Estate Planning

I once had a client who came to me and had $30,000 of credit card debt on different cards with interest rates ranging from 15 to 24 percent. She’d been stuck in this debt cycle for years—trying to pay it down but getting nowhere.

I’ve seen people lose generational wealth, not because they didn’t plan, but because their children didn’t understand how to manage what they inherited. When families come to me for help with their estate plans, the first thing I tell them is this: the documents are easy. It’s the conversations that are hard.

I’ve spent my career working with Latino families to build wealth. And since October is Estate Planning Awareness month, I encourage us all to examine how we can work on turning that spending power into intergenerational wealth through estate planning and how to avoid common pitfalls.

There’s a saying in Spanish, “Si Dios quiere,” or God willing. The idea that we are not responsible for making things happen—and that they’ll only happen of God wants them to—is fatalism. And it’s prevalent in our community. I remind my clients all the time that while God makes the fish, God makes the nets, God does not put the fish in the nets. And October, which is Estate Planning Awareness month, is a great time to remind you how to put the fish in the nets when it comes to planning your legacy.