More Money Podcast - 202 Why You Need to Make a Will - Erin Bury, CEO & Co-Founder of Willful

Episode Date: May 30, 2019

For this bonus episode of the podcast, I interview Erin Bury, who you may remember from episode 70 of the show. Back then, in 2016, she was the Managing Director at 88 Creative. She’s since switched paths and co-founded the online will-making software Willful with her husband and has recently become the company’s CEO. Since making a will is a very important element in having a complete financial plan, I wanted to have her on the show to shed some light about what the process looks like. I hope this episode inspires you to get a will if you don’t have one too! For full episode show notes, visit https://jessicamoorhouse.com/202 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to Episode 202 of the Mo Money Podcast. I am your host, Jessica Morehouse, and I'm excited to see you back here for a special bonus episode. And not only is it a bonus episode, I have a repeat guest that if you are a longtime Mo Money Podcast listener, you remember her from Episode 70. I know that was a while ago. That was November 1st, 2016, if you really want to know. And I had Erin Beery on the show at that time to talk more about entrepreneurship and personal branding. Her background is marketing. And at the time when she was on the show, she was the managing director of 88, which was a creative communications agency in Toronto. And I've also known her for a number of years. And she's also a fan of the show. And that's how I got her on the

show. And it was a great episode. So I'll link it to in the show notes if you want to listen. But that's not what we're going to be talking about. In this episode, she has made a shift in her career. She is now the CEO and also the co founder of a company called willful. It is an online platform that makes it affordable, convenient and easy for-founder of a company called Willful. It is an online platform that makes it affordable, convenient, and easy for Canadians to create a legal will online. You would have heard their ad because they were a sponsor of the Moomoney podcast last week. And I've got Aaron on the show because I want to talk about wills in the States because I surprisingly have not had anyone on the show to talk about that specifically. And I think there's

a lot of questions. I, you know, post some questions on social media and my Facebook group and got some great questions and I got some great emails with questions. And so I dig deep with Aaron all about what we all need to know about wills and estates, how we can protect ourselves and, and just, you know, answer some kind of, or really just demystify the whole thing. And I've also written a, in my opinion, great blog post all about what you need to know in terms of creating your own will and start making that estate plan. It is on the blog. I'll also link to it in the show notes, jessicamorris.com slash 202 if you want to check it out. But yeah, I think you're going to learn a lot because guaranteed

you don't know most of what we talk. I didn't. There's surprisingly quite a few things when I was doing research. I'm like, I am surprised I didn't know that. For instance, we'll talk about this in the show. I just assumed that in order for your will to be legal, you did have to hire a lawyer to make it for you. That is not the case, actually. Yeah, right? In Canada, at least. I'm just talking about Canada. I'm not an expert. I'm not an expert in wills, but I'm certainly not an expert in other countries. But in Canada, surprisingly, yeah, the law does not stipulate that. So we get into all of that good stuff in this episode. So I know you're going to enjoy it. And also, if you wanted to try

out Willful after listening to this episode, well, number one, you can try it out for free. So that's like a bonus. But more importantly, if you do not have a will, and you want to get one, and there's also a link, or there's like a whole list of reasons why you should get one if you don't have one in that blog post because you may not be sure. Do anyone? Do I not? You may not. You may not, but you might. And so I kind of list some of the reasons why if you fall into one of these categories, you should probably look into getting one. If you want to get a special discount, just use the promo code MoMoney15 to get 15% off. And if you're ever wondering, hey, I feel like you've mentioned lots of different promo codes and stuff throughout all these episodes, you better have. I am now putting them all online so it's easy for you to find all my lists of things I've mentioned or

personal recommendations and blah, blah, blah. On my website, jessicamorehouse.com slash recommendations is where you can find all of that. If you just go to my website, go under resources, it'll be right there. So there you go. Anyways, without further ado, here is this episode with Erin Burey of Willful. Thank you so much, Erin, for joining me back on the show. You were on the show for, let me just check my website, episode 70, which was November 1st, 2016. At this date when we're recording, it was November 1st, 2016. At this date, when we're recording,

it's May 20th, 2019. What have you been up to? Yeah. Oh, nothing much. I was actually on your show the first time, A, because I was a personal finance nerd, so probably just bugged you enough that you finally put me on. But I was talking about personal brands. So my background is in communications and journalism. And at the time I was running a startup marketing agency and working with a lot of consumer brands and with founders to actually grow their personal profile. And since then, my now husband, so got married last year, he had founded a company called Willful, which is online estate planning, which is what we're talking about today. I had no intention of joining the company. But as I was looking for a change and looking to go back from agency into kind of the product side, he somehow wore me down over the years. And I find myself now CEO of the company. That's what it's like. And now somehow I'm the CEO.

Yeah, as it happens, you know, I think when you run a startup, you're one of the good qualities you have is you're very persuasive. So I'm not surprised that he was able to persuade me. But as we're going to talk about today, as I actually started to dive more into the company as an advisor and investor and someone who lived with the founder, I realized that it was actually a fascinating space. And despite how unsexy it sounds when you hear about it, I got very passionate about it. So excited to be back. Yeah. So tell me a little bit about how it got started. It's only been a couple of years. And why did he decide to start this startup that is about wills and estate planning? Not, like you say, super sexy, but totally necessary.

Yeah. So my co-founder and husband, Kevin, he actually started it based on a family member passing away. So like many of us who go through the death of a family member, his family member actually had a will, but passed away unexpectedly. And they were left trying to scramble to put together all the pieces of the things outside of a will. So, you know, funeral wishes. And even though his family member had been married for 30 years, they had never had the conversation about, you know, funeral wishes or end of life planning ever. And it kind of made Kev realize that even though his family member had a will, there was all of this stuff outside of it that just hadn't been touched by technology and that people just weren't having these conversations.

So the original idea was to create almost like a life locker online where you could keep all of the things outside of a will and leave digital breadcrumbs, as he called them, for family members to put together those pieces. But he soon realized something that I'm sure a lot of listeners are thinking right now, which is that nobody likes to think about death. And so while that idea was a vitamin, it was a nice to have, he realized after doing research and talking to people that the will was really the painkiller. Everybody needs a will, or at least anyone with assets and or children. And so I really decided to kind of change the focus to focusing just on wills and estate plans.

And then, you know, eventually being able to work in all of those other things like, do you have a Netflix subscription or what do you want done with your Facebook account? So I launched the company in late 2017 in Ontario. And since then, it's just been growing into new markets and building a customer base and building the team, as you can see from me being here today. Yeah. So it started not too long ago. Did you find that it was necessary? Because I know kind of do-it-yourself wheelkits have been around. but I feel like in my mind when I've looked at it really is just like download this paper template and there you go. When I checked out Willful, it did seem in my mind, it was very reminiscent of like an online tax software where it kind of moved you through things. It educated you. You actually had like

support. You can talk to people and ask questions if you didn't understand something. So a little bit more of that guidance factor as opposed to just like downloading a paper template and then, you know, hoping for the best. Because whenever I work with a financial counseling client or even just talk to anybody anywhere and they ask me, hey, what do you think about those, you know, do-it-yourself tax or do-it-yourself will kits? I'm always kind of, I'm like, I don't know if I trust that. But for when I've been just doing a lot more research about just kind of your options, Willful just seemed, it's a DIY kit, but it seemed, I don't know, for me a little bit, I would use it if I didn't have a will. For sure. I mean, I think if you're someone in 2017 when we started or even 2019 today, and you're looking to create an estate

plan, there's a few options that you can use. The most obvious and obviously the most expensive is going to an estate lawyer. And for many people, especially those with complex estates, multiple properties in different countries, multiple businesses, multiple children from different partners, you're definitely still best to go to an estate lawyer and they absolutely can provide that expertise. And then on the other end of the spectrum, there's those DIY will kits that you mentioned that are almost more like Mad Libs for estate planning. So you get a fill in the blank piece of paper and it doesn't conform to your situation. You're just hoping that you're filling in the blanks the right way. And we'd like to think that willful sits somewhere in the middle of that. So we're not a DIY will kit in that we ask you similar to TurboTax,

we ask you a series of questions about your unique life situation. So, you know, are you married? Do you have children? And then we kind of guide you through the process based on your answers. And, you know, we create a completely customized document for you. So it's not that fill in the blanks, it's answer these questions similar to TurboTax. And then we help create this customized document based on your unique life situation. And all of our content has been created in partnership with the state lawyers in each of our active markets. So it's all created by lawyers written by state lawyers. And we have those lawyers kind of on call for us to answer questions or give us updates on local laws. So again, we're probably right for about 90% of

Canadians who have simple estates. They have a property, they're married or single, they have a kid or multiple children, but they don't have these crazy, outlier cases. And really, to be honest, our biggest competitor is complacency and procrastination. Like we I was shocked, actually. And this is one of the reasons that Kev created the company was he did some research and found that 56% of Canadian adults don't have a will, which if you think about the fact that there's 26 million adults in Canada, about 13 million people don't have a will. And then of those who do, at least one in 10 are out of date because they've gone through, you know, the birth of a child or a marriage or a separation. So, I mean, we'd like to think that

we're competing mostly with people just putting this on their to-do list and it just staying on that to-do list for a year or two. Yeah. And I mean, that's my personal experience too. It's like once me and Josh got married, I'm like, we should get a will. That's what you're supposed to do as an adult. I remember that's part of the... Once you get married, now you have kind of a dependence that you want to get that off your list. And it took us three years. And it wasn't that we were just lazy. I always researched, but then it just seemed so, like, it just didn't seem very easy. There's a lot of barriers and a lot of confusion. And also it's like, we live in Toronto, none of our family live here. We do have some friends,

but none of them have wills. And so we didn't have the luxury of being like, hey, does anyone have an estate lawyer they can recommend? So I had to like look online, which is very terrifying. Cause you're like, I hope I picked the right guy. And then we just picked a random one that seemed fine, reasonable rates. They were close by. And, but I was shocked because I thought, okay, this is the right way to do it. I thought it just, I would be, there'd be a little bit more customization or a little bit, it would just be a little bit more personal, but really they, they sent over us a template. We had to fill it in. We emailed it back. And then we set a time to go to their office to basically review it with them and ask any questions if we didn't understand something and then sign it. And then we were done and we paid a thousand dollars and you're like, wait,

what did what? And it doesn't include, they never asked us any questions about like, what are your funeral arrangements or what are your other kind of specific wishes? They said, okay, this is kind of the base price. It's going to basically be a thousand dollars for two wills and two power of attorney documents. If you want anything kind of special or customizable, that's going to be another 250 bucks an hour. And of course we're cheap. And at that time, like I can't like a thousand dollars, which is a lot of money. I'm like, we'll just go with the basic package. And once we make more money or things get a little more complex and then we'll kind of update it. But you know, that was three years ago. And already, you know, my older sister is pregnant. She's going to have her first child. I'm like, I want to put that child in our will and maybe kick some

of our cousins out. Cause we had to put like, okay, if you know, my, both my sisters died, my husband's dead, who's going to get all of our assets. I put my cousins, love them, but now I'd rather put this new kid in. It's going to be like 250 bucks just to put that little, you know, extra change in there, which I'm not looking forward to. Yeah. Well, I mean, the process that you described is very similar to the process that we've heard a lot of our friends go through, which is actually, again, one of the things that helped inform why Willful exists. You know, my best friend is, you know, I'm 33, she's 33, she got married, she just had her first kid and they did exactly what you just described with you and Josh. They went to an estate lawyer,

they paid about $1,200 to get their will done. They didn't necessarily have any special cases or unique things about it. So it was largely templated. And, you know, she actually, I don't think has updated it, I won't call her out by name, but she hasn't updated it since the birth of her daughter for that exact reason, which is that, you know, you have to make another appointment at the estate lawyer, you have to go in and you have to pay a few hundred dollars, which is why so many wills end up being out of date. So yeah, you really described a common experience for people. And again, I think when we so we always took the approach of partnering with estate lawyers in each province, not necessarily because you absolutely have to, but because we wanted to make sure that people felt comfortable with the legal content, uh, and that there

was an element of trust that it had been created by someone in your local province. And initially when we started reaching out to lawyers to partner with them with them, we got a lot of pushback, right? I mean, I think like any traditional service provider in an industry, they look at technology as a bit scary and a bit of, are you going to come in and eat my lunch? And so finding those first lawyers to partner with who kind of understood that technology was going to change their industry was difficult, but we eventually found people. And now as we're expanding, so we're looking to expand to the Prairies and some of the Atlantic provinces next, it's been a lot easier to get lawyers to say, oh, absolutely, I'd love to partner because a lot of the ones we talked to say, they actually don't make a lot of money off of those simple wills.

They make money off of the complex wills where, you know, there's a million different things that have to happen and you're paying $250 an hour times multiple extra hours to actually create that complex will. They're not making money off of the you and Josh's because you're coming in and doing something that's very templated, that doesn't cost a lot of money, and it's very repetitive for them. So they're actually saying, hey, listen, we'll give, they're actually asking us if they can offer willful to those clients who either say that they're too expensive or who have those very simplistic wills or estates. And then they're saying, that's a way for me to create loyalty with my customers that they're going to come back to me in future for any other legal matters. And then I'm going to focus on the complex wills that do cost me money.

And realistically, the thing that you have to understand about estate lawyers is that they make the most money when wills actually go through probate. So when someone passes away and someone can test that will in court, they can represent in many cases that that will as it moves through the courts, and then they either make a dollar amount for that or a percentage of the estate. So most estate lawyers make most of their money when it comes to estates on the probate process, not on the creation of the will. They do the wills because they know when someone passes away, it's very likely that family member will call them to retain them for that process. But they almost see wills as a loss

leader for their businesses, at least in, I can't speak for them, I'm not an estate lawyer, but in most of the cases of the people that we've spoken to, that's really the picture that they've painted for us. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. It didn't seem like we were definitely the top priority when we walked in the office. That's for sure. The one I'd say the most, I just want to get this out on the open because I feel like the number one question I get about you guys or any other kind of DIY will kit is, if I use something like Willful, is my will valid? And is it secure? I guess for any kind of new fintech out there, security is always the main concern. But I think especially for wills, people are worried that they'll make a will,

and then they'll die, and then it'll be contested right away.'ll be like, oh, it was used online, so it's not a real will. Can you kind of talk a little bit about what makes a will valid or legal in this country? Absolutely. So I think it's a bit of a misconception that if a will is made online, it's not legally valid. In fact, the medium it's created in, whether it's online or offline, isn't what makes a will legally valid. What makes a will legally valid is that the person who created it, you know, wrote it on their own and that it's signed by them and by two witnesses who do not benefit from that estate. So let's say, for example, Josh, you name Josh as your sole beneficiary and Josh signs your will, that is an invalid will because

it hasn't been signed by people who are not benefiting from the estate. So you can actually write, and in many cases you've probably heard in the news about people who literally write their will on a piece of paper. And as long as it's signed by them and written in the correct way and signed by two witnesses who don't benefit, that's a legally binding will. And that's actually called a holograph will. Now, I don't recommend that because you would have to know how to write it in the right way and make sure that the right people are signing it. But there's really two different sides to the coin. There's creating a will that's legally valid, and then there's the ability for that will to be contested in court. So in order for a will to be legally valid, again, it just needs to be signed by you and witnessed and signed by two

people who do not benefit from your estate. We actually provide an instructions page on the front of the will that outlines who can't sign your will because a lot of good that's where people get tripped up. So creating a legally valid will is one thing. And again, it comes down more to the signing than it does to the actual creation process. Whether a will can be contested, I mean, any will, whether it was created by a Staples DIY will kit or written on a piece of paper or created by the most expensive estate lawyer in Canada, any will can be contested in court. So let's say, for example, you take those cousins out of your will and you pass away and those cousins say, hey, I know Jess had us in her will. She told us that we were going to be a beneficiary. She was on the podcast.

She must have taken us out and I want to contest this because I believe that I have a right to a piece of that estate. That can happen to any will. And realistically, I mean, that's really up to the courts to interpret your wishes. So what they'll do is they'll look at the evidence, which is the most recent will. And again, I'm not a judge, I can't say, but usually what they'll do is they'll look at the most recent wishes. So if you did have a more recent legally valid will that was signed by two people, and it said very clearly that those cousins were not a part of your estate, they're going to probably interpret that your wishes were that those people wouldn't get any money. So again, any will can be contested. And I think that's really what you have to understand is that by creating a legally valid will, you're not negating the opportunity for

someone to contest your wishes in court. But what you are doing is ensuring that your wishes are at least out there and that the courts will take that and interpret it the best way that they can. So what I'm kind of hearing, and I think what lots of people want to know is your will will not be more valid or you won't basically secure yourself or your will from not being contested if you use a lawyer compared to Willful or a DIY kit. The benefits in terms of using a lawyer is for that legal advice and for if you need that customization or you need that just one-on-one personalized help. Absolutely. And that's why we did work with estate lawyers because again,

let's say for example, we created Willful 10 years ago and there's why we did work with estate lawyers because again you know let's say for example we created willful 10 years ago and there's been a lot of precedents cases in in different provinces and updates to the law then i can definitely understand the trepidation but we've created our legal content recently we have our lawyers telling us anytime there's updates that need to be made so you know we are up to date with the latest in kind of provincial legislation. And again, I think, you know, the thing to remember, unfortunately, is that any will can be contested,

but that ideally, you know, as long as your wishes are laid out clearly, hopefully that will hold up in court. And yeah, I think, you know, again, it's to remember that creating a legally valid will and the ability to contest that will are kind of two separate things. What are kind of the main reasons or the typical reasons why people or why wills are contested? Because I know like a lot of it is like, oh, that person wrote that will,

but they weren't of sound mind. Or that's like a one that you see in the movies a lot. Yeah, I mean, I'd have to again, because I'm not an estate lawyer by practice, I probably would say defer to an estate lawyer on the reasons why, but I think it always comes down to people who feel slighted that they weren't a beneficiary of that estate. So a common example, actually, so we have a charitable gifts feature on Willful where, you know, it's actually, I think most people don't know that you can actually leave a dollar amount or a percentage of your estate to any charity or nonprofit organization in Canada. So we make it easy on the platform for Canadians to do that. And I've heard a lot of stories anecdotally about people who have contested wills because their

family member left a large percent or chunk of their estate to charities. And they were mad because they would have preferred to have that as an individual. So that's, that's one example of why someone might contest it. So a family member who is a beneficiary, but isn't enough of a beneficiary, so they feel like they should have gotten more, or definitely people who were just left out of the estate. So you see, you know, a lot of Dateline episodes about, you know, someone who was added to or removed from a will and, you know, then they show up dead and, you know, everyone's kind of trying to figure out whether that person meant to remove that person from their will or add them. So that would definitely be a lot of the reason is just people who feel that

they should be a beneficiary or a larger beneficiary of someone's estate. Oh, totally. I don't really know how the story ended. I don't think it ended too well. But I had a friend, I went to film school with him. He befriended this older woman because he was making a documentary. I think she was involved in some way. And I guess they'd become friends for a number of years. She passed away and it was found out that she made a new will that basically made him and maybe some other people beneficiaries. And her family were very upset. She was a very wealthy person in Vancouver. And so they clearly wanted a cut and had no idea about this new will. And I know just from Facebook and stuff that, yeah, they went to court and it was messy and it took years. And I'm pretty sure he ended up losing even if those were her maybe her last wishes because I think they probably didn't.

I think the will just wasn't valid. And it could be because honestly, who knows who signed it or they didn't have proof like who signed it or was she of sound mind. Yeah, it was very messy. These things happen. I mean, I feel like everyone probably has a story like that from their own family or from a friend of a friend or something like that. They absolutely do. And I think that's why it's so important

when you create your will to inform your executor of the fact that you've created it, not just so that they know that they're, they should have a conversation with your executor, make sure that they want to do it. It's a big job and not everyone would want to handle that. But if, and when you choose your executor, make sure that they want to do it. It's a big job and not everyone would want to, to, to handle that. But if, and when you choose, you know, your executor, make sure they know, and make sure that you say, you know, I created my will today and I'm storing it here. And in the event that anything happens, you know, make sure that you found it. And here's why

I created it today because, you know, Josh and I wanted to update, to add my new niece so that, you know, if there's ever a contention, they can say, oh, yeah, I had a conversation with Jess and she said that it was because of her niece being born. And that was why she updated. That's a very clear, obvious reason. So anything you can do to kind of make sure that people know where your will is stored, because unfortunately, it's actually the law in Canada that you have to print and have your will signed with actual ink. We haven't gotten to the stage where we can do digitally stored wills. So that's the problem with even our platform. There's a huge barrier in that people have to print out and have their will signed correctly and store it. And I

wish that we could just allow people to sign it online because I hate thinking that there's all of these customers on our platform who have paid for their will, created their will, but they haven't taken that final step of printing it out and signing it correctly. And even a lot of people who do that, they forget to tell their executor where the will is stored. So if anything were to happen, they haven't said, oh, it's in this safety deposit box or it's in this drawer at my office. And so a lot of times, even if someone does have a will, their family or their executor is left scrambling, trying to find that physical copy of the will when something happens. Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly my situation with Josh. I'm kind of glad that you're on the podcast and I had to do a bunch of research beforehand because it gave me a big reason to look at our wills because it's been several years. And then I asked Josh, I'm like, does your executor know that he's the executor?

Like this friend he's had since like they were children. And he's like, yeah, I think I told him like, Oh my God, like make sure he knows. He probably forgot. And also like we have,

cause even there's a document on the face of our will saying, or another document that said, you know, make sure you keep this somewhere safe, but also your executors need to get the original copy. They can't, or like, they can't use just a copy of your wealth. They need the original. Um, so I'm like, Oh, well, our executors are based out of Vancouver. We live in Toronto. So not number one, I have to like scan all these documents and send it to them. So they know what it says, but also I have to find a probably better

place to put our wills because it's probably not in the most secure place. And then also let them know where exactly it is. And then they're going to have to have the really crappy job of flying out here and trying to find it. Isn't that crazy? I feel like we've come a long way in that you can do your taxes online and you can create your will online. You can buy a house with digital signatures.

So it seems to me that it will be an inevitability in terms of being able to sign and store your will online. And with technology like facial recognition and all of that type of stuff, I can definitely see a day in the near future where we can do that because the process you're describing is so slow and antiquated. But unfortunately, that's how it has to be done according to the courts. Yeah, I hope it does get better. Because right now, I'm like, this is super inconvenient. I also have to make sure that they have keys to our house. You know, there's a lot of things that we actually have to do on our checklist that we haven't done yet. Will is a good thing to have, but yeah, a few more things. It gets, I think a little bit more complicated when you don't live near a family. And also, I mean, to go back to your point about when you

were in the lawyer's office and you were kind of asking about the funeral wishes and things like that. So the only things that are actually legally valid in the will are, you know, the guardian for your children, the executor and the distribution of your estate. But in our platform, we also have questions about things like your funeral wishes and what type of ceremony you want. Those aren't legally binding, but they at least are included in the will as an indicator to your executor of what you want. They can choose to kind of listen or not. But it's this idea that think of, you know, I don't think any of us actually sit down and think about, I have a lot over the last couple of years because of this, but, but most people, you know, even, even so, I don't know that Kevin, I have actually sat down and talked about things like, you know, where, where do I have life

insurance? You know, what, what, what's our policy number and what, how would you actually contact, do you even know who our life insurance agent is to contact them? What about all of my, you know, banking? Do you know where I have my checkings account? Do you know that I have a Wealthsimple account where I have my RRSP? Like these are all things that we assume people would figure out, but that those are the things that are actually a huge pain in the butt for family members when you pass away. So while right now we're more focused on the will, I think there's such an opportunity to have the ability to store all of that stuff so that it's so much easier for your executors. Because I've actually never been an executor for someone's... I am an executor, but haven't had to go through the process. But everyone I talk to says, oh my god,

the will is just the tip of the iceberg. It's calling the banks and like issuing the death certificate and getting everyone connected with that. So I'm shutting down the Rogers account. And it's, you know, that's something that I think there's a ton of ability to use technology to help as well. So I think that could be hopefully the next phase of what we move into. Totally. And I feel like I was doing some reading and just, there's lots of things that I didn't even think about. It's like, what if this person has, you know, online, you know, accounts or like a social media account? Like, what do you do? And now you have to think about how do we get into their Facebook account to make sure it's like a legacy account or whatever. Like there's all these things I'm like, Oh crap. Like, you know, my parents both have Facebook.

I don't know their passwords. I don't think anyone does. So we need to talk about that. So we're not, you know, in the loop. One thing that I have done, and I'm trying to get my husband on board, is like for all of my passwords, because I don't like the idea of someone finding out where I hide them, I use an app called One Password. And there's a bunch of other ones where it has all of them. And then you can give certain people privileges to access your account. So I'm like, that is something I'm going to have to give to my executor.

So if I die, they can easily get into all of my accounts. Yeah. And that's, I mean, it takes a while to, you know, actually set up. It does. But once it's set up, it's so simple. And, you know, people always ask us about that. Like, will you ever have the ability to store passwords? And I think we're very much interested in partnering with or integrating services like

that. We're not really interested in kind of building that functionality. It already exists, but I would love the ability for, um, in the future on Willful there to be an executor login where if someone passes away, they can log in and get access to a list of all of their social media wishes, not just their accounts, but like, do you want your Facebook account to stay active? Do you want this one last tweet posted on your account? So that that tweet isn't totally a name, you know, like there's all these things that we could stipulate to pass on to our executors. But again, I think even if we built that, I think people are very hesitant to sit down and ask themselves those tough questions. And that's really the biggest

barrier that we have is getting people to actually sit down and think about this stuff, because I get it. No one, including me, wants to think about their own mortality. It's scary. But as soon as we actually find the people who are the most gung ho about this stuff are the people who have gone through the death of a family member and seen how hard this is. So we always say that we're not selling wills, we're selling peace of mind for your family. And hopefully that can encourage people to kind of ask themselves 15 minutes of tough questions to make sure something is in place. No, totally. And I agree. I'm like, I'm not too, like, it's pretty easy for me to like research this and to go through all this because I find it fascinating. But also it's like I've dealt with

death. You know, both my grandparents have passed now. And so I've seen that kind of take place. And also my husband's father, you know, passed away several years ago. And that was very, you know, hard because we were young and his uncle was the executor. And so we saw a lot of how that all worked and all the work the executor has to go, oh my gosh, it's crazy. It really kind of made us like we need to get this organized. And yeah, going back to like the funeral wishes, I found it actually really interesting when it's going through that section of willful, I like had to bring Josh out like, look, I didn't even think there were some of those options. I never we've never really talked about how do you want like, where do you want me to put your body, you know,

like, and I'm like, we've never talked about that. And, you know, traditionally, my family, you know, get buried in the, there's like a cemetery. I don't think I want that. There was like one, um, uh, option that was like, I think you get cremated, but it's like at the base of a tree. So people can visit your tree. I'm like, I want that. That's how I want to go. Josh is like, you can just dump me anywhere, but that's not what I'm going to do. I like the options that we have. So we ask you, you know, what do you want done with your actual body? Do you want to be cremated? And one of the options is donate your body to science, which I'm very into. I love the idea that you could go to after your organs were donated, if that's possible, the ability to be able to, to go towards like education and science. And then this idea of

where do you actually want to be, you know, whether it's your ashes or your body or whatever, where do you want to be buried? And one cool company that we came across, the name is escaping me, but hopefully we can put it in the show notes and I'll send it to you after. But it's literally exactly as you described, they have a forest in California and they allow you to be kind of buried at the base of a tree. And then your family, instead of visiting a gravestone can go visit your tree in this forest in the middle of California, which is a pretty cool idea and also just a lot more eco-friendly than some of the typical burial options. Yeah, exactly. And it's also, yeah, I like the idea of doing something like that than just going to a graveyard because I've been to a number of them for different

funerals and they're never a good time. They're just like, they're so sad to go and visit. So if you can have something kind of like a nice tree, I know for me, that's totally up my alley. But yeah, I found like your platform was a really great way for people to just open up that conversation, like going through it. And I made Josh go through it with me.

It's like, that's a great way. If you've never talked about it with your spouse or your partner or whatever, it's a great way to open up that conversation. Whether it's a marketing campaign or just more of an educational campaign, actually producing those table talk cards that have life questions on them. We thought about creating just a mini pack for these kinds of topics because there are so many questions that we don't even address in our platform. Like, what would you want me to do with your social media accounts? And what do you want your legacy to be? And what can I do to support that?

Like all of these questions that we should talk to our partners and our families about, but we never do. So I think something like that could really encourage people, even if it's just an hour, you know, one time, or like they do it every few years to kind of sit down and ask each other these questions, because ultimately, you know, if you pass away before Josh or vice versa, you are going to be responsible for carrying out these wishes. And if we can't talk to the people that we live with every single day about this stuff, then who else do we expect to know what we would want in the event of our passing? No, exactly. Exactly. I got a question actually from someone who emailed me and they just want to know, you answered a few questions already, but he was asking, what items in a will would people maybe overlook? I think a lot of people are,

they want to get a will and they want to make sure that they do it right. Are there any things that people may forget to think about or put in there that you would recommend that people make sure that they take a look at or they write down those wishes? I mean, we kind of touched on a few of them, but. The good thing about a will is that it applies to your umbrella estate. So a lot of people think that you have to stipulate what happens with every single thing that you own. So I have a house and I have a cottage and I have a Lamborghini, or let's be honest, more like Honda Civic, if you're dealing with most of the people that are in my friend group,

most people think that, or there's a common misconception that you have to outline what you want to happen to every single one of those things and that people are worried that they'll forget one of those items. But your will actually applies to your entire umbrella estate. So when you break it down and say that you want 50% of your estate to go to Josh and 50% of your estate to go to your sister and her kid or whatever. And you were to pass away, the estate would be valued as a whole and everything under that estate from your car to your house to your investment accounts would be calculated as part of that total estate. And then that would be split equally as you intended amongst your beneficiaries. So there's not a lot in terms of your actual, you know, assets that you have to think about. What you do have to think about is

if you want to leave a specific gift to somebody that's not one part of your beneficiaries. So for example, if you wanted to leave your, you know, something to a close friend, and they're not one of your beneficiaries, but you wanted to leave, let's say, a really valuable guitar, or you wanted to leave, you know, an heirloom family album or photo to somebody who wasn't listed in your beneficiary, that's definitely something that you want to think about is what are those things that have a ton of meaning that I want to go to a specific person who is not one of my beneficiaries. And that's something you should probably sit down and think about. The biggest thing that I think people have a challenge with or don't think about before they sit down to do their will is who would be the guardian of their children. So they start doing

their will with their husband or with their wife or their partner. And they say, oh yeah, it would definitely be my sister. And then the husband is like, wait, why would it be your sister instead of my brother? And they get into all of these arguments. And in many cases, they haven't broached that subject with the sister or the brother. So I think similar to how you should broach the subject with your executor before you make them the executor of your will, you should broach the subject with your partner of who's going to be that guardian of your children and talk to that person because nobody wants to get it sprung on them that they all of a sudden have to take care of, you know, they're like an instant parent. So you want to make sure that they're actually up for the job and that they've thought about it really, you know,

diligently, and then kind of put them in your will. But other than that, and other than, you know, charitable gifts, you know, do you want to leave something to charity? Do you want it to be a dollar amount? Or do you want it to be a percentage of your estate? There's not a ton that you have to think about, at least if you have a simple estate that would be right for Willful. And we kind of guide you through that so you don't necessarily have to finish the process and think, wow, is there something that I missed there? Absolutely. And just before we kind of wrap things up, just to also inspire people to actually, no matter what they choose to get a will and to make sure they check that off their list, what happens if you do not have a will and you die?

That is an excellent question. So, you know, I used to run a marketing agency and every single person that worked for me was a millennial. And most of them were 23, 24 years old. And we actually worked on Willful. We did all the branding and worked on it. And so I said, if anyone wants to create a free will on Willful, let me know. You can have a free one. And all of them were like, I'm 22. I don't have property.

Why do I need a will? So I'll clear up. If you do not have children and you do not have any assets, so investments or a home or anything like that, you don't necessarily need a will, but you do need a power of attorney. A power of attorney dictates what would happen to you if you were incapacitated. And it dictates, it stipulates a contact who would make decisions on your behalf. So let's say, for example, you know, again, nobody wants to think about this, but if you are 22 years old and you get in a car accident, it stipulates whether you would want to be kept on life support or whether you would want them

to pull the plug and things like that. And it stipulates a contact who would be able to make those decisions on your behalf. So anyone listening who is saying to themselves, I don't need a will because I don't have kids or I don't have assets, that is very true. But I would definitely recommend looking into getting a power of attorney. And we're looking at selling those separately. Right now, you can get them with the basic will plan for $99. But eventually, we hope to offer those separately. If you are someone who has children and who has assets and you pass away without a will, the government can't take your money. There's a misconception that the government can take all of your money. That's not true. But they will decide how your assets are distributed. So,

you know, they might appoint a guardian for your children that you wouldn't have chosen yourself. And they might choose to distribute your assets in a way that doesn't match what your wishes would have been. And there's kind of a hierarchy of how those would be distributed based on, you know, do you have a spouse? Do you have children? They follow kind of a logical order. So if you pass away and you have a spouse, they're going to get your estate in most cases. Your children would get it in most cases. But do you really want to leave it up to chance that the, you know, the decisions that are made on your behalf are going to be the right ones. So it basically just gives you the 100% complete control over those things who would be the guardian of your children and how your assets would be

distributed versus letting someone else decide for you. Yeah, I don't want the government deciding all that stuff. It's like, just get a will or especially like I like how you really broke it down. Like if you don't think you need a will, like if you don't kind of fall into any of those categories, definitely get a power of attorney. And then if you do fall into both those categories, get a power of attorney and a will, not just one or the other. And then on that note,

don't let it get out of date because I think a lot of people do, unfortunately fall into the same category as you, where yours maybe isn't out of date. You just would like to make an update at some point. But a lot of people have gone through a divorce or separation, or they've gotten married, they've had a child or a second child, and they haven't gone through to make those updates. So I think the other good thing about creating a will online is that you can make easy updates. So with

Willful right now, we offer unlimited updates. At some point, we probably will start charging a nominal annual fee, but it will be nowhere near $250. It'll be more like 10 bucks a year. And even if you paid that for the rest of your life, it would probably still be cheaper than going to a lawyer to make one or two updates. So I think the other thing that I'd like to think we're doing is making it easier for people to update their will at any time instead of having to put it off and and and you know they pass away with a very out of date will yeah like that's the one of the things i'm kind of considering like well like we're gonna have to make updates throughout our lifetime and i read somewhere that you know typically you should uh review or update your will like every few years maybe every five years but really i guess it's when whenever there's a life event that happens or something you're like like, well, I need to update it.

But for me, I'm like, I don't want to pay $250 every single time I have to make a thing. Does it make sense? Or has anyone done this where they already have a will, you know, that they've made with a lawyer, but then they choose to make a new, completely new will with Willful. Is that something that people do? Yeah, definitely. I mean, we've also had cases where people have moved from different provinces and so they want to create one in the new place that they live. That's kind of the thing about Willful that is great is that it's not super cost prohibitive to start from scratch. And the thing to know about wills is that even if you created one, you know, five years ago within a state lawyer, as soon as you create a new one, that becomes the most recent one that they would defer to. So it's not like you have to shred that

old one or get it, you know, destroy it or anything like that. As soon as you create a new one, that takes precedent over the old ones. So yeah, we definitely, I mean, if you're thinking about going to a lawyer for $250 to make one update or buying a will with us and then being able to update it at any time, it's definitely more cost effective to use our option. Although again, I definitely recognize and I mean, we send people to estate lawyers on a weekly basis who are not the right fit for our platform, who have complex estates. So I want to make it clear that we're not just saying everybody should use Willful. Everyone who is suitable for Willful should use Willful. And in many cases, it can be

a better option. But I think that the takeaway from today is everybody needs a will if you have a kid or assets and do your research on what makes the most sense for you. We have a ton of educational articles in our Learn Center. A lot of estate lawyers also have really great resources online. So just do a bit of research. And once you've figured out what the right option is for you, then you can figure out how much you're actually going to have to pay as you update it. Definitely. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining me and talking with me. I think this is the first episode on the podcast I've ever had about estate planning, which is not okay. I've had this show for four years. I haven't talked about estate planning.

It's a big part of your overall financial plan, people. So make sure to look more into this and make sure you have a plan for your estate. It's not fun to think about, but it's very important as someone who's experienced death in the family. It is so vital to have all those plans prepared. And thanks so much for having me.

I really appreciate it. And that was my episode with Erin Beery, the CEO and co-founder of Willful. Find out more information about all the things that we talked about in the show notes, jessicamorehouse.com slash 202. And of course, to read my very in-depth blog post all about wills and how to get yourself organized and prepared. Honestly, honestly, and I think I mentioned this in the episode, that there's nothing more adulting feeling than when you get your will done. You feel like, oh, I've got my stuff together. So if you want to get your stuff together, get yourself a

will. No matter how you do it, just get it done. Please, please. And of course, if you want to try out Willful, you can try the whole process. I tried it out myself, even though I have a will already. You can just do it for free. It's just like tax software. You know what I mean? You can try the whole process out for free. You just have to pay when you actually want that documentation. So check it out. Willful.co is where you can find all that info. Um, and also if you want to save 15% off, if you want to like move forward and get yourself a will use my promo code MoMoney15 to get 15% off. Ba-bam. So, uh, thank you so much for, oh, what do I, I can't believe I almost just wrapped up and I promised you I was going to name the rest of the contest winners. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Okay. Let's do this now. Let's get this thing done.

Okay. So I'm going to first draw the winner for the book, The Latte Factor, which was written by David Bach and John David Mann. And this book was actually just recently released, and I think it might be a bestseller already. So the lucky winner of this book is Soraya Danji. Congratulations, you won a copy of The Latte Factor. I'm going to email you with some details, and it'll be in the mail very shortly. Congratulations. All right. Next, I have the winner of the book, How to Be a Capitalist Without Any Capital by Nathan Lotka and the winner is, I wish I could have a drum roll right now. Okay. I can't really do a drum roll with my mouth. The winner is Jeanette Gentile. Okay. It could be genti or it could be gentile. I'm going to say genti because Jeanette

sounds French. So Jeanette Gentil, you've won a book. I'm going to email you soon. And last but not least, the last book in my contest is Broke Millennial Takes on Investing by Erin Lowry, who has been on the show a couple of times. We didn't have been together. She's the best. And the lucky winner is Joanna Huang. Congratulations, Joanna. And thank you so much, everyone who has entered all of my contests. I gave away a lot of books.

I'm going to continue to do that because it seems like a fun thing that everyone enjoys. So I will definitely do another big book giveaway next season of the show. If you, of course, I'm always doing contests and some of them, I can't, you know, they're basically, it's like I'll do them on social media or my email. And sometimes I can't do them on the podcast because again, I do this in advance. I don't do this in real time. Exactly. If you want to be in the know, get on that freaking email. It's jessicamorris.com slash subscribe is how you can do it. You can also get access to my complete free resource library, a ton of videos, spreadsheets, downloads, checklists, a bunch of free stuff to help you get your stuff together. Okay, so do it and you

will have a good time. Also, I've got a Facebook group called the Money Life Balance Community. Just go to facebook.com slash groups slash Money Life Balance is how you can get in there. And that's how you can, you know, join the community, make some friends, ask some questions, see what's going on, and get some accountability with your own financial life. Anyways, thanks so much for listening. I'm going to be back here next week for the final week of the Momany podcast. I've got two episodes for you next week and then I'm out of here. I'm on vacation and that's it really. So if you'd like to do something nice for me, I don't know. You can, you know, spend two seconds and give me an iTunes review and let me know what you think. That'd be really cool. If not, whatever. I still like you. You're still welcome to listen

and that, you know, whatever. No hard feelings. I will see you back here next Wednesday. Sometimes I don't know when to stop talking. I'm going to see you back here next Wednesday for a fresh new episode of the Momentary Podcast. Have a good rest of your week. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.