Avoid Probate – buy the peanut butter!
- A year after an 8 column series about how to avoid probate, this column focusses on the psychological barriers to spending the nuts we’ve devoted our lives to collecting and saving.
There are several ways to save your heirs from the legal and probate fees, delay and potential disputes that come with probate. I wrote an 8-column series a year ago. If you have trouble finding it, let me know and I’ll send you links.
My favourite? Spend your money.
My wife and I just returned from a holiday. My experiences inspired me to write an annual reminder about this probate-avoidance tactic.
The key point is that it’s much easier said than done.
I noted a year ago that we spend our lives busting our butts to save for our retirement. It’s tough to reverse the engrained patterns of collecting nuts to tide us through a long winter.
I had suggested consulting with a psychological counsellor to help work on reversing engrained nut collection patterns.
My suggestion was somewhat tongue in cheek. I’m now recognizing that it’s a serious issue.
And I’m not alone.
A reader, who is also a writer, was inspired to write a piece after discussing my advice with a friend of his.
Here is an excerpt:
“I was relaying this advice to a long-retired friend of mine and he was nodding along before I had even finished. He related that he had been on vacation and woke up one morning wanting peanut butter for his toast. When he got to the store he saw that the peanut butter was priced at $8 instead of the $6 he usually paid at home. Too much, he thought, and left, empty-handed. Belatedly he realized he had deprived himself of his favourite breakfast because he hadn’t wanted to spend an additional measly $2, even though he could have bought the whole shelf of peanut butter and not missed the money. He was rueful in his conclusion: “That’s nuttier than the peanut butter I didn’t buy,” he said.”
I shared that with my wife before our trip. As never-ending purchase decisions came up, we’d look at each other and say, almost in unison: “Get the peanut butter”.
Saying the words wasn’t enough. I’m going to share a couple examples pointing to a genuine need for counselling.
I stopped drinking alcohol a little over three years ago and have needed a substitute dinner beverage. I’ve tried all sorts of alcohol-free beer and don’t really enjoy them. I settled on cran and soda or diet cola.
On our travels, restaurants didn’t serve cran and soda and diet cola is served by the bottle. Not a 330 ml standard size, but a 200 ml wee one. And it cost 4 or 4 ½ euros. I would need two of those little things to feel satisfied.
Nope. No way.
I couldn’t.
What did I do? I’d pay 6 euros for a non-alcoholic beer.
All our restaurant meals, I didn’t have my beverage of choice because I’m screwed up in the head.
Then there was the Tim Hortons in the Toronto Airport on the way home.
We went to get a coffee.
My wife has a Tim Hortons app that offered a deal where you get a donut for $1.00 if you buy a coffee. They had apple fritters, which she likes.
I downloaded the app so I could get the same deal. I started salivating for a cruller.
I’ll pause the story to recognize the ridiculousness of each of us deciding to add donuts to our coffee orders because there was a deal.
We get up to the counter to order and show our apps to the cashier. She fills us in that their location doesn’t participate. Without the app deal, the order would be an extra $1.00 for each of the donuts.
My wife is salivating for an apple fritter. Me for a cruller.
What do we do? We get one large coffee to share.
These are examples of extremely small purchase decisions. It gets worse as dollar figures increase.
We’ve worked hard to earn those dollars which can now be used to help enrich our lives.
It goes against our nut-collecting mentality to put out the money for such important stuff like:
- hiring help around the home and yard,
- having proactive renovations done for safer mobility to avoid falls,
- hiring a personal trainer to establish, supervise and provide motivation for an exercise program, and
- activities that will keep us from loneliness and isolation.
That’s a very short list to get the juices flowing. I’m interested in hearing from those of you who have found truly enriching ways to “spend your nuts” that go beyond eating out and fancy holidays.
I’m also interested in your recommendations for a psychologist with expertise in breaking down patterns built on a lifetime of collecting and saving.
In the meantime, to save our children from the trials and tribulations of probate, we’ll continue to do our best to spend their inheritance with our mantra: “Get the peanut butter. Get the peanut butter. Get the peanut butter.”
