How to Plan Your Death | A Guide for Single Women

You know why you need to plan your death as a single woman. But do you know how? In part 2 of A Spinster’s Guide to Death, I’m going to tell you how to plan your death as an unmarried, childfree woman.

Why This Is a Must-Read Blog

Let me be clear. You could go get a book on estate planning to learn how to plan your death. In fact, just about any estate planning book would give you more of the nitty gritty details than this blog post will. The only reason I think I’ve got something of value to say on the matter is because I’m writing specifically for single, childfree women.

The solo death is a sad one in our society. It’s so feared that some of us prefer to ‘settle’ than to risk dying alone. But let me tell you, it’s all a sham. If you’ve ever visited a nursing home, you know that it doesn’t matter how many husbands you have or babies you pop out. Anyone can die alone. And, in my opinion and individual experience, it’s the women who depend on others to care for them in their old age who are most likely to end up abandoned.

Caitlin Doughty talks about the fear of dying alone in her “Ask a Mortician” YouTube series:

As a solo woman, you actually have an advantage when planning for your death. And not just because you get to avoid the drama of leaving your estate to your children or making sure your spouse doesn’t get your inheritance. It’s because you get to make your own decisions instead of hoping someone else will do everything for you. As I mentioned in Part 1, there’s a lot of comfort in that.

How to Plan Your Death

When it comes to estate planning as a single woman (if you’re thinking, “Estate planning? I don’t have an estate,” listen. Even if you’re poor as a church mouse, you’ve got to plan your living will and make arrangements for your pets and your own funeral. That’s estate planning), there are really only three main documents you need to prepare.

But before we dive into this, I recommend you:

• Make a cup of tea
• Get a notebook or open a word file
• Sit down in bed

Learning how to plan your death isn’t going to be as nerve-wracking as you think. I promise. Planning your death is like doing your budget: You can make yourself sick worrying about it, but once it’s done you feel far more in control of your life (even if your checkbook is in the red).

{Let me put a quick disclaimer here. I am not an attorney, a financial adviser, or involved in the death industry. This guide is simply meant as an introduction to and a jumping off point for planning your death as a single woman.}

#1. Advance Directive (Living Will)

No matter who you are, you’ve got to arrange your advance directive. But if you’re a single woman, you’ve really, really got to set up your advance directive. I talked about why this is important in Part I, but here’s a quick recap: You can’t just depend on your (non-existent) spouse to figure out your wishes once you’re incapacitated. For that matter, you can’t really count on your parents or next-of-kin to do what you want, even if you have made your wishes clear (and let’s be honest, most of us haven’t). I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be in a coma while my family (including those members who don’t like me) squabble about whether or not to pull the plug. That is my decision.

#2. Pet Trusts

I wish I could tell you I’ve cracked the code on writing water-tight pet trusts but… I can’t. The truth is they’re complicated and they vary from state to state. But if you’re not familiar with the concept, here’s the jist of it.

Setting up a trust is kind of like taking a little piece out of your estate and setting it aside. When you die, anything that’s in a trust can go to whomever you’ve left it to right away. It doesn’t have to go through probate, which, in the case of a pet trust, means your pet isn’t hanging out in limbo.

What makes pet trusts a bit trickier than a money-only trust is that you’ll probably want to include your pet (legally considered a piece of property), money (if you have it) and some explicit instructions on who gets the money and how they can use it. Let me show you a few scenarios.

Scenario 1

Let’s say your best friend has agreed to take care of your cat should you die. You want to make sure your cat gets the right treatment, so you figure how much money it’ll take to care for your pet (food, grooming, vet bills, etc) and include that in your pet trust. You decide to name an executor (usually a lawyer) to be responsible for the money. The executor distributes the money in yearly or monthly increments instead of giving it to your friend in a lump sum. You include specific details regarding how often your cat should be taken to a vet, what type of exercise she’ll get, and what kind of food she’ll eat.

Scenario 2

Now let’s say you have a parrot who’ll likely outlive you. You can’t leave him to a friend, because your friends are all close to your age. You decide to make a particular bird refuge the beneficiary of your pet trust upon your death.

Then you change your mind and decide that, if you die young, your friend will take care of your bird until she’s unable to. You include instructions in the trust stating that your bird will go to the bird sanctuary when your friend can no longer care for him.

You can do any and all of what I’ve just described. Right down to deciding which brand of food you want your pet to eat, if you really want to. However, I don’t recommend trying to set up a pet trust, even a simple one, without a lawyer. It’s not a DIY kind of thing.

#3. Burial and Funeral Arrangements

Choosing what becomes of your remains takes a huge weight off of your surviving friends and relatives. It can also give you a sense of peace. This information is often included in your advance directive or your will. However, you can go so far as to purchase a spot at the funeral of your choice and sometimes pre-pay or your funeral service.

The natural cemetery I’ve chosen for myself doesn’t offer pre-payment (known as a pre-need account), but they do have a form future corpses can fill out. I’ve got a copy of mine with my advance directive. Because it’s a natural cemetery, I have no casket to buy and no embalming or cremation to pay for. I just have to make very clear guidelines in my advance directive about what may and may not be done with my body. For example, my body must be refrigerated (not embalmed) and transferred across state lines to a funeral home that works with the cemetery.

It seems a little complicated, but it’s completely do-able.

How to Set It All Up (Death Planning Resources)

Okay, so now you know what you need. Now how do you get a hold of these forms and make sure they’re legitimate? I’m glad you asked.

Online Legal Forms

Websites like Legal Zoom and Rocket Lawyer are inexpensive sources for all of your death planning forms. If you use these, I highly recommend taking your finished forms to a lawyer to have them look over everything. It’s less expensive to pay for a lawyer’s seal of approval than it is to have them draft the documents themselves.

Everplans

Let me say right off the bat that I’ve never used Everplans and don’t know whether this is a worthwhile subscription service. However, they do have some free resources, include advance directives by state. They offer to “securely store wills, passwords, funeral wishes, and more in your own secure and shareable vault.” Have you tried them? Let me know what you thought in the comments below.

Local Lawyers

They’re much more expensive than the resources listed above, but they’re also much more reliable. If you have the money to go to a lawyer and have them arrange your will and trusts, go for it.

You can also always call a funeral home and ask them how you can set up a funeral plan with them. Don’t underestimate the power of simply asking questions, even on a macabre topic like death planning.

How to Plan Your Death Day

Everything I’ve talked about in this post deals with what happens after you die. But we can’t have a full discussion about how to plan your death without talking about your dying process. This is the part that scares people. This is the reason that people marry when they probably shouldn’t and have kids that they don’t really want. And not just single women, but the majority of all human beings. In Part 3, I’ll get into how to plan your death process.

Remember, none of this is as scary or overwhelming as it first seems. If the thought of dying alone makes you feel uncomfortable (or terrified), come back next week.