Do I Actually Need a Will If I'm Young?
Spoiler: yes. But not for the reasons you think. Here's what's actually at stake when you're in your 20s or 30s with no estate plan.
By Willy Team · June 2, 2026 · 5 min read
The honest answer to 'do I need a will if I'm young?' is yes — and the reason most of us get wrong is we think it's about money.
It's not really about money. It's about decisions.
When you die without a will, every decision about what happens next gets handed to someone else. The state. A judge. Family members who might not agree with each other. And none of them are going to ask what you would have wanted.
The money argument (and why it misses the point)
Most 25-year-olds hear 'estate planning' and tune out because they're not rich. Fair. But a will isn't just about distributing wealth.
It's about:
- Who takes care of your dog
- Who gets access to your accounts to pay for your funeral
- Whether your long-term partner (if you're not married) gets anything at all
- What happens to your car, your furniture, your guitar collection
- Who's allowed to make medical decisions if you're incapacitated before you die
None of that requires a stock portfolio.
The unmarried partner problem
This one catches a lot of us off guard. If you've been with your partner for three years, moved in together, and built a life — but you're not legally married — they have zero legal rights if you die.
Zero. They don't inherit anything. They might not be allowed at the hospital. In some states, they could be removed from an apartment you share if your name is the only one on the lease.
A will fixes this. It takes about two minutes to type their name into a box and say 'this person gets my stuff.' Without it, everything defaults to your blood relatives, even if you haven't spoken in years.
The 'my family will figure it out' assumption
You might assume your family will just handle things reasonably. Sometimes they do. But grief does weird things to us, and money does weird things to us, and grief plus money is a combination that's destroyed plenty of families.
Disagreements over who gets what — even when we're talking about a used car and some furniture — can turn into long, ugly fights that cost everyone money and permanently damage relationships.
A will doesn't prevent disagreements. But it does give everyone something to point to. 'This is what she wanted' is a sentence that ends a lot of arguments.
What about all my digital stuff?
Gen Z and Millennials have a category of assets that didn't exist 20 years ago: digital accounts, subscriptions, crypto, NFTs, content channels, domain names. Some of this is worth real money. Some of it is just sentimental. But without explicit instructions, most of it either gets locked forever or deleted.
Crypto is the worst case. If you hold it in a private wallet and no one has your seed phrase, that money is gone. Not frozen — gone. No court can unlock it. No lawyer can recover it.
You don't have to put your passwords in your will (please don't — wills become public record). But you can document where your digital instructions are stored and give your executor permission to access them.
'I'll do it when I'm older'
This is the most common answer, and it's completely understandable. Also, it's the wrong call.
You're not immune to accidents, sudden illness, or the kind of random bad luck that nobody plans for. The whole point of having a will is that you make it when you don't need it — so it's there when someone does.
Making a will doesn't mean you're expecting to die. It means you're a person who takes care of things.
So what does a will for a young person actually look like?
Short, honestly. A basic will for someone in their 20s or 30s typically covers:
- Who inherits your assets (partner, friends, family, charity — your call)
- Who takes care of your pets
- Who manages the whole process (your 'executor')
- Any specific items you want to go to specific recipients
- A personal message if you want to leave one
That's it. You don't need a 40-page legal document. You need a clear, witnessed record of your wishes.
The actual answer
You need a will because you have a life. You have loved ones, stuff that matters to you, and opinions about what should happen to both. A will is just a way of making sure those opinions count.
It takes less time than watching an episode of anything. Do it once, update it when your life changes, and stop thinking about it.