Wear Clean Underwear!: A Fast, Fun, Friendly and Essential Guide to Legal Planning for Busy Parents [Paperback]

Alexis Martin Neely (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2008

Now that you are a parent, wearing clean underwear when you leave home simply isn't enough. You've planned birthday parties, playdates and education, but have you adequately planned for what would happen if you were in an accident? What would happen in the first 24 hours while the officials locate your family members and arrange for your children's care? Are your plans sufficient to keep your children in the care of people you know and trust during these critical hours? And what about your money and home? Will your legal documents keep your family together or tear them apart? In an easy-to-read story format, Wear Clean Underwear takes you on a journey to discover in fast, simple-to-understand terms exactly what will happen based on your current plan, and what happens if you don't have a plan. Showing you how to avoid unnecessary taxes and a broken-down court system, the book guides you to transfer your values, love, and support to your children and loved ones with ease.

Editorial Reviews

Review

This book will impact the way you think about your assets, values and children. Now is the time to take action; it could save your children from paying excessive estate taxes or suffering a drawn-out probate. More importantly, what you do today could ensure your values are passed down for generations; leave the legacy you intended to leave. -- Loral Langemeier "mother, master coach, wealth strategist, best-selling author of the Millionaire Maker book series and founder and CEO of the wealth building community LiveOutLoud.com"

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Morgan James Publishing; 1st edition (May 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1600374417
• ISBN-13: 978-1600374418
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #796,194 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #28 in Books > Law > Law Practice > Legal Services

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Misleading title and description - book lacks substance, October 23, 2009

By 

G. Palmer (Burlington County, NJ, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Wear Clean Underwear!: A Fast, Fun, Friendly and Essential Guide to Legal Planning for Busy Parents (Paperback)

This book definitely lacks substance. The title and description lead you to believe you're getting a full picture of estate planning for your kids. If that's what you're looking for, this isn't the book for you.

Positives of the book:
- It scares you in to taking action immediately. The stories are heart wrenching, and caused me to put guardianship papers in place the next day.
- Points you towards resources (Family Planning Attorneys & websites to create free legal documents).
- Talks about ways to leave a legacy (i.e. writing letters/recording CDs to your kids in case something happens to you)
- It's a quick read - I'm a mother to a 7-month old and the book only took me 1 hour to read, for which I was grateful!

Negatives:
- The book doesn't give any actual information about estate planning beyond saying you should meet with a lawyer to draft documents.
- The book reads like an advertisement for Family Planning Attorneys (I'm not sure, but it feels like this is a group with some kind of affiliation to the author). I agree that an important topic like caring for your children once you're gone is one that should be handled by an expert, but the book doesn't give any further options besides this specific type of attorney.
- The stories are repetitive - it reads like a "Choose your own adventure" book, which means that a lot of the content is repeated word-for-word.

One more thing that annoyed me is that all the online resources given in the book are created by the author and her company, so if you want different opinions about the topic, you won't get it from the websites.

Incidentally, we did request a meeting with a Family Planning Attorney to see if they could help us. Although the website said someone would contact us in 72-hours, we haven't heard anything in over a week.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must for parents, May 7, 2008

By 

Cynthia Potts (Ellenburg Center, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wear Clean Underwear!: A Fast, Fun, Friendly and Essential Guide to Legal Planning for Busy Parents (Paperback)

Now, I'm not a lawyer. Nor do I play one on TV.

I am, however, a parent who has two daughters she loves more than life itself.

You know what? Sometimes love is not enough. We can't just hug our kids and play with them and go to the beach and read books and do all that fun stuff we love to do.

We have to work to provide. We have to house, clothe, feed, and protect our children. One sphere where we've got to do this -- and one, quite frankly, that I suck at -- is in the legal arena.

That's why when the opportunity to read a review copy of Wear Clean Underwear: A Fast, Fun, Friendly and Essential Guide to Legal Planning For Busy Parents came up, I jumped at it. This is an area I don't know much about, and I wanted to fill the gaps in my knowledge.

Author Alexis Martin Neely delivered -- and then some. She brought up questions I'd never even thought about: what happens if the people you appoint as your kids guardians die? what happens if the guardian you appoint really doesn't want to be the guardian after all? what happens if you have people fighting over your kids? what happens if your kids are left without much in the way of financial resources when you step off this mortal coil?

Neely gets you thinking, first and foremost, and that's critical. Much of what you will read here is the same advice you'll find in estate planning guides -- but rendered comprehensible, in easy to read language. I understood this book -- I didn't feel stupid or poorly educated, trying to figure out what legal terms meant. Neely asks the questions we're all terrified to ask.

There's a choose your own adventure feel to the book: If you decide to do X, go to page 55 and see what happens. I liked this. The choices presented were straightforward: you're going to do X or Y, here's the consequences of both. Are the choices exhaustive? No, but she hit the most common ones, and I'd bet they'd answer 95% of most readers questions.

Neely also wins big bonus points for being cultural aware. Frankly, a lot of guides like this (and I've read a ton of the financial ones and I ghostwrite for Long Term Care insurance professionals) ignore the fact that we don't all live in heteronormative families. We're not all Mommy, Daddy, and 2.2 kids. Sometimes there's Mommy and Mommy. Sometimes there's just Dad. Sometimes there's Mom and Dad and Stepmom and Stepdad and the girlfriend no one talks about. Neely acknowledges this, respects this, and provides at least a starting point for those of us with non-traditional families -- and the assurance that the legal system can work for us too, if we're smart and proactive about it.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What an eye opener!, May 5, 2008

By 

K.Miller (Panhandle, Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wear Clean Underwear!: A Fast, Fun, Friendly and Essential Guide to Legal Planning for Busy Parents (Paperback)

This book really brings to life questions that are never really asked out loud. You can bet my husband and I will be sitting down to have a heart to heart regarding the hard truths as to what would we do should the unthinkable happen. Thank you for providing some valuable insight into the options available.