Another Alabaman, here (waves to allison, newdawn, et al.) I grew up an Air Force brat, so have lived all over (Ohio, Colorado, New Mexico, DC area, Florida panhandle) and went to college in Missouri. I got a job in Birmingham, Alabama after college and have stayed in the general area since then. I describe it as a baby-bear sort of place. Not too hot or too cold, too soft or too hard, etc. I've lived suburban apartments, city historic neighborhoods, and now semi-rurally, just outside a small university town/bedroom community for Birmingham. I have to agree with what has been posted by the other Alabamans. The summers are hit and humid, but the winters (the last 60 days notwithstanding) are fairly mild. The scenery is lovely -- green trees, rolling hills, lakes within an hour's drive of most anywhere, and beaches or mountains within 3-5 hours' drive. And Atlanta is a few hours away if a big-city fix is needed. I do miss having a "community" in our current area. In the historic neihborhoods there were always like-minded folks (preservation!) who liked to gather and have fun. Out here, folks sort of keep to themselves. But we came out here for the privacy (and the great house) so I really shouldn't complain. Pros: cost of living (extremely low property taxes), scenery, community music (playing music is important to us, and the community music scene here is thriving - we play in three different community bands, a dance/swing band, and I'm in a brass quintet) Cons: unending strife between urban/suburban power structures that will keep the Birmingham area from progressing as it should and could; lack of professional job opportunities (consolidations and closures over the last decade have taken a toll); focus on the church as the center of most social ineraction. We talk of moving to the eastern mountains, or to a lakefront property somewhere. We will consider AL, NC, SC, GA, TN . . . but if we never leave Alabama (which we probably won't) that will be fine with me. I can't really picture us getting the same house on the same wooded three acres with the same cost of living anywhere else.

>>The big problem with living trusts is that to get any real benefit (other than the perceived benefit of avoiding probate), the person making the trust has to give up all control over his or her estate.This may be true in New England but it is certainly not true in CA. We have a Revocable Living Trust as does my widowed MIL, and have full control of the assets in both cases. In an IRREVOCABLE Living Trust, such as an ILIT (Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust), you do indeed lose control of the assets. Also underrepresented in the current craze to sell the middle-class on getting RTs is the fact that unless the trust originators spell out some non-standard instructions, most lawyers use a standard software to produce an RT. This can in fact create problems - for example, my MIL is allowed to draw down the principal of her deceased husband's share of the estate for health, education, and maintenance. This is EXTREMELY unusual, yet most middle class people would assume they could do this. Not so, unless your trust is set up this way. As for probate not being a problem, I beg to differ. I settled my sister's estate - a simple one with no real estate, just a car and some art assets. It took a full 18 months to get through probate and three different lawyers (the first two were incompetent and lazy; the third was a gem and wrapped it up in less than 2 months). Probate in CA costs a percentage fee to both the lawyer and the executor, plus expenses. On average it's about 1.5% (a big change from the 6% it used to be!). So on a $1M estate that's $15K to the lawyer and $15K to the executor, plus expenses. OTOH, a trust passes without probate, and trustees don't get paid unless specified in the trust, or unless you have specified a professional trustee. If you name a spouse, family member, or friend, they DO NOT GET PAID. They can get reimbursed for expenses but that is all, unless the trust originators have specified they can be paid on an hourly basis, at the current professional rate (about $65-70 hr here in the SF Bay Area). The fee of $2500 to set up the trust (don't forget, we are in one of the most expensive-to-live areas of the country, so our costs are always higher than most places) included pour-over wills, durable healthcare Power of Attorney with HIPAA releases, Power of Attorney docs, and the title transfer of our property into the trust, for both of us. Our MIL got the same pkg, which is important in her case because the original RT she and her husband set up was 25 yrs out of date. It was critical for us to arrange a way to change the successor trustee and contingent beneficiary lists to reflect the many changes that had happened in the last quarter century. The lawyer spent hours with us and my MIL, over a series of three meetings, making sure my MIL understood all the changes we were making and why. This lawyer was a bargain at any price and did an outstanding job for this small flat fee.

Here an estate sale is considered an indoor with outdoor items perhaps. Almost everything in the house is for sale and tagged. Usually by someone in the estate sale business. Things are clean and as I said tagged. Usually large items will have a sign saying they will take bids on them - if applicable. Prices are firm until the last day and usually on that morning things are 25% off and later in the day maybe after 11 they go half price. on a big sale the place iscleared out before the 1/2 price goes into effect and then people are let back in. The prices range from the perceived value of the item. I've seen both ends of the spectrum. People line up well before the usual 8 am opening to get in. Most of our sales are run by two popular Estate sale agents and their crews. A tag sale might be in the empty house or just items already priced If you have a lot of stuff it might be well to contact an agent in your community. It might be worth it just to avoid the hassles and headaches and they are usually responsible for everything. One of the most disgusting "estate sales" I went to was run by the family and they had their bed ridden aged mother in the living room watching people go thru her stuff while the family sat around drinking coffee.

"Leaving your family with a mess you have created is very thoughtless and unfair." I'm in this club, too, and based on what my family and I had to deal with after my parents died, I'm not doing this to my kids, either. Plus I just don't want to live like that, surrounded by stuff I no longer want or use. For us it was complicated by the fact that my parents lived on the opposite coast. They were more packrats than hoarders, with a nice apartment and some very nice things, most of which they never used any more. But 40 years worth of stuff in closets and drawers and cupboards adds up. It was a long and complicated affair to make arrangements to travel to clean out their place. Further complicated by the fact that it was a rental, so the landlord was breathing down our necks and not at all understanding of the time and distance constraints. And it was over the holidays and we had been away sorting out their stuff (ie hauling it away by the truckload) from their vacation home. Far far away. My husband and I are incredibly lucky we're self-employed, because we could make our own schedules (up to a point); any employer would have fired us that year. But we lost out on work/$$ and had to impose on my elderly inlaws to look after our own things while we were away so long. We took as much of the good stuff as we could in a trailer. But most of it wasn't to our taste or there wasn't room for it. Thank goodness for a Goodwill just a block away, and three willing kids (ours) to help haul stuff over there. Really, with a "garbage room" on each floor of the building, and the Goodwill on the way to the subway station not to mention a maid who would have been happy for the shoes and purses etc., my parents could have been disposing of a bag of stuff a week on the way to work for years and not been in this situation. A friend told me that before her father died in his 90s, he started giving things away. So that by the time he died, he was down to a bed, table, chair, one plate, one bowl, one fork, etc., some favorite books, the television, and so on. He transferred the deed to land he owned to his daughter. All very Thoreauvian, and very selfless. She said it took her less than a week to deal with his house and estate. Sigh... All a huge reminder for me of what NOT to do, including not waiting until the very last minute, and a good lesson for my kids, too. And though I've always been a steady declutterer (though I like my pretty things, too), I became even steadier after returning from that first trip. For what it's worth, I've never bothered with garage sales. Anything in decent shape goes to Goodwill, which is faster, easier, and benefits others...