The Caldwell Trust Company Blog

Planning for your financial future can seem like a complicated process - especially when you factor in the many different terms that come up in the conversation. Two particular terms that people may use interchangeably? Estate planning and legacy planning. However, they’re not the same thing.

Here’s a closer look at the difference between estate planning and legacy planning, along with reasons why incorporating the latter into your financial planning process is the best way to comprehensively define the legacy you’ll have after your death.

If you are a business owner, you need to make important decisions about employee benefits that will help you attract and retain employees. Just as important, those benefits also need to make sense for your company. One type of employee benefit that may be ideal for employers is a cash balance retirement plan.

To determine whether your organization is a good candidate for sponsoring this type of plan, it can be helpful to explore it’s features, pros and cons.

If you’re like most online business owners, you’ve likely invested a lot of time, resources and energy into your online business. But have you ever stopped to wonder what will happen to your business if you die? While running an online business may differ from running a brick-and-mortar operation in many ways, there’s at least one critical commonality: owners need a plan in place to protect both the business and their loved ones in the event of their own death. Enter digital estate planning.

Here’s a closer look at what all online business owners should know about safeguarding their business with a digital estate plan.

If you’ve started preparing for your kids to attend college, you’ll quickly find the costs are no laughing matter. The costs of college fluctuates year by year, with expenses consistently rising. According to The College Board, the average price of tuition and fees have gone up more than $7,000 over the past 10 years at four-year private colleges and universities. That figure has outpaced inflation by more than 3 percentage points. In fact, the cost in 2018-2019 is about $9,716 for an in-state public college, and about $35,676 for private colleges.

We live in unquiet times, distracted by a 24/7 news cycle of “breaking news,” manipulative phone calls from solicitors and scammers, slick sales pitches in our mailboxes, and so much else. At times we may feel that the sand is shifting beneath our feet. In truth, very little of the noise brings any benefit, despite the attention it demands.

At Caldwell Trust Company we’re delighted to be different. For the past twenty-five years we’ve provided our clients with a reliable antidote to the confusion. After learning your personal needs and wishes we carry them out quietly and unobtrusively. We put you on solid ground, bringing you the benefits without the bother. Our superb staff replaces those troublesome intrusions with peace of mind.

Our record of successfully serving our clients is the reason we’ve survived, thrived, and continued to grow for a quarter of a century. We’ve expanded through a controlled, carefully planned strategy that will carry us into the next twenty-five years. As we grow, our challenge is to remain true to our family-focused culture.

If you don’t have a will, you’re far from alone. In fact, a 2017 Caring.com study reveals that 60% of Americans don’t have wills for a variety of reasons, including not wanting to think about such a difficult topic, lack of time, no kids, and having a small estate. There are even celebrities who fall into this category, including Prince and Aretha Franklin who recently passed without leaving a will.