How to Die Insolvent

I am a Kinless Loner. By that I mean that I live alone, few close friends and all but one of them live by email contact. That does not mean that I do not love, or that I am not loved. I am much loved and admired in this little town that I have made my home. There are people on the face of this earth related to me by biology, but only one of them chooses to stay in contact from the far side of the globe, and we re-established contact in our mature age, so we are more like friends who think the same way, rather than members of a family.

I am seventy-five years old and am in good health. Not fit, although I do try to walk or bicycle every day. I have not owned a vehicle since 2003, and my pedestrian trips here are a fifteen-minute walk to a supermarket and back. I live atop a hill, so “walking back” means lifting my body-weight and ten pounds of groceries, optionally a bicycle, up eighteen metres from sea-level. I am having so much fun that I hope to live another twenty years, and then die in my sleep, possibly in a hospital bed, preferably not.

My Net Worth right now, excluding a mortgage, is almost ten thousand dollars, an abysmally small amount by the standards of a young married couple with 2½ children destined for university education and then marriage. I remember that view, but it does not apply to me now. My needs are simple and more than satisfied by my tax-free pension. I sock away a few hundred dollars into savings each month and then wonder what to do with it all.

As I write this I think about what sudden death would mean. To me it would mean nothing. I would cease to exist; my brain would stop working. “I don’t remember being born and I won’t remember dying”. But what about my $8,000 in the online savings account? That would be sucked into a big corporation or the government. What about the $8,500 I have built up in credit-cards - I mean the available credit, for I have no credit-card debt from month to month. (Remember: I sock away a few hundred dollars into savings each month). The mortgage on this $60,000 house is 54,250. I assume that the BMO would put the house up for a quick sale and get perhaps $40,000 back and then lay siege to my online savings account and snaffle that $8,000.

I know that if I walked into the local bank tomorrow I can get a loan of $11,000 cash and a $5,000 line of credit. I have previously taken out an 8,000 and a 5,000 loan and paid each back within six months. If I have done my sums right I could command $90,000 on the day I die. That is far too much to hand over to Big Business or Government. But a lawyer costs money, and a holographic will works best when cut down to a single sheet of paper.

What to do?

Start with an assumption: Assume that my GP can assure me that I will be dead within a month, that I have 31 days to live. Perhaps I have chosen a graceful death-by-morphine exit; perhaps I have an inoperable brain tumor.

(1) Start with a simple holographic will leaving my house (mortgage and contents) to my friend. I can amplify the holographic will with a separate document aimed at the bank and my friend outlining my desire (“will”) to allow my friend to take over the mortgage should he choose to do so. The rest is up to him. That takes care of a $60,000 house. I can leave brief comments on how to dissipate the types of content (books, clothing, furniture, appliances and so on). An “everything must go” yard sale with cash proceeds to the elementary school library book fund would work.

(2) Approach the brick and mortar bank for the biggest loan I can get from the brick and mortar bank, then have my friend withdraw that amount in one-hundred dollar banknotes and put them in an envelope, bringing them in his car each time he comes to visit me in the hospital. That takes care of the loan.

(3) Repeat the process with the line-of-credit. There is another $5,000.

(4) Repeat the process with my $8,000 savings from the online bank to the brick and mortar bank. That takes care of the savings.

(5) Repeat the process with the $8,500 from the credit cards. That takes care of the credit cards.

(6) Done in this fashion, the day that I die my friend should have $31,500 in one-hundred dollar bills in an envelope in his car, which should help him to take over the mortgage.

When I am dead I will not be worried about Big Business or Government.

They say “You can’t take it with you”, but that applies to debts, as well as assets!

Search