09/05/2026
YOU ARE GOING TO DIE.
Talking about it doesn't accelerate or delay the inevitable, it's just going to happen one day. The only open questions are when, and what you leave behind: a burden, or a plan.
A great many people want the security their grandparents seemed to have in the 1950s. Fewer people want the habits that produced it. A man in that generation drank coffee that cost pennies, wore the same serviceable boots and clothes for years, and repaired the washer, the car, and the house instead of replacing them the first time something broke. He also bought life insurance, not as a luxury and not as a product to brag about, but because his wife and children would need money if he didn't come home.
That last item hasn't changed. For more than a century the ordinary planning standard has been about ten times one's annual income, worked out through a simple needs picture.
DIMEF is one way to see it: Debts that would remain, Income that would stop, the Mortgage, the children's Education, and Final expenses. It isn't fancy. It's the difference between a family that has to scramble in the worst month of their lives and a family that can bury their dead and keep the lights on.
Responsibility isn't a feeling. It's what is in place when you're no longer here to explain yourself. Poverty in the next generation is often just yesterday's delay, but compounded.
The question isn't whether you'll pass on. The question is whether the people who love you will inherit a mess, or a measure of order.
If all of that sounds grim, it isn't. It's called adulting - the grown-up version of making your bed, except the bed in question is the one your family would have to sleep in after you're gone.