When setting up an estate plan with your financial planner, expect him to protect your assets by including one or more trusts. They can be worth their weight in gold.

Few people clearly understand what trusts can do or just how they work. A trust can provide for you and your family, allow easy access to property, and help you avoid probate. But there are many different types of trusts, and they won’t all do what you want. You must be careful that your trust accomplishes your specific wishes, has all the necessary ingredients, and will do the job you chose it for.

Grasp the Basics of Trusts

A trust in its simplest form transfers assets from one person to another. It can bypass estate taxes, avoid probate, and revamp your life insurance to benefit your estate plan. A trust is one of the most flexible estate tools available today. It can do just about anything that’s legal and not contrary to public policy.

All trusts, from simple to complex, contain the same four elements:

- The donor or grantor is the person who creates the trust.
- The property includes all assets put in the trust. It’s sometimes called the corpus.
- The trustee is the person who promises to follow the donor’s instructions as set forth in the trust.
- The beneficiaries are those who received benefits from the trust.

Assign Your Assets

Any type of asset can be placed into a trust, from antiques and real estate to bank accounts, securities, or life insurance. But before you fill your trust, you’ll need to pick up someone to be your trustee. You can choose whomever you want, including yourself, your spouse, or your children.

After you decide on a trustee, you need to re-title your assets into the trustee’s name. If you go through the trouble of having a trust, and you don’t put your assets into it, it’s useless. As trustee of your own revocable trust, you can keep control over your assets.

Choose The Right Trust

Everyone’s needs are different, so talk to your estate planner about the trusts that are right for your financial situation. Here are the three types of trusts you may want to consider:

A living trust allows you to sidestep the time-consuming and public process of probate court. And you don’t have to be rich to have one. Even if your estate is small, you’ll benefit because a living trust will keep your estate in your loved ones’ hands – not the government’s. It also avoids probate if you become incapacitated for any reason, allowing you to change control of your assets in an organized, private manner.

A bypass trust allows your estate to bypass taxes. The trust is designed to kick in upon your death, allowing your spouse to have almost full use of all funds in the trust, Upon your spouse’s death, those funds would bypass his or her estate and go directly to your children.

A life insurance trust takes your life insurance out of your estate, allowing it to bypass taxes. To get the tax benefits, you’ll need to have someone else as the trustee. The trust is set up outside your estate, and you have no control over it. Upon your death, the proceeds go into the trust and are held for your spouse and children. It’s very effective and a wonderful loophole.

Well, first of all, without sounding too reminiscent of the playground, we should all cherish our best friends. These are the ones you can count on one hand. Feel blessed if you have more than one or two and don’t expect many friendships to reach this grade because it can take time, a lot of time, and it takes sharing, a lot of sharing.

It’s hard to be close to someone and care about them if you don’t know much about them, their lives or their feelings. Any reticence from them is likely to restrict you from being genuinely open with them so the relationship will never really drill down into deeper mutual support and affection. Sharing highs and lows, tears and tantrums and still feeling secure in someone’s regard for you is what really close friendship is all about. But it does take time – sometimes a lifetime. When it happens and the life currency between you is so deep, then such friends sort of transmogrify into family.

Cherish too the mentors and strong shoulders amongst your friends. Look for people you can provide the same sort of support to because you may not always be able to repay friendship in kind to the same people. Mentors need to be kept informed and appreciated, however modest they are. They will relish any of your success or triumphs and by nature have assumed a type of responsibility for your achievements. Always keep them in the loop and be very thankful!

Strong shoulders, on the other hand, are usually quite stoic about being the opposite to fair-weather friends. They know their place is in the stormy weather when they have to be rock-like to help you get through sadness and upsets. They are ready with the tea and sympathy and know just the right things to say to put smile back on your face.

Always have among your friends too some real life enhancers. You may have little in common with them, even despair at some of the things they do or say. But their ebullience and relentless good humor cheer along the days and enliven every encounter. And always try to have a wise and honest friend. This person may be different to all of the above – they may not know you very well and they many never become very close but they can be trusted to tell you the truth, however painful, and attach to it some advice tailored for you given in friendship.

Finally, and without wishing too frivolous about such important business – know your friends’ areas of excellence. I have friends I can ask about what I should wear, what should I read, how I should cook something, where the best deals are, where should I go on holiday or even who I can exercise with.

We would like to welcome everyone to the University of Hawaii West O’ahu Library (OHWU Library) blog! In here, you’ll find the latest updates about our library. We’ll be posting about what are the new books and features in our library. Interesting news and facts about OHWU library will also be posted here.

This blog will be very useful if you’re a frequent user of our school library. More updates will be posted here in our blog very soon!