you say somebody should really start to consider looking at getting a trust?

• 33:37Speaker 07

  Yeah, so, so I'll, I'll say...

• 33:43Speaker 07

  Not necessarily getting a trust, but having a plan. I think if you're an adult, that it's a good idea to have a plan, right? So you could have, you know, very little assets. You could be a, I mean, even a kid going to college, a lot of parents don't realize, once they're 18, you can't just call the school and ask for information anymore, right? And so even at the youngest age, if you want someone to be able to, you know, get information, get healthcare information, those kinds of things. I mean, it can be important for any adult, right? And so then the complexity of your plan will certainly be, you know,

• 34:26Speaker 07

  related to the kind of assets you have and the kind of goals you have and that sort of thing.

• 34:29Speaker 04

  Right.

• 34:30Speaker 07

  But I would say if you're under 18, it's too early.

• 34:34Speaker 03

  Right.

• 34:37Speaker 07

  But after that, there's a reason to have some kind of documents in place for your benefit and for your family's benefit if you can.

• 34:47Speaker 04

  So like a drunken, you know, hand note out of a bar on college, you know, right off of college campus, sit down and jot down your thoughts on what happens?

• 34:58Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah. So those are, I would say there's some questions of the validity of those documents based on capacity issues.

• 35:07Speaker 04

  But if you have a witness.

• 35:08Speaker 07

  But, oh, I'm sure you'll have a witness.

• 35:11Speaker 03

  A whole bar of them might be just as impaired.

• 35:14Speaker 07

  Yeah, they'll misinterpret it as your karaoke selection.

• 35:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:20Speaker 07

  But, but yeah, so, and that's also, I guess I'll say that's number two is probably having the perception or the concept that you don't have enough assets or reasons to have a plan. I think that's rarely, if ever, the case that no plan makes any sense. But a super complicated plan that for someone without the assets to support it, would it make sense? Yeah.

• 35:50Speaker 04

  Okay. So I will not ask for the Gene Hackman.

• 35:54Speaker 03

  You won't ask for the Gene Hackman trust?

• 35:58Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 35:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, no. Okay, so that's the top two, right? So what's the number three? So the first top two is, if I remember right, is waiting too long.

• 36:08Speaker 03

  And the second one is Assuming you don't have enough. Assuming you don't have enough assets. Yeah.

• 36:14Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 36:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 36:15Speaker 07

  And it's probably number three is trying to beat the system or take shortcuts. You know, and, and, you know, Gene Hackman, you know, probably he had a plan, which was, which I'm sure is fine. But, but there are certain types of planning that, for example, using joint tenancy arrangements with, with children or, or other people, people other than, than your spouse or significant other. They just have the potential for creating issues that you're not anticipating, right? So, and I, and I've seen examples where, you know, there's a joint tenant on a house and

• 37:01Speaker 07

  the person who put them on there doesn't want them on there anymore.

• 37:04Speaker 03

  And you can't get rid of them.

• 37:05Speaker 07

  But they can't get rid of them, right? I've seen situations where now there's a tax lien on the house because of the joint tenant that they put on there. And, and those kinds of things. And then ultimately just things don't happen and always in the order that we expect. Right? So if that person that you thought was going to be the recipient doesn't survive you, then you're kind of back to square one. And so, so, I mean, for today, I would guess that'll be number three of my top three is trying to take shortcuts without understanding the potential consequences of what those shortcuts might, might.

• 37:42Speaker 03

  And you reserve the right, you reserve the right before the seminar to change that top three completely.

• 37:48Speaker 07

  Yeah, I can, I could say 1.5 and 2.5, you know, I can add some, maybe they'll still be 1, 2, 3, but I'll, I'll adjust the scale.

• 37:56Speaker 03

  Little caveats in there.

• 37:57Speaker 05

  Even though you like, when we take that, the Gene Hackman, you know, situation and he, his wife passed before him. He obviously passed away a week later. He didn't have the capacity to change. But one thing that I, I don't see nearly what Kevin does, but when we do these, these workshops is one thing we always stress that, you know, when those big life changing events happen, you have to go update your trust.

• 38:17Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 38:18Speaker 05

  Get divorced, you get remarried, you have more children.

• 38:21Speaker 03

  Grandkids.

• 38:22Speaker 04

  You acquire more property.

• 38:23Speaker 05

  All of that. You have to go back and update. I say trust your, I should say your estate plan. You need to go back and update it because there's been many situations where someone builds, you know, they create an estate plan and when they have one child, they end up with three children.

• 38:38Speaker 03

  But only one child's on the trust.

• 38:39Speaker 05

  Exactly. One child's on the estate plan.

• 38:41Speaker 04

  Second or third marriage.

• 38:42Speaker 05

  And second or third marriage. So you have to update it. And I, you know, it's always good to look at it once a year, but really it's when you have, tell me if I'm wrong, Kim, with those big life-changing events. You know, if you get divorced and you don't want that ex-wife having certain assets or ex-husband, whatever it is, you gotta update the trust or the estate plan.

• 39:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:01Speaker 04

  That's kind of a general rule of thumb across all financial things in general, whether it be your investment accounts, your 401K, your IRA.

• 39:10Speaker 03

  You want to have that nice, clean break.

• 39:13Speaker 05

  Exactly.

• 39:14Speaker 07

  Yeah. And I think, I think that what Debbie just brought up is, is that an estate plan, you know, in the, in, I guess in the abstract is, is a, is a set of documents. But estate planning more globally is beneficiary designations and, and how you have other accounts set up because when, when either a life-changing event happens or, or just on a, some kind of regular basis, you know, you, you take a look and make sure things are the way that you want them to be. Cause you don't want, you know, if you're on your third marriage, maybe you do want your mom as your beneficiary of that time account.

• 39:54Speaker 04

  And your dog.

• 39:55Speaker 07

  But maybe you don't.

• 39:56Speaker 05

  We know your mom does.

• 39:57Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 40:00Speaker 04

  Well, and this is where it pays literally to pay a professional in their field to help be a part of your financial team. So your attorney, your financial advisor, your CPA. Those people are keeping the, the guardrails in place to help on a reoccurring basis, make sure everything is up to date.

• 40:20Speaker 03

  And so the, the event again is going to be on Wednesday, March 19th from six to 7:30 over here at the Bakersfield College South. West Campus, right here, across the street from MoneyWise, on the other side of Cal State Bakersfield, on the south side, there on Camino Media, from 6 to 7 on March 19th. Please, there's obviously still room left, so please RSVP.

• 40:48Speaker 04

  We're getting close for the in-person.

• 40:49Speaker 03

  In-person, we're getting close, but...

• 40:51Speaker 04

  Unlimited online.

• 40:52Speaker 03

  Unlimited online, you know, we can have a billion people online. You just keep on, keep on coming in. We're gonna take a quick break. Thank you so much, Michael George and Kevin Danley for joining us.

• 41:03Speaker 04

  We do have one more question that just came in that maybe we can sneak in before Kevin drops off.

• 41:10Speaker 03

  We'll take a quick break, we'll come back with Kevin Danley right in just a moment.

• 41:14Speaker 00

  Need to get your financial fix on the go? If so, subscribe to the MoneyWise Podcast and catch up on all past shows whenever.

• 41:30Speaker 03

  Welcome back.

• 41:34Speaker 03

  We only got a couple of minutes, so we're gonna jump into this question real quick. Speaking of that, I read that Gene Hackman didn't have his three kids in the will and that everything went to his wife, so with her passing, wonder who gets his stuff? Do you put a secondary in the plan? So Kevin, this is one of the reasons why we did not go into the deep, deep, dark reaches of Gene Hackman's plan. We do know that there were multiple trusts and Betsy had a trust and she, you know, there was this like circular logic of multiple trusts and multiple wills and everything. So we didn't get into that by design because it was very complex. But in reality, Kevin, you gotta have a contingency plan, right?

• 42:16Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah, and I was gonna say if, if the Hackman estate wants to hire me to manage the administration, then they know where to find me.

• 42:26Speaker 04

  Tune into our webinar.

• 42:28Speaker 07

  Yeah, so, no, so absolutely, you're gonna want to have alternate plans for beneficiaries and also, as importantly, alternate plans for who's gonna be your successor trustee and who's gonna take over and manage the estates.

• 42:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's absolutely great news and we gotta make sure that, you know, great information, first off. If you like that information and you like what you're hearing... Please sign up for the estate planning seminar that's coming up just next Wednesday. If you have the time on your hands, please sign up. If you don't have the ability to be there live, still sign up and show up virtually. And if you can't be there, we'll send you the link. Yeah. Watch it anytime you want. Watch it anytime you want. It's going to be great news, great information. Kevin's a world-class estate attorney, great guy.

• 43:23Speaker 04

  And thank you to Safe One Credit Union for sponsoring this series of amazing literacy workshops.

• 43:29Speaker 03

  Yes, absolutely. Thank you. Be smart, be safe, be money wise. We will see you next week. Have a great weekend.