# Wills & Estate Planning — Getting the Most Out of the Skill

A printable cheat sheet. Read this once before you start, then keep it open in another window while you work.

This skill is educational planning support, not legal advice. A licensed estate-planning attorney in your state still reviews the output and signs the real documents.

## The 30-second mental model

- You hired an apprentice lawyer; the agent.
- The apprentice studied a deep estate-planning playbook; the skill.
- Your job is to answer good questions honestly.
- The skill's job is to draft, cross-check, and spot contradictions.
- A real attorney signs the documents at the end.

## What this skill is not

- It is not a substitute for a licensed attorney.
- It is not the final signer of your documents.
- It is not a psychic; if you guess, the output gets worse.
- It is not a magic fix for family conflict.
- It is not a place to dump passwords, seed phrases, or private secrets.

## Before you start

1. Create one working folder for this project.
2. Put these documents in that folder. You will need them no matter what:
   - Last year's federal and state tax returns.
   - The most recent statement for every brokerage, 401(k), IRA, Roth IRA, and bank account.
   - Current beneficiary designations on retirement accounts and life insurance.
   - Your existing will or trust, even if it is old or obviously wrong.
   - Deeds, titles, and vehicle registrations.
   - Your passport, mainly for identity and date-of-birth reference.
   - A list of crypto accounts and where the seed phrase is stored. Do not put the seed phrase itself in the folder.
   - The names and birthdays of everyone who might inherit.
3. Pick a quiet block of three to four hours.
4. Assume you will pause at least once. That is normal. The skill saves state.
5. Turn off distractions. This goes better when you can think in full sentences.

## Do not put these in the folder

- Raw passwords.
- Seed phrases.
- Two-factor backup codes.
- Anything you would regret syncing to cloud storage by accident.
- Secrets that your spouse or executor should know exist, but should not read directly in the planning packet.

## The right mindset

- Answer honestly.
- "I don't know" is a good answer.
- "I need to look that up" is a good answer.
- "I need to talk to my spouse first" is a good answer.
- Trying to sound certain when you are not certain is how people bake mistakes into estate plans.

## During the session

- Do not try to out-lawyer the agent. You are the expert on your life. The skill is the expert on the checklist.
- Use full legal names when you have them.
- When it asks about beneficiary forms, deeds, or titles, go get the actual document if you can.
- If the skill says two documents conflict, assume that matters until proven otherwise.
- If a question feels emotionally loaded, slow down. Nobody is timing you.
- If you are tired, stop and come back tomorrow. Fatigue produces fake certainty.

## When the skill asks hard questions

Expect questions about:

- Who should control money if you cannot.
- Who should raise minor children if both parents die.
- Whether equal is actually fair.
- Whether a child, sibling, or spouse should get money outright.
- Whether anyone in the family is impulsive, fragile, disabled, addicted, or easy to manipulate.
- Whether you trust the people you are naming to work together after a death.

Those are not "gotcha" questions. They are the real work.

## If you get stuck

- Ask the skill to explain the question in simpler language.
- Ask it to tell you why the answer matters.
- Ask it for examples of the kinds of options people usually choose.
- Ask it what document you need to check before answering.
- Ask it to mark the item as unresolved and keep going.

## Running it twice is not optional

Treat the first run as the rough draft.

- Second run: start a fresh session in the same folder and say, "audit the estate-planning packet you produced last time."
- The skill will review its own work, catch missing facts, and flag weak spots.
- Commit to at least two passes.

## A good second-pass checklist

On the second run, ask it to focus on:

- Beneficiary mismatches.
- Missing assets.
- Titles and deeds that do not match the intended plan.
- Guardians, trustees, executors, and backup choices.
- Any place where you said "I think" instead of "I checked."
- Any place where the plan assumes family harmony that may not exist.

## Third run, if you have the energy

- Wait a few days or a week.
- Come back with fresh eyes.
- Run it again.
- Life details that felt obvious on Sunday often look different on Thursday.

## Running it in both Claude and Codex

If you have both Claude Max and GPT Pro, use both.

- Run the same folder through Claude.
- Run the same folder through Codex.
- Compare the two attorney-handoff packets.
- Merge the best parts of each.

In practice:

- Claude often surfaces emotional and family-dynamics issues earlier.
- GPT often surfaces colder tax, structure, and mechanical issues earlier.
- They overlap a lot, but not perfectly.

Two frontier models looking at the same life is cheap insurance.

## Red flags that mean you should bring in a real attorney right now

- Blended family with children from multiple marriages.
- Business ownership or even a messy sole proprietorship.
- A beneficiary with a disability who may need a special-needs trust.
- Community-property exposure in Arizona, California, Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Washington, or Wisconsin.
- An estate above roughly $5 million.
- Real estate in more than one state.
- A non-citizen spouse.
- Significant crypto holdings or complicated digital assets.
- Anyone likely to contest the plan later.

The skill is still useful in these cases. Just use it as preparation for counsel, not as the finish line.

## What you walk away with

Usually some version of:

- A will draft.
- Financial and healthcare power-of-attorney drafts.
- A living will or advance-directive draft.
- A beneficiary audit across major accounts.
- A letter of wishes.
- An attorney engagement brief.
- A digital-inventory cheat sheet your spouse or executor can actually use.

The exact set varies with your facts. The point is not perfect legal prose on day one. The point is a clean, organized packet.

## What to do right after the session

1. Stop for the day.
2. Read the summary again the next morning.
3. Mark anything that feels wrong, vague, or emotionally loaded.
4. Update obvious beneficiary mistakes right away if you are certain.
5. Book the attorney review while the facts are still fresh.

## What to bring to the attorney

Bring:

- The skill's final packet.
- The current will or trust, if one exists.
- Your latest beneficiary forms.
- The questions the skill could not resolve.
- A short list of anything the family is likely to fight about.

Ask the attorney:

- What is state-specific here?
- What is missing?
- What should be signed now?
- What needs a trust, deed change, or beneficiary-form update?
- What looks legally fine but practically risky?

## Cost math, one more time

- $100 for one month of Claude Max, or $200 for GPT Pro.
- $20 for one month of jeffreys-skills.md.
- Rough total: $120 for a serious weekend if you use Claude.
- Baseline: often $15,000 to $25,000 for an attorney to do the entire process from scratch.
- You still pay an attorney roughly $2,000 to $4,000 to review, finalize, and sign what needs to be signed.

That attorney review is the irreducible cost. The skill is what strips out the waste.

## Common mistakes to avoid

- Starting without the beneficiary forms.
- Forgetting old retirement accounts from prior jobs.
- Naming people because you feel guilty, not because they are reliable.
- Assuming the will overrides account paperwork.
- Putting off the second pass.
- Hiding family conflict from the skill.
- Treating crypto like a normal brokerage account.

## Privacy note

The skill can help you map where sensitive information lives. It does not need the sensitive information itself.

Good:

- "Seed phrase is in the safe deposit box."
- "Password manager emergency sheet is in the home safe."

Bad:

- Pasting the seed phrase.
- Pasting master passwords.
- Dumping login credentials into the working folder.

## One more thing

The frontier-model subscription is probably one of the best $100-$200 per month tools you will buy this year.

While you have it, it can also help you:

- Audit last year's tax return.
- Review your insurance coverage.
- Draft a business plan.
- Compare Medicare or ACA plan options.
- Explain a confusing hospital or medical bill.
- Summarize a long contract before you send it to a lawyer.

If you use it for real life, not just one estate-planning weekend, it pays for itself very quickly.

## Final reminder

- You are not trying to produce perfect legal work alone.
- You are trying to arrive at the attorney meeting unusually prepared.
- That alone saves time, money, and avoidable mistakes.

Read this once. Keep it next to your keyboard. Answer honestly. Run the skill twice.