Guides for real money decisions

Guides › Settling an Estate Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: the Texas “5% executor fee” is not 5% of the estate. Estates Code §352.002 pays 5% of cash the executor actually receives plus 5% of cash actually paid out — and expressly excludes the three biggest cash events in most estates: money already sitting […]

Guides › Settling an Estate Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: New York executor commissions (SCPA 2307) are 5% of the first $100,000, 4% of the next $200,000, 3% of the next $700,000, 2.5% of the next $4,000,000, and 2% above $5,000,000 — computed on sums the executor receives and pays out, technically half for […]

Guides › Settling an Estate Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: California executor compensation is set by Probate Code §10800: 4% of the first $100,000, 3% of the next $100,000, 2% of the next $800,000, 1% of the next $9,000,000, 0.5% of the next $15,000,000, with the court setting a reasonable amount above $25M. A […]

Guides › Settling an Estate Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: in most states there is no percentage — the statute says only that executor compensation must be “reasonable,” and the probate judge decides what that means. The factors courts actually weigh: the estate’s size and complexity, hours documented, the skill the work demanded, results […]

Guides › Settling an Estate Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: if you are the sole heir, waive it — the fee is taxable income while the same dollars as inheritance are tax-free, so charging the estate just hands part of your own money to the IRS. If there are multiple heirs, the math flips: […]

Guides › Settling an Estate Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: yes — an executor fee is taxable ordinary income to you in the year received. The inheritance you take as an heir is not taxable income. That asymmetry — from IRS Publication 559 — is the single most important fact in deciding whether to […]

Nine more schedule states, each with its own statute: Kentucky · South Carolina · West Virginia · Maryland · Oklahoma · Nevada · Oregon · Wyoming · Wisconsin. Every one of the nine publishes a percentage schedule, so the fee is computable rather than argued. See How Much Does a Will Cost? (2026): DIY Platforms […]

Guides › Long-Term Care Planning Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: self-funding care is a withdrawal-order problem. A care year is usually a year of enormous deductible medical expenses, which can absorb the tax on money coming out of IRAs and 401(k)s — so the standard “taxable first” habit is often exactly backwards once care […]

Guides › Long-Term Care Planning Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: hybrids (life insurance or an annuity with a long-term-care rider) fix the two things people hate about traditional policies — premiums that can be raised on the whole class later, and decades of payments that vanish if care is never needed. In exchange you […]

Age decides the premium; this decides whether to buy — the prior question: is it worth buying.

Two doors most people are never shown: reduced paid-up keeps a smaller policy with no further premiums, and since 2010 a policy can be exchanged tax-free for long-term care coverage — though that one only opens in one direction. More Long-Term Care guides: see the full 61-page index.

A premium is one route to paying for care at home, and for the most common home modification the programs answer differently: how to pay for a stairlift quotes Medicare’s own reference list denying stairway elevators and the VA exclusion that stairlift marketing does not mention.