With the above having been stated, Americans who are planning for their elder years should understand just how expensive long-term care has become. Most senior citizens will need long-term care of some kind, and the average length of stay is between two and four years. These are facts that you have to accept if you want to plan ahead intelligently.

Every year the MetLife Mature Market Institute puts out a survey for public consumption that enlightens us with regard to the current state of long-term care costs. They have released their 2011 figures, and as expected, long-term care costs are continuing to rise.

The national average for a year in a private room in a nursing home in the United States in 2011 rose by 4.4% to $87,235. The average cost in New Jersey was $316 a day and if you multiply this by 365 you’re looking at $115,340 per year. This is certainly a significant expense for most people.

As considerable as they are, there are steps that you can take to prepare yourself for these expenses. To explore your options, take a moment to arrange for a consultation with a licensed and experienced central New Jersey Elder Law attorney.

This is fantastic and goal setting is what it’s all about. When you can get excited about what lies ahead if you stick to an intelligently conceived plan, you have the motivation to stay focused and disciplined.

The above having been stated, a lot of people don’t like to think about contingencies that could be unpleasant. Ignoring things does not make them go away, and along these lines, it is a good idea to consider the second stage of your retirement that will follow the active years.

A high percentage of people will need living assistance at some point in time. Some will receive in-home care and others will reside in assisted living communities or nursing homes. This is a stark reality, and if you want to be truly prepared for the future you should face it head on and make preparations both financially and practically.

There is also the matter of possible incapacity to consider. The appropriate response would be execution of durable Powers of Attorney as well as a Living Will. A trust agreement could also contain incapacity provisions.

Multiple stages of life must be considered when you’re planning for the eventualities of aging. To develop a plan that addresses all contingencies, the wise course of action is to discuss your future with an experienced and savvy Middlesex County Elder Law attorney.

Most people would never develop an investment portfolio and then if they did, never check on it or make revisions. Estate Planning is a form of financial planning as well and things that take place on an ongoing basis can make your existing estate plan obsolete.

For example, your financial station in life could improve. The total value of your assets may eventually exceed the estate tax exclusion that is in place. If you happen to pass away before you make any steps to gain estate tax efficiency, your heirs could lose a considerable amount of money unnecessarily.

Speaking of the estate tax exclusion, your own resources could remain constant and you could suddenly find yourself in the cross hairs of the estate tax because the exclusion amount changes all the time. In fact, one of these changes is scheduled for 2013 when the exclusion is going to be reduced from $5.12 million to just $1 million.

2012 is here and it’s time to review your estate plan. If you have not already done so, right now would be a good time to take action and arrange for a consultation with a good Central New Jersey estate planning lawyer.

This is why so many individuals angle toward Medicaid eligibility. These people rely on Medicaid to cover their long-term care expenses when they reach an advanced age because Medicare does not cover them.

Of course Medicaid is a program that is intended to help people who have significant financial need. For this reason there is a $2000 upper resource limit.

Before you dismiss the possibility of being eligible, you have to understand that a lot of your valuable property does not count toward this figure. Your home, your vehicle, and your personal possessions are not countable in a Medicaid eligibility context.

There are also provisions in place that allow the healthy or community spouse to retain his or her half of assets that do count toward that upper resource limit. There is a ceiling on this however, and there is a change in place for 2012. The community spouse may now keep countable assets of up to $113,640. In 2011 that number was $109,560.

Trying to position yourself to become eligible for Medicaid can be a bit complicated for the layperson. If you are interested in learning how to qualify for Medicaid while retaining a significant percentage of your assets, the wise course of action is to sit down and discuss the matter with an experienced and savvy Somerset County, NJ elder law attorney.

Compare this to auto insurance. Of course we are all required to carry insurance, but suppose this requirement did not exist. Only the most irresponsible of people would choose to risk their investments in their automobiles by not carrying insurance. And this is with the knowledge that they are probably not going to total their cars.

Yet, everyone is going to die for sure but most people don’t have an estate plan in place.

You may say that you’re a risk taker and you will get around to it when you get around to it. This is well and good, but if you die without an estate plan or become incapacitated without having executed a living will it is your family who will be paying the price. This is something to keep in mind if you are one to adopt a cavalier attitude with regard to estate planning.

It is really not that difficult to take action and execute these important documents. All you have to do is make a simple phone call to a good Middlesex County estate planning lawyer, set up an appointment, and record your wishes in a legally binding manner for the well-being of those that you love.

As your family grows your financial responsibilities will inevitably grow as well. For this reason it is important to keep track of your life insurance coverage and be ready to increase it as this becomes necessary.

Most people are well aware of the use of life insurance as an income replacement vehicle but it has other uses in estate planning as well. Life insurance is utilized when small business partners enter into buy-sell agreements as a succession planning tool. To explain briefly, the partners take out life insurance policies on one another and the proceeds are used to buy the share that was owned by a deceased partner from his or her family.

Life insurance is also used to balance inheritances. If you want to give a very valuable asset that is not liquid to one heir you could make another heir the beneficiary of an insurance policy that has a similar value to balance things out.

Estate planning involves the utilization of many different tools and life insurance is one of them. If you would like to sit down and discuss a comprehensive plan for the future with an expert, take a moment to pick up the phone and arrange for a consultation with a good Morris County NJ estate planning lawyer.

When it comes to making preparations for the eventualities of aging, it is a good idea to be realistic and come to terms with the realities that you may be facing. If you are prepared should a particular scenario arise the matter will be far easier to address, and this is what intelligent advance planning is all about.

With this in mind you would do well to be aware of the fact that some seven out of every 10 people who are at least 65 years of age are going to need long-term care eventually. This is a fact of life, plain and simple–the “truth,” as it were. You can pretend that it is not so or you can be proactive about preparing for the possibility.

The suggestion here is to consider doing some research in advance. Identify the long-term care community that you would prefer should you need such care. You can ask questions of the facilities themselves, consult with extended family members and friends, and tap into online resources that provide rating systems and reviews.

Doing some cost comparison evaluations can be useful as well because long-term care is extremely expensive these days.

As they say, it is better to be safe than sorry. If you would like some professional advice regarding the implementation of a comprehensive plan for aging, simply get in touch with a good Middlesex County NJ elder law attorney to arrange for an informative consultation.

In the majority of these cases at least one of the people entering the marriage has children from a previous marriage. This creates a particular estate planning scenario.

It is very likely that you want to provide for your new spouse after you pass away. But at the same time, your children are probably going to be a priority as well.

There are no assurances with regard to how your new spouse will plan his or her estate after you die. So, you may not want to leave everything to your spouse directly with no type of controls in place that protect your children.

One course of action that would be available to you would be the creation of a qualified terminable interest property trust. With these vehicles you provide income for your spouse for the rest of his or her life. But, you name your children as the beneficiaries who will assume ownership of the assets in the trust after the death of your spouse.

The best way to devise a plan for the future as a parent entering into a new union is to sit down and discuss the matter with a professional. Should you be seeking answers, don’t hesitate to pick up the phone and arrange for a consultation with a licensed and experienced central New Jersey estate planning lawyer.

You can get assets from point A to point B in a number of different ways and it is your estate planning attorney’s job to make the appropriate recommendations given your unique situation.

Asset protection is a priority for many people, and one tool that is often utilized to this end is the generation-skipping trust. As the name implies you skip a generation when you name a beneficiary. The beneficiary need only be an individual who is 37.5 years younger than the grantor, so it doesn’t have to be your grandchildren as a matter of law but most people will name their grandchildren as the beneficiaries.

Your children don’t own the assets and they aren’t the beneficiaries so they cannot be targeted by claimants of any kind. Yet, they can benefit from the resources that you placed into the trust throughout their lives.

These trusts provide asset protection, but they are perhaps more commonly utilized as a way to mitigate estate tax exposure. Two generations benefit from the resources, but only one imposition of taxation takes place in the form of the generation-skipping transfer tax.

To learn more about asset protection strategies, simply take a moment to arrange for a consultation with an experienced and savvy central New Jersey estate planning lawyer.

Some people don’t respond very well to receiving a large influx of money that they did not earn. We can all envision an arrogant or overly self-satisfied individual who could have developed these traits as a result of receiving a large inheritance. This is something that most people would not want to facilitate.

But short of this a sincere and relatively humble person could experience an underlying sense of conflict if he or she was to come into sudden wealth that was not earned. Granted, this may be a pleasant problem but it can be troubling to many people and we have all seen examples of high-profile individuals who had plenty of financial resources live troubled lives.

One thing you may want to consider if you have concerns about spoiling an heir would be to provide for this individual via the creation of an incentive trust. With these trusts you include conditions that must be met before distributions will be made. These conditions can guide the beneficiary toward a path of personal achievement.

For example, you could allow for distributions that are tied to academic or career benchmarks. You have the control and you can stipulate anything that you think would be useful to the beneficiary in the long run.

Incentive trusts can provide a solution for some people. Don’t hesitate to pick up the phone to set up a meeting with an experienced Somerset County estate planning lawyer if you would like to learn more about them.