An alternative guide to... wills

There are three certainties in life:

1. You will be born.
2. You will die.
3. Before you die you will read approximately 75,279 newspaper and magazine articles stressing the importance of making a will.

And if you have any sense of responsibility towards your family you will cut out these articles and keep them in a file as a reminder that you really must get round to making a will before, well, see 2. The file will be marked

‘Things To Do: Fairly Urgent’.

Unfortunately, if you’re the kind of person who keeps such a file, the chances are you will also have another one marked ‘Things To Do: Not Very Urgent’. And this is a problem.

For this is the file packed with all the fun stuff; the To Dos you don’t mind doing such as the competition entry forms, the money-off vouchers for tubs of margarine and those surveys that come with new toasters. You know: ‘Register your guarantee within the next two weeks and we’ll enter your name in our prize draw to win another  toaster.’

If there was a competition to win a will, then you would have sorted it out years ago. But there isn’t. For a start, what would the questions be?

If you die without a will you are:

- Intestine
- Intestate
- Council estate

Come to think of it ITV's daytime schedule has probably featured something very similar. But in general,  competitions with death at the core aren't popular.

But you must make a will. All those articles say so. So if you haven’t taken the plunge yet, here’s another article. (Ok so this time it's on the internet but there’s a print button on your browser menu for filing purposes). >>Read the full alternative guide here

Richard Browning - This is Money

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