We just finalized our guardianship this past weekend. We asked our closest friends after much discussion and apprehension about family members. Since many of you seemed to have similar issues on the other thread, I started this spin-off.

We want guardians to be there for the long term for our kids, and the grandparents only have about 10 more good years left. I'm honestly really surprised by how many of you chose grandparents! Maybe you all have a bunch of young parents? The grandparents will be temporary guardians for us, but not permanent ones.

As for siblings, 2 people are no-gos, and BIL/SIL don't really know our kids at and adding 2 more to their family would rock. their. world.

Anyway, our best friends know our kids really well. They have 3 kids ages 3-7, two of whom are adopted, so they know what it's like to add a non-bio kid to the family. Our kids are ages 1 & 3. I figured that financials would be the biggest issue, and I know my friend is a budgeter. So when we asked them to be our guardian, we also gave them a projected budget to show that the kids would be well taken care of and not a strain on their finances. We included housekeeping, babysitting, and pool service in the budget, to ease the idea of having 5 kids.

Our cars will be left to them, so they can sell them and use the $$ to buy a bigger car. Our life insurance will be put in a trust for the kids' college expenses. The social security death benefit should cover all their living expenses until age 18. I found this number by logging into my Soc Sec account online.

Anyway, if any of you are undecided on things, or too afraid to ask certain people, maybe spending some time thinking about financials would be helpful? I know it's a big thing to ask of friends, but I think showing that at least the financials helped the process. My friends said they were honored and they want to be a family that opens their home to children in need.

Do any of you know how easy or difficult it will be to put life insurance in a trust until age 18? Or how easy or difficult or long it is to get the Soc Sec death benefits started?