By What Age Should New Yorkers Have A Will?

Do you have a will? Kind of a morbid topic, yes, but is it necessary to think about, absolutely.

We've covered adulting quite a lot over the years; adventures in homeownership, car buying and maintenance, plenty of shared parenting tips, but when it comes to this type of serious stuff, especially finances and then what happens to your finances, well, after....that's another story.

I had a strange conversation with my mom recently, which lead me down a black hole of googling about having a will.

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What Did You Just Say? The Back Story:

Last week I had a little bit of a situation - not sure if it was an anxiety attack, a panic attack, or any of the other possible reasons that WebMD gave me for the symptoms I put in, but it was a little scary. Well, like any normal grown adult, I called my mom to give her all the details.

After I gave her the full rundown and she asked approximately 3,542 follow up questions about when, how, did I go to doctor, etc., she then said five words that I didn't expect to hear in that moment.

Do you have a will?

At What Age Should You Have An Official Will?

After the initial shock of the question wore off, I assured my mom that I did in fact have a will, and that my little situation from the day earlier was not a life or death situation.  Back to the will though, so what if it was prepared by an online company as a complementary service at my former job. I filled out the info, listed the important things and left them to the important people and check, will - complete!

I then received a mini-lecture about having an 'actual professional' sit down and go through everything with me and do it 'the right way.' It does make sense, I am a single mom with a home and a few assets to worry about, so I probably should have someone take a look at the fact that I left my retirement money to the cats.....kidding....maybe.

There's no denying they're adorable.

So When Do We Make Our Will?

According to NerdWallet, it's not an age, but rather 'life events' that are used to determine the right time to make a will. Though 18 is the legal age at which you can make one, the three categories that factor into when you should be thinking about a will are:

• assets: think a house or other expensive purchase
• legal attachment: marriage or child
• risk of death: health concerns

There are countless online resources and complementary services that can guide you through the will preparing process perfectly fine, but as for me, it looks like i'm going to do this 'the right way,' at least in my mom's book, through a lawyer. He survived my crazy divorce, i'm sure that the fact that I have my cats listed as beneficiaries won't be a surprise at all...