Where to Go From Here: Building an Estate Plan
A roadmap for putting the pieces together based on where you are in life.
A couple in their late forties are sitting at their kitchen table on a Saturday morning. Two coffees, a laptop, and a notepad between them. They have just finished reading the ninth article in a ten-part series on Arizona estate planning. They have not yet built a plan. What they have done over the past nine mornings is learn what a complete plan actually contains.
They are not the people from the earlier posts in this series. They are not the son in Gilbert holding his father’s old will. They are not the woman at Banner Desert at 2 a.m. They are not the daughter with her father’s MacBook. They have read those stories, and they have decided that they do not want their family to be in any of them.
What they need now is not more information. They have enough. What they need is to know where to start.
This post is for them, and for anyone in the same position at the end of this series.
Most people do not build all of it at once. The right starting point depends on the situation. Here is how we typically structure the work for different life stages.
If There Is No Plan At All
Start with the absolute minimum: a Will and a Healthcare Directive. Even if the situation calls for more, these two documents provide immediate basic protection while bigger decisions get sorted out.
Our Starter Pack at $249 per person covers these two documents. It is the floor, not the recommendation, but it is far better than nothing while deciding on the next step. Starter Pack→
For Death-Readiness
For people focused on what happens after they die (funeral preferences, asset distribution, executor authority), our Final Wishes package at $698 covers the Will, Financial POA, funeral planning documents, legacy letters, and the Legacy Binder. Same price for one person or a married couple.
For Healthcare-Readiness
For people focused on incapacity, hospitalization, and medical decision-making, our Medical Directives package at $698 covers the Living Will, Healthcare POA, HIPAA Authorization, Care Preferences, and Emergency Cards. Single or married, same price.
For Arizona Homeowners
Probate of a home in Arizona takes 6 to 18 months and costs 3 to 7 percent of the home’s value. For most Arizona homeowners, the trust pays for itself.
Our Homeowner Protection Shield ($1,599) includes the full trust, deed retitling, pour-over will, all supporting trust documents, and the Legacy Binder. For homeowners, this is usually the right starting point. Book Consultation →
For Parents of Minor Children
Guardianship is the most consequential gap to leave open. Without proper documentation, a judge (not the parents) decides who raises the children.
Our Guardian Protection Plan ($1,699) prioritizes guardianship designation, the Children’s Trust, life insurance beneficiary coordination, and the documents that protect children if both parents are gone. Book Consultation →
For Adult Children of Aging Parents
The hardest situation to self-identify, and often the most urgent. If a parent’s situation includes recent decline, hospitalization, ALTCS questions, or sibling tension about care, the planning window is closing fast.
Our Parent Aging Care packages ($1,499 to $1,999) handle ALTCS pre-planning, the Personal Care Agreement, family communication planning, and the documents specific to aging-parent situations. Book Consultation →
Not sure if this category fits? Take the 2-minute Aging Parent Care Quiz to find out.
The Free Consultation
The fastest way to figure out where to start is a 20-minute consultation. No pitch, no pressure. We talk through the situation, identify the right package, and answer questions left over from this series.
The Full Live Walkthrough
For anyone who wants the entire framework explained live, our Estate Planning Masterclass runs every Tuesday at 10 a.m. and Thursday at 4 p.m. (Arizona time). It is 45 minutes, free, and covers all the same material in one sitting.
Continuing the Series
The Legacy Blueprint publishes new articles every week. Arizona estate law updates, anonymized case studies, specific questions answered, and deeper dives into the documents covered in this series. Subscribing is free.
Final Thoughts
Estate planning is not a one-time transaction. It is an ongoing relationship between a person, the family that depends on them, the changing circumstances of life, and the documents that protect everyone involved. The first plan a family builds will need to change. The right provider stays with them as those changes happen.
The couple at the kitchen table on Saturday morning eventually decided to start with the Homeowner Protection Shield. They own a home in Gilbert with about $300,000 in equity. They have one daughter, age thirteen. The HPS gets the foundation in place. When their daughter turns eighteen they will revisit the plan and look at the Guardian Protection Plan separately for the years she is still a minor. They will probably revisit it again when his parents reach the age where his mother’s recent diagnosis becomes harder to manage from a distance.
The plan is not finished. No estate plan ever is. But on the Monday after that Saturday morning, they booked their consultation. By the Friday after, they had signed the trust. The family they are protecting now has a foundation that will hold while everything else in their lives keeps changing around it.
Thank you for reading the series. If something in these articles changed the way you think about your family’s plan, the reply field on this Substack and the consultation link both go to me directly. I read every one.
The Complete Series
Where to Go From Here (this post)
