Digitally storing your documents can significantly cut down on the clutter. Before you start digitizing your essential documents, you want to have a plan. Sit down, look at all your documents, and determine whether they are necessary. Use a critical eye as you decide what to
keep. The next step is scanning each document into your computer, on to an external hard drive, or on a flash drive.
Some important considerations when digitizing your files include keeping up to date with current technology and password-protecting your sensitive information. As technology advances, make sure that you advance with it. The last thing you want is to be unable to open your files. Always
encrypt or password-protect your information. It is the best way to protect yourself against hackers and identity thieves. Don’t Yet Want Your Heirs to Know About Your Assets? Use a Quiet Trust in Your Estate Plan
Trusts are great tools for leaving assets to your heirs while maintaining control over their access to those assets. In many cases, you would tell your beneficiaries that you have made a trust for them. However, this is not always desirable — and this is where a “quiet” trust may be helpful.
A quiet trust is a trust created much like other trusts, but with little to no notice given to its beneficiaries. A person, called a grantor, places assets in a trust managed by someone who is appointed as a trustee.
The trust document may provide that income will only be distributed to a beneficiary once specific conditions are met — for example, when the grantor passes away or the beneficiary reaches a certain age. It may further require that no information regarding the accounting of the
trust, what the trust owns, or other details will be provided to a beneficiary until certain conditions or timeframes occur.