Estate planning starts with the 5 Ds

I’ve been working on a children’s book to teach kids about investing, taxes, budgeting and estate planning. My story involves a prince and princess, a dragon, and the usual medieval backdrop. The last sentence reads: “Then the dragon ate the prince, but his family trust and the princess lived happily ever after.” Well, the ending isn’t so happy for the prince, but still, the moral of the story is a good one: The importance of a good estate plan for the long-term health and happiness of your family can’t be understated. Today, I’d like to share a framework for crafting your plan – called the five “Ds” of estate planning: Define, design, document, discuss and distribute. The five Ds approach has been adapted from author Sandra Foster’s Estate Planning Workbook published a number of years ago.

Today, let’s focus on the first two Ds.

1. Define
2. Design

Download the PDF version of the Article by Tim Cestnick.  Part 1 published on July 12, 2023 on the www.globeandmail.com