The Complete Estate Planning Guide, Revised Edition (ISBN 045121403X)

This book is full spectrum!:
Most books with "estate planning" in the title deal only with the transfer of an estate. This one actually tells you now to build an estate, then what to consider when planning how best to leave it to family and charities.

A comprehensive and must read guide:
This book is a great advocate for us busy people who don't have time to study all the things we should know about building financial security. I appreciated the part near the end about how to select advisors. In all, it left me feeling more in control of crafting the way ahead.

Excellent, thorough, to-the-point!:
Very practical. Very Understandable. Everyone can use this incredibly comprehensive book; young and old.

great resource:
I disagree with the person who didn't find this book helpful. I had a parent pass away several years ago and had to quickly learn the various aspects of estate plans and found an earlier edition of this book very helpful in answering questions and guiding me in restructuring the estate to care for my mother. I had no prior knowledge of estate planning and had to learn it quickly. I've purchased this newer version and found it just as helpful in explaining all the changes that could affect estate plans. Each person's/family's financial situation is different, which requires personal planning (and guidance from a good estate lawyer,Financial planner and CPA). No book is going to explain how a person is going to best protect their financial situation (too many varying, individual factors), but this book addresses almost every factor to consider. It briefly explains each factor and how it works in an estate plan. One also has to consider that each state has rules, laws, regulations that alter these factors. So, again, no book is capable of addressing how state, federal, and county rules, laws, and regulations affect one's plan. However, this book does a great job at introducing and explaining almost every element a person may need to consider in planning an estate. I didn't need to know every element mentioned in this book, but as time went on I eventually found I needed to look up a few things. So it was nice to have one good reference book I knew I could go back to. Thanks Kathleen!

A book full of wonderful content but that is mistitled as a book about estate planning. It's really a financial planning book!:
This book was OK. I must say that it was well organized and well written. It was full of information. But I can't say I particularly liked it because it was supposed to be about estate planning - not financial planning with some chapters on estate planning thrown in. I also felt as though the book was written for wealthy people or people who aspire to spend their life building wealth (rather than enjoying life and living). Chapter 20 appeared to be addressed to very wealthy readers who might have the need and the resources to pay for an estate planning team comprised of an attorney, accountant, investment advisor, and insurance broker. Having an estate planning team is fine, but the vast majority of people will never have a need for such a team. I suppose I should not have been surprised to see a book on financial planning written by a seasoned financial planner rather than an attorney who specializes in estate planning and tax law. But surprised I was after reading the title to the book, i.e., The COMPLETE Estate Planning Guide. Estate planning is for people who have an estate or children that may be left parentless someday in the future. Estate planning is not strategizing how to build an estate, how to maximize their wages, how to make investments with their assets, or how to conserve their wealth. That is financial planning. And that in my humble opinion is NOT part of estate planning. Some people never amass many assets, but they still need estate planning. And wealthy people also need estate planning. This book would have been so much better if its content had matched up to its title. 3 stars!