Link to Youtube –
https://youtu.be/9RF0f29Ozok

Link to buzz sprout –
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2136084/episodes/17538330

Summary:

In this episode of The Money PIG Podcast, we’re thrilled to welcome estate attorney Sarah White. Tim and Sarah dive into all things estate planning—why every family needs it (not just the ultra-wealthy), what essential documents you should have in place, and the real-life messes that happen when you don’t have a plan.

Sarah shares stories (including one about a double-wide trailer and a determined client), busts common estate planning myths, and explains how legal planning intersects with your financial goals. Plus, Tim reveals his own experience with estate planning—complete with chicken diapers, dad jokes, and a cautionary tale involving unfinished paperwork (from his own mom).

Topics include:

Why a will, healthcare directive, and power of attorney are foundational
How estate planning protects your legacy and reduces family stress
When you might need a trust (blended families, out-of-state property, special needs)
Why naming beneficiaries isn’t enough
How financial advisors and estate attorneys collaborate for your benefit

Whether you’ve got a beach house or backyard chickens, your legacy deserves protection.

Need help getting started? Visit GoodwinInvestment.com

Reach Sarah at Sarah@lawyersarah.com or visit LawyerSarah.com

Read the blog that inspired this episode: https://www.goodwininvestment.com/the-estate-plan-you-didnt-know-you-needed/

Like, subscribe, and leave us a review if this resonated with you!

Enjoy the episode?

Subscribe, share it, and leave us a review on Apple or Spotify!

For personalized financial guidance, schedule an intro call with our team at Goodwin Investment Advisory in Marietta, Georgia. Our CFP® professionals can provide advice and help you navigate how to invest your wealth and plan for your retirement. We’d love to help you live out your legacy! To learn more about the benefits and services we offer click here.

Goodwin Investment Advisory is a Registered Investment Advisory firm regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission in accordance and compliance with securities laws and regulations. Goodwin Investment Advisory does not render or offer to render personalized investment or tax advice through the Money PIG podcast. The information provided is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, tax, investment or legal advice

Transcript:

Welcome back to the money pig podcast. Today we are super grateful and excited to have the one and only Sarah White joining us today. How you doing today, Sarah? Doing great. Thanks. Doing great. So Sarah is an incredible estate attorney that we love working with and we’re gonna be talking more with her about that. But before we do, I would love Sarah if you would maybe share something that

Sarah White (03:15.457)
I’m wonderful, how about you?

Tim Goodwin (03:30.497)
audience doesn’t know about you and this is your first time on the Money Pig Podcast so you know can really go with anything.

Sarah White (03:36.804)
something the audience doesn’t know about me. I’m a big Tennessee fan. have a very full household. have four daughters, a husband, 11 chickens and two dogs. So between that, between that and my legal practice, I am pretty, pretty busy.

Tim Goodwin (03:47.031)
What? Eleven chickens? What?

Yeah, we know you’re a Tennessee fan because you you know, you use an office here in our building and we’ve got quite a bit of orange over there. So that’s awesome. So Sarah, it’s kind of funny you mentioned the chickens because I have I chickens at home as well. And one of the one of the hens hatched some chicks, but I guess one got out through the fence. And my little dog Roxy, it like imprinted on her. And it came inside with her and it is now living in our house with our dog. We literally ordered little chick diapers today.

And we call the chick Hey Hey, because that’s the name of the chicken in Moana. And we just got back from Hawaii. Anyway, so I highly don’t recommend having a chick live in your house because there’s poop and then they’re up early squawking. But anyway, I don’t know what the extra strategy is with this chicken, but right now it’s super duper cute. She like was fending off the cats that we have and like protecting it. And she like licks it tries to keep it clean. It is the craziest thing. I think they need their own Instagram page, but we’ll let the listeners know.

if Roxy and Hey Hey end up with an Instagram page. yes, chickens keep it interesting. So I don’t know if you’re a listener to the Money Pig Sarah, but I’d like to start off with some dad jokes. And so I was just going to give you a warning. Sometimes I don’t tell people I’m about to say a dad joke, but I got two dad jokes around estate planning. Okay, so here they are. People’s right and about like your line of work. Let’s go. So people say they don’t need an estate plan because they’re not rich.

Sarah White (05:09.544)
Awesome, I love dad jokes.

Thank you.

Tim Goodwin (05:18.513)
But if you’ve got a family, a home, or even just a half decent coffee maker, you’ve got something worth protecting. Let’s see, here’s the second one. The estate planning is like a parachute. If you wait too long to open it, well, let’s just say it won’t soften the landing. anyway, that’s a little bit of our why today about like, why are we doing an estate planning talk, right? Like it’s not just about the super rich and it’s not just about having a lot of assets.

Sarah White (05:34.611)
you

Tim Goodwin (05:46.021)
It’s really something that think you and I both believe very strongly in that really everyone has some kind of basic estate planning. So let me go ahead and get us kicked off here with the first question with you, Sarah. Estate planning often feels like something people put off until it’s too late. Can you explain why every family, not just the ultra wealthy, needs an estate plan?

Sarah White (06:08.715)
Sure, a lot of reasons. Not getting a basic plan in place means you really have no say so in what happens with your assets or your kids or any of other stuff after you cannot communicate those wishes. And it’s not just ultra wealthy people. One of my favorite clients ever, I believe the only asset she had was a double wide trailer and a tiny little lot it was on. And she was married to a guy who she hadn’t seen in like seven years and had never divorced him.

Tim Goodwin (06:36.633)
still married, yep.

Sarah White (06:38.759)
She was adamant that he’s not getting her trailer and she doesn’t care. She didn’t haggle about fees like some of my ultra wealthy clients. She just wanted something in place and wanted to make sure he did not get that trailer. So that was the perfect example of somebody who’s not ultra wealthy who recognizes the value in getting something written that says what the plan is if something happens.

Tim Goodwin (07:01.861)
Alright, so to be clear, didn’t, well, she wasn’t coming in there to have you help her like get divorced to this guy she hadn’t seen in seven years. She just needed to stay planning that her double wide and lot of sat on didn’t go to him, right? Okay. Next to Ken, right? You die intestate. Yeah, without my gosh, that’s that’s wild. Yeah. So and I think to like there you still have like

Sarah White (07:14.921)
Correct, because Georgia law says it goes to him. Right.

Tim Goodwin (07:26.737)
Furniture like we were just talking about our pet chickens Sarah like who’s gonna get our chickens? We don’t need our family fighting over our chickens, right? We need to we need to kind of make that clear So you’ve got chickens. You’ve got maybe at least some real estate. You’ve got some assets Yeah, it’s something that we take really seriously around here too. Like we double-check with our clients Like hey, these are your beneficiaries like are these still is that still your wish? You know life life moves forward fast and things change. So Yes, every family needs one

So when we say every family needs estate planning, do you recommend is kind of like, hey, this is basic, we’ve to get all this done.

Sarah White (08:03.892)
So it’s going to vary state by state, but generally, generally speaking, typically three documents is a good, very basic estate plan. it’s in Georgia, it’d be called the Advanced Director for Health Care, similar names in other states too. That’s one. And then I financial power of attorney, critically important. Sometimes that’s the most important document of the three basics. And then, and then a will. And then we might layer some trust planning on top of that.

Tim Goodwin (08:05.862)
Okay.

Tim Goodwin (08:25.901)
Mm, right, okay.

Sarah White (08:33.693)
But those are generally the basic three from a starting point.

Tim Goodwin (08:37.861)
Okay, cool. Yeah, and we might break down some more of those a little bit later here. what are the biggest misunderstandings that you see around wills, trusts, estate planning in general that can go wrong if you don’t have the right documents in place?

Sarah White (08:51.998)
So lot of people think it doesn’t matter if I do any planning because we’re all adults and like my children are all adults. Everybody gets along great. I had a situation recently where it all adults and everybody got along great. And the lady just did not do basic planning that would have been just really made things so much easier on her family after she got dementia, sadly.

Tim Goodwin (09:09.373)
Mmm.

Tim Goodwin (09:18.203)
Yeah.

Sarah White (09:18.557)
Just having the basics can just go so far to alleviating not only like making sure your wishes are carried out, but also taking off stress off all the people that are dealing with this incredibly difficult situation.

Tim Goodwin (09:27.805)
Gosh.

Think that’s huge, yeah. You’re like, it’s fine. They’ll just divvy it up when I die. And it’s like, man, you could make it so much less stressful on them. And I’ve even heard other consumer advocates, like even Dave Ramsey and others, be like, it’s sort of like an I love you letter to your family. Show them that you love them by you make this decision. Don’t put it on them. You don’t want anything to come between them and not realize that, they both have this really great memory with this particular hutch that was passed down from generation

generation to generation. Let’s just go ahead and divide this thing up or who gets the cat or something like that. my case, it would definitely be Shiloh. My middle daughter is a cat lover, so she’s going to get the cats. Everybody knows that. But you’d have to make it really, really clear. We’ve had some too, Sarah. You know how much we incentivize our clients even to get their basic estate planning documents, right?

Sarah White (10:09.799)
Hahaha.

Tim Goodwin (10:24.485)
And so we feel like as a really great fiduciary that we would like to see those documents for our clients, right? Like we’re not paid, we don’t charge them to look at their documents. We like to have electronic copies of them on file for them. One of the reasons why, that I don’t necessarily tell the client all the time is like, I just wanna make sure that like they’re complete and that they’re right. And so this is really funny. One of my clients gave me their, this is it, it’s executed all that stuff. It’s a couple.

And I’m going through their document. told me this is the final copy that they have. But one client didn’t sign it. Only the other client had. And believe it or not, it was my mom. Okay, so like my dad had signed it, my mom had not. So like you guys, this is not a fully executed document. And believe it or not, I’ve had a client over the 20 years have done this that brought it kind of scratched out on paper. And I think we talked about before that, like it could work, right? Like, you know, something that you’ve

Sarah White (11:02.193)
Bye.

Tim Goodwin (11:22.727)
kind of just drawn up yourself, but probably a lot better to have a professional. Go ahead. It’s possible.

Sarah White (11:25.191)
It’s possible, but it won’t be easy. It won’t be easy to use later.

Tim Goodwin (11:32.221)
Right, and that’s what I was like. I don’t think this is gonna be a lot harder than you think and it’s much more affordable to get this stuff done. Yeah, so it’s just, you know, let’s make sure it’s gonna hold up in court and let’s make sure it’s fully executed, you know what I mean? So that’s, you’ve done like, it’s like you’re running a marathon. You gave up at, you know, mile 25. Like you got a mile to go. Like let’s make sure it’s all done. So, yeah, so make sure you get all those things in place. So here at Goodwin Investment Advisory,

We’re also helping our clients think about legacy goals. How can you share, or can you share how an estate attorney collaborates with financial advisors to create a plan that actually honors someone’s wishes both during their life and after?

Sarah White (12:15.858)
Sure, so that’s a great question. I have found financial advisors to be very useful in giving me actual details of the finances, which I am constantly told the wrong information on who has what account, who the beneficiaries are. I feel like daily, maybe not daily, but definitely weekly. And it’s not always, it’s usually just some, yes.

Tim Goodwin (12:24.669)
Mmm, yeah.

Tim Goodwin (12:32.189)
Right.

Tim Goodwin (12:39.993)
Like it’s who they think the beneficiaries are but they didn’t actually go like log into the custodian be like here here’s the actual beneficiary real time. Yeah.

Sarah White (12:48.53)
that or telling me they have a brokerage account when it’s an IRA or vice versa. Like a lot of things like that. And I also think it’s great because to work with an advisor, to coordinate the two, because an advisor usually has an ongoing relationship with the client where they see them probably at least once a year, talk to them once a year. Whereas me, when the clients leave, odds are decent I’ll never see them again.

Tim Goodwin (12:51.869)
Yes.

Tim Goodwin (13:12.625)
Mmm.

Sarah White (13:12.825)
And so then the advisor can prompt them about, you’re getting divorced. You need to update your will, which is probably not the top priority for a client or, you’re moving to a new state. Maybe you need to update this plan. Whereas me, when I’m approached, I work with people, but I don’t know, I don’t deal with them every year.

Tim Goodwin (13:18.715)
Right.

Tim Goodwin (13:25.159)
Yeah.

Tim Goodwin (13:29.379)
Or I got another example. I’ve learned this from you over the years. They start having kids, maybe one of the kids has special needs. Right? And so, okay, maybe some more legal documents need to be put in place, you know? Right. Or like here, we’re in Georgia. And so one of the favorite place for Georgians to vacation is the Panhandle, which is Florida, technically. Well, once our clients have out of state real estate,

Sarah White (13:37.339)
Yeah, exactly. Yes. And so.

Sarah White (13:42.811)
They wouldn’t necessarily think they need to update their documents because of that, which they do.

Tim Goodwin (13:57.467)
might be another reason, right? To have something, or maybe like you said, divorce, remarried, blended families, right? So those, to me, those are all examples I think that you’ve given me that might be a trigger for my clients that are from Georgia to consider maybe a trust. Is that right? Maybe you can break down a little bit, like in those examples of special needs child out of state real estate or blended family, why the trust might be something to look at beyond just the will and power of attorney and healthcare directive.

Sarah White (14:26.215)
Yes, so this is very state specific, but in Georgia, probate. So typically you either pass away with a will, hopefully with the will and with assets passing through that will. And that involves a process called probate, which can be easy or can be a hellish nightmare. just depends on depends, depends on the state you live in. And a lot of it depends about your family situation, the status of the, like how the will was written, things like that. It’s not necessarily a bad.

Tim Goodwin (14:44.765)
The state you live in. Yeah.

Sarah White (14:54.919)
a bad process in Georgia though, it can be very easy. There are times that you really want to try to avoid that with a trust. And so one example, like you said, out of state real estate, without a state real estate, probate in Georgia is really easy. But if you add a Panama City beach house to the mix, then suddenly you’re looking at probate in two states and probate in Florida is not known to be super easy. So it’d be worth a call to.

Tim Goodwin (15:13.787)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mmm.

Sarah White (15:20.902)
your attorney in Florida when you buy the property or your Georgia attorney preferably your Georgia attorney if you’re Georgia resident and thinking about maybe a trust or maybe some other type of arrangement with that house. Maybe if it’s a rental we put it in an LLC and that would that would also help avoid Florida probate. Blended families generally it’s a nice idea to have trust not for all blended families but for some blended families. they

Tim Goodwin (15:44.882)
Hmm.

Sarah White (15:45.688)
if they marry later in life and they each have their own assets. So husband has his wife has his. A trust is a really clean way for each other own trust to keep their assets theirs. And the surviving spouse if one of them passes a surviving spouse can usually tap off of that trust. But it’s very clean about when they’re both gone. These assets go to this set of kids. These assets go to this set of kids. And that’s just a really clean way to do it instead of blending it all into one pot.

Tim Goodwin (15:49.669)
Right. Okay.

Tim Goodwin (16:12.603)
Hmm.

Sarah White (16:12.782)
and then hoping that surviving spouse doesn’t change their mind later about their stepchildren. Yeah, and then special needs trusts are pretty important for special needs beneficiaries, minors or adults. Typically when you reach certain ages in Georgia, well, really any age, you can get special benefits from the federal and state governments that are…

Tim Goodwin (16:16.394)
Right. Yep. Yep.

Tim Goodwin (16:24.719)
Miners.

Okay.

Sarah White (16:38.437)
means tested typically. So generally you don’t want to get an inheritance and then hope to keep those benefits. So a special needs trust will let you kind of have your cake and eat it too. So keep some of those benefits in place and also use the money from your family members to help you with a little extras in life. So that’s always done with a special needs trust.

Tim Goodwin (16:49.265)
Mm.

Tim Goodwin (17:01.521)
Yeah, I’m, you know, in addition to that, I think one of the things that, you’re my estate attorney, we use you for more in a nice estate plan that you’ve, in addition to that, of helped us think through, like you said, putting a rental property in a separate entity like an LLC, you know? So I found it really helpful just to kind of talk through that with you. Why would we do it? Why would we not do it? know, quit claim deeding the…

say rental property if it was in my name to the LLC and how to do those updates. And so I can say it really feels good when we, not just have met with you, but when all those documents have been finalized and I feel like you do such a great job of helping people think through the trustee, the successor trustee, the executor, the successor they are, and if you’ve got guardians for minor kids. So.

I’m really, really grateful in a world where everything’s electronic, it’s nice in your world where these big documents that you’re not having to hand copies all over the place where we really just want electronic copies now. So we’re really grateful for that, that you’re helping us with those things as well. One of the reasons I can share this with you and the listeners online that are listening, there are services online to get this stuff done.

And there was a very short period of time where I was recommending that to folks go online. And again, as a fiduciary acting in their best interest, you know, trying to save them money and maximize everything. but what I was finding is that my clients weren’t finishing the process.

Gosh, let alone starting it, right? Like everybody’s got a busy day, right? They get tired, they get home. They’re like, Hey babe, we could either like, you know, share a glass of wine and watch this really funny show, or we could just like sit down and pull up an online website and start our estate planning. Like when’s your brain, when’s your, you know what I mean? No, you want the, you want the endorphin hits of watching a fun show and just chilling, right? So, or they start it and they kind of get stuck with like what I was saying, I was helpful for me meeting with you.

Tim Goodwin (19:11.195)
the executor, the successor, the trustees, the guardians, and the backups for them just to have you kind of walk me through what would be appropriate. Like do I really want to have older people in my life set as the guardian for my kids? You like I don’t know. Like you got to think about some of these things. And I think that was really helpful. And yeah, it certainly should cost more to meet with someone with as much experience and expertise as you versus going online. But then we have somebody that we have a scheduled meeting with.

We’re going to honor that meeting. going to repaid for it. So we actually want to finish. I know probably not all of your clients finish, right? But, know, spending, you know, committing to the meetings and spending the more money we’ve actually seen that clients will actually finish it. Now, I don’t know the answer to this question. So I’m most afraid to ask, but if we recommend our clients to you, Sarah, did they usually get it done? The GI clients usually? Are you sure you don’t have to? Okay, okay.

Sarah White (19:59.811)
Ha

Sarah White (20:05.313)
Yes, yes, yes, they actually usually do. I’m positive. I’m not saying always, there’s a small stack that aren’t done.

Tim Goodwin (20:11.331)
Okay, there’s no it’s never going to be always yeah if you need help, know going after some GI clients you let me know and we’ll sick them, you know, so. So we do have some incentives for our clients that those have changed over time and they depend so I’m not going to say I’m here for the record, but we stopped just saying hey you need your well hey you need your well hey you need your well we actually stick an incentive to it for our clients. They certainly can go online or go anywhere, but we generally do recommend.

Sarah locally, know, like you said, Sarah, this is really important to kind of get state specific, right? So if they live like if their primary residence is outside of Georgia, then you’re not necessarily working with them or can you?

Sarah White (20:51.21)
No, they need to do it in the state where they’re a resident. Sometimes there are out of state people that need one little tiny piece done in Georgia. Maybe they need something set up for their Georgia rental house or something like that. But generally they go to the state where they’re a resident.

Tim Goodwin (20:55.335)
Right.

Tim Goodwin (21:02.235)
Right.

Tim Goodwin (21:05.743)
Okay. Okay. Yeah. So sorry to break the hearts of the listeners that are not in the state of Georgia. And I’m like, Sarah sounds really cool. You know, you do you need to find some somebody local there. You know, full disclosure here. We love Sarah. She’s not kicking back or anything. We just you know, as a fiduciary don’t want anything she does occasionally send us some bundt cakes okay to the office but we do love sending her. She’s got great Google reviews you can you know, to take my word for it. Check out she’s got a great website.

Sarah White (21:10.019)
Hahaha.

Tim Goodwin (21:32.533)
I think Sarah, I’m always like, how does she have more Google reviews than us? Because we were all about Google reviews. I’m always so impressed. She’s got two locations. And we just continue to recommend her because the experience actually gives our clients such an exceptional experience. So we were really grateful for that. So let’s talk a little bit about that live transition. We hinted at it before, where maybe they’ve already met with you, Sarah. They actually followed up. They’re not on your tiny stack of these folks still haven’t finished this.

Sarah White (21:36.481)
Hahaha!

Sarah White (21:46.883)
Thank you.

Sarah White (21:58.402)
So.

Tim Goodwin (22:00.391)
They got the will, they got the power of attorney, they got the healthcare directive, but they go through a life transition. Absolutely something you don’t want to do, but let’s use divorce as an example. What needs to be updated if they got divorced and they had already done all their estate planning?

Sarah White (22:16.852)
So that’s a good question. Generally, they really need to update everything. under Georgia law, if you do a will and then you divorce later and you don’t rewrite your will, which happens all the time, generally, they’re written out. The spouse, the former spouse is written out of the document. So Georgia law writes them out. And that’s a pretty reasonable assumption. You’re divorced from them. You don’t want them to get anything from you. I would say I get a lot of

Tim Goodwin (22:21.009)
Yeah.

Tim Goodwin (22:36.637)
Okay.

Yeah, sure. Getting your assets. Yeah.

Sarah White (22:44.748)
people calling me that are like beginning of the divorce stage and it’s gonna, the divorce process is gonna last a long time. I would say probably update very pretty quickly because typically this process could take a really long time and you don’t want anything to happen during that process where, where, you know, something happens to you and you still got the, soon to be ex named in the documents to do things for you. That’s a, that’s a terrible situation.

Tim Goodwin (23:10.587)
Right.

Sarah White (23:13.25)
And also people generally going through a divorce just hate the thought of their soon to be ex making healthcare decisions for them, for example. And so that’s one where, yeah, a lot of people think they need to wait till the divorce is final to update everything. No, that’s not true. Maybe jump on it quickly.

Tim Goodwin (23:19.165)
Right. Yeah. Maybe the last person you want doing that. Yeah. gosh.

Tim Goodwin (23:28.661)
Maybe jump on it. Yeah, jump on it quickly. Okay, that that’s a good one. I want to circle back on a thought I had earlier. And that is sometimes I run into clients. And they’re like, I don’t I don’t need an estate plan because I’m a designated designated beneficiary as everything so I can just supersede probate. Right? So they’ve like, all their IRAs have beneficiaries, right? And then they and then they’re non

Retirement accounts they made joint right with rights or survivorship. They their bank accounts. They did pod, you know payable on debt to somebody else, you know, and I’m always like one And I’ll say something that I want want your feedback to you like one I’m like, I mean that’s a lot of work for you to continue to keep up with every asset you have has a beneficiary on it and to like What are you trying? Like I guess they have maybe heard that probate is

Sarah White (23:59.948)
Sure, sure.

Tim Goodwin (24:27.249)
bad, but again, like we said, for Georgia residents, it’s not that bad. And I guess like the whole for me getting a will power of attorney and healthcare director with somebody like you is a pretty painless experience. And I think it’s it’s a good one to go through and have the thought these thoughts and have everything wrapped up so that I mean, gosh, like, you know, there’s got to be some money set aside to take care of the end of life expenses, too. But if I just like stuck beneficiaries and all the assets left and like

who’s the executor and where’s the money to pay for all the end of life expenses. So I don’t know if you feel the same way or if you’ve run into folks that are like, I don’t need you, I’ve got beneficiaries for all my assets and I’m gonna skip probate. And I’m always like, why are you doing that?

Sarah White (25:06.665)
Ha

I do run into that a lot and I always point out like what you just pointed out, sure you have beneficiaries on everything, well you’re kind of relying on those people to cough up some money to pay your funeral expenses, which maybe the kids are all great kids and sure no problem, sure. But I usually point out like you still need a will anyway because I have, I mean it happens all the time where a client

Tim Goodwin (25:19.943)
Yeah.

Tim Goodwin (25:24.741)
Maybe they’re minimal. Yeah.

Sarah White (25:34.388)
has everything set up to pass outside probate and then something comes up. I’ve had it the last year like two or three clients got refund checks, large refund checks from long-term care, yeah, long-term care expenses. They got a big check and that.

Tim Goodwin (25:43.815)
great example.

Wow, claim, refund a premium, a big tax refund. What if you inherited something and then you forgot to update the beneficiary on the inheritance you got? Boom. Now it’s going to be probated in test date, right? Without a will.

Sarah White (25:51.187)
Yes.

Sarah White (25:57.895)
Exactly. I had an-

At another one recently, the kids are convinced that their mom died of medical malpractice. And so they are suing. And so if they get anything, which who knows, but if they do, then that’s an asset of the estate that the will has to cover, has to govern. it’s, know, naming beneficiaries is great. Yeah, I think naming beneficiaries can be great in a lot of cases, but it’s not, that’s not the end all be all for everyone.

Tim Goodwin (26:16.133)
of the estate. Right. Right. I just think it’s more stressful. More stressful to me.

Yeah.

Yeah, like I’ve got maybe there’s like even a nonprofit and I’m like, hey, I’m just going to make them I just want to spend, you know, this asset to go right to the nonprofit. And I just don’t have to worry about it. And I want these specific things to go to my kids. But then like, I want this whole kind of things to settle. And then there would be an executor that pays final things and has money to cover expenses and make sure all the dust settle. I’ll share one last story, too. And then we can we can wrap up. I might have shared the story with you before, Sarah, but but over my

Sarah White (26:48.064)
Mm-hmm.

Tim Goodwin (26:59.911)
career, had a one in one year I had two clients that pass away unexpectedly prematurely. One client, her and her husband were clients of ours. And we had buttoned up their state plan. We literally the assets all moved the husband died prematurely and went to the wife within days. Everything it was less than a week that at least at least the assets we managed and what we were helping her with moved right. The other client

Sarah White (27:05.941)
Mm.

Sarah White (27:21.503)
Wow.

Tim Goodwin (27:28.829)
They actually, they hired us and a lot of the family members had died in a tragic accident. And they did not have a will, they did not have a power of attorney or healthcare directive, both parents passed away. And it took over a year, over a year. We had a stack like that two, three inches tall that we kept having to move around from meetings to desks to other people to try to get all that stuff solved. And it was, it wasn’t necessarily a lot of money, it was just a lot of little bits of money all over the place and it.

Sarah White (27:36.841)
No.

Sarah White (27:41.863)
Tim Goodwin (27:57.957)
It just took a year. The survivors obviously were just so distraught about all the folks that they had left. And so to have to deal with all this letters, testamentary and judges making decisions, was really, really rough. So just from my own personal experience, I’m like, gosh, please have this buttoned up because you never know what can happen.

Well, listen, super, super grateful for you to be on here. Maybe you can share how the audience can get in touch with you directly. I mean, obviously you guys can ping us and we’ll send you Sarah’s info, but how do they just get to you directly?

Sarah White (28:30.803)
Sure, can. Probably the best way reach me is email Sarah with an H, S-A-R-A-H at LawyerSarah.com. You can also go to my website. It’s got my phone number. It’s LawyerSarah.com.

Tim Goodwin (28:41.443)
Awesome. we, know, Sarah’s Sarah, Tara, who’s sitting across the street, the street, the desk, I can’t even talk right now. So not Sarah, but Tara, who’s sitting across the desk from me wrote this really great blog, she’s probably mad I’m showing it because it’s not printed in color. But anyway, because that’s a really great picture. The estate plan, you didn’t know you needed. So this is one of the blogs on our website, you can go to good investment.com, click on knowledge center search for that you’ll find it.

Sarah White (28:48.287)
Thank

Tim Goodwin (29:09.181)
And you can subscribe to our blog which will keep giving you great content like something like that. So Sarah, as we sign off, I always love for us to kind of share what we’re grateful for. And so one of the things that while you’re thinking about that, I’ll share, I’m just grateful for you. I’ve mentioned that a few times already in our 25 minutes or so together, but I was actually talking to other advisors in other states.

They have trouble finding really great folks like you are in their areas and they have to come up with other solutions that are nowhere near as cool as having their own Sarah White so they’re all super envious of us I’m getting to work closely with you and actually Tara was showing off to the team earlier today your new bio on our website and all the fun stuff about you So you’ll have to go to check that out. So, thank you

Sarah White (29:36.19)
Mmm.

Sarah White (29:51.464)
the

Sarah White (29:55.802)
Awesome, thank you. Well, things I have a ton I’m grateful for, but one thing I’ve been grateful for in the past couple years is I’ve always taken good health for granted. And in the past couple of years, I’ve had two of our daughters have some health challenges and one more suit. Well, they’re both pretty serious. And it just really makes me realize I have always taken good health. I’ve just been assumed that I’d be in good health and everybody in my family been perfect health. So health is something I really, really do not take for granted anymore.

Tim Goodwin (30:04.443)
Mmm, yes.

Tim Goodwin (30:23.281)
Yep, I totally, totally grateful for that as well. thanks again, Sarah, for joining us listeners. If you need to get in touch with us, just check us out at GoodwinInvestment.com. Thanks for joining us. Bye bye. All right, good job, Sarah. That was awesome.

Sarah White (30:33.138)
Okay, thank you, bye.

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The Money PIG podcast is hosted by Reid Trego. Goodwin Investment Advisory is a Registered Investment Advisory firm regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission in accordance and compliance with securities laws and regulations. Goodwin Investment Advisory does not render or offer to render personalized investment or tax advice through the Money PIG podcast. The information provided is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, tax, investment or legal advice.

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By Grant CarmichaelPublished On: July 29th, 2025