In the event of my death, my children's educational goals would be put in jeopardy. You could very easily spend more to educate your children than you paid for your home. We really haven't taken serious steps to build up a retirement income fund to supplement Social Security and our employer-sponsored pensions. If you're already in your 40s or your 50s, you need to start planning and soon. We've been too busy to develop a plan mapping out how our estate should be distributed.
Estate planning goes beyond updating wills.