What Others Are Saying.......

I purchased the ‘Lifetime Legacy Planner’ in 2017 from Maureen Williams at her seminar hosted by the Chatham Area Public Library. It was my husband’s and my intent to use the Planner for documenting all of our financial and legal information along with designating what personal items would be distributed to our children. The Planner promptly found a home on our bookcase where it sat untouched for over a year. It wasn’t until I saw firsthand the stress my sister-in-law experienced when she was named the executor of her widowed neighbor’s estate did I understand the importance of planning. Although my sister-in-law had checked on her neighbor every day and helped her with various chores for quite a few years, she wasn’t intimate with the woman’s personal affairs. After the neighbor’s death, over the course of the next 9 months, my sister-in-law struggled with the daunting task of cleaning out the house, closing bank accounts, dealing with insurance companies, medical bills, and funeral arrangements. It was this incident that prompted me to dust off the Planner and start our Legacy process. I used the Planner as a guide for organizing our important paperwork in another binder. I typed instructions about our financial affairs, personal property, and burial instructions. We then wrote a letter to our three children explaining to them our planning. The letters started those uncomfortable conversations with our children, but it’s a joy knowing they will not have the struggles my sister-in-law experienced.
~ S. L. – Springfield, IL

I finally started the long overdue project of going through all of my possessions which includes clothes, pictures, furniture and collectibles. I had purchased the ‘Lifetime Legacy Planner’ to document who was to receive certain possessions, and what items I would want to keep if I needed to downsize and move out of my home. When I showed the executor of my estate the Personal Property chapter, she was delighted and very supportive that I was the one making these decisions and not leaving it up to her to decide who would be the benefactor of my things. She kept reiterating how my organizing project was making her job so much easier by not having to deal with relatives fighting over certain possessions or heirlooms. In the Funeral chapter I’ve documented my burial plans, and the Legal chapter shows my Powers of Attorney for both medical and finances. It’s a comfort to know that not if, but when, something happens to me, my wishes are documented for my executor to share with my family and friends.
~ M.M.W. – Retired, 90 years old

I consider myself an organizer. Having a place for everything reduces the amount of time looking for a document, a receipt or a warranty. My finances and insurance have been tracked for years, complete with projections, intended use and dreams to accomplish. After arranging with a lawyer to prepare necessary paperwork for trust, will, power of attorney, etc., I felt my life “was in order”. I purchased the ‘Lifetime Legacy Planner’ from Maureen Williams and found a few things left undone. And guess what, in my paperwork search, we found a $5,000 insurance policy that was never claimed after the death of my husband’s former wife!

Maureen stated that we need to share this information with our loved ones. So, I invited my son to lunch 3 times specifically to discuss my end of life wishes, my documents and the location of everything. At first he didn’t want to discuss anything about this subject, but by the 3rd lunch, he was on board, complimented and thanked me for making the inevitable transition as smooth as possible. Thanks, Maureen for providing a guide and helping me and my family.
J.S.H. – Artist, Springfield, IL

I found out about Strategic Hourglass Solutions through the Chatham Area Chamber of Commerce and was excited to learn about Maureen’s book ‘Lifetime Legacy Planner’. I purchased two of her books, one for myself and the other for my mother, and both Mom and I are on track in documenting and organizing our personal files, belongings and final wishes so that our surviving family members don’t have to go through the overwhelming task of finding important documents, and especially so important papers and information aren’t missed or overlooked. Thanks to Strategic Hourglass Solutions, our plans are well documented and will be easy to follow!
S.P. – Chatham, IL

My wife and I were in the process of updating our will and recently purchased a ‘Lifetime Legacy Planner’ from Maureen. While looking through the Planner, we realized how inadequate the first draft of our will was and how much more thorough our new will would be following the planning steps listed in the Planner. If you are thinking of retirement or protection of your property and assets for you and your family, this Planner is a necessity!
L.E. – Owner, Emerson Press

Maureen’s ‘Lifetime Legacy Planner’ has opened up a whole new way for me to communicate with my adult children and their children about important stories from my life and heirlooms that I want passed down. We are all having a great time communicating about these things. I have also been guided by the Planner to document important details about financial matters which will make it easy for my daughters to get things settled when the time comes.
J.O. – Retired, 70 years old

Maureen was retained to organize a system that would allow us to formally implement a records retention policy for our 1800-member nonprofit organization. Using the policy as a base, Maureen sorted, purged, and reorganized over ten years’ worth of files and records, creating much needed space and providing an effective and efficient system that we continue to use today.
P.W. – Pacific Northwest ISA

As the owner of six independent offices, my goal was to organize and separate the business records for each office in order to facilitate our estate and retirement planning. Maureen sorted and filed all of our business records for efficient retrieval when meeting with our attorneys and financial advisors. Filing systems are now in place should I decide to sell one office location at a time.
L.S. – Quint S Corporation

Using our retention policy and Maureen’s organizing methodology, we were able to destroy obsolete records, and identified and tagged remaining records with a future destruction date. Maureen recommended several changes to our retention policy to facilitate a smoother process for filing our current records, creating a more efficient filing system, and saving money spent on off-site storage space.
C.P. – Sparc