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It’s been a busy two weeks since my last status update. We have just nine days to go and our kids won’t be in daycare for the remainder, so it’ll be harder to get stuff done. We have a good bit more to do (mostly more packing and getting rid of things), but I think we’re in good shape. Here’s what we did over the last two weeks:

• Made a partial plan for our health insurance. Basically we’ll wait to do anything until we’re in NC. If something happens before then we can purchase COBRA and it’ll retroactively cover us starting from when our work health insurance ended. And then once we’re in NC we’ll compare COBRA and the HealthCare.gov options and go with whatever is better.
• Picked up my new glasses. They’re great.
• Took our Subaru Outback in for software updates for two minor recalls.
• I requested quotes from a ton of car shipping companies and Emily and I discussed the timing of shipping the Outback and selling the Corolla. Car shipping will take between five and twenty days, with not much predictability, and even the pickup is hard to schedule exactly ahead of time. We decided that it would be easiest to ship the Outback early so that it’s there when we get there (or arrives shortly after we do), and then wait to sell the Corolla until shortly before we move. We picked a transport company, made arrangements, and dropped the car off with them. Price is $1,500 (I requested top placement in the carrier in an attempt to reduce damage from rocks flying up from the road, which was an extra $100). This was on the higher end of the estimates (the lowest was around $1,100 without top placement, and many were around $1,300 without top placement), but the company was reputable and had a local presence where we could drop off the car, which was more convenient for us than having to coordinate with a truck driver to pick it up.
• Booked a rental car for the days between when we sell our Corolla and when we fly away.
• Filled out the owner questionnaire portion of our disclosure packet for selling our home.
• Replaced block and tackle window balances and a broken sash guide on a single hung window.
• Had Home Depot measure the bedrooms in our condo as a preliminary step before replacing the carpet.
• Subsequently went to Home Depot, picked out carpet, purchased, scheduled installation, and got HOA approval.
• Rented a truck and took our mattress to Shoreway Environmental Center in San Carlos for recycling.
• Gave away our two Ikea Malm dressers from 2006. We’ve moved with them four times and I’m not sure they’ll survive much longer. Some Ikea furniture is sturdy… these were not.
• Gave away a super cheap small bookshelf.
• Gave away a rug.
• Took stuff to Goodwill.
• Dropped off old infant car seat at California Highway Patrol for recycling. It had been used for three maybe four babies and was approaching the manufacturer’s expiration date. We didn’t feel comfortable passing it off to someone else. Also Edie threw up an unimaginable amount in it and neither of us wanted to clean it.
• Emily spent a ton of time researching moving and storage companies, calling them, and summarizing the options, and together we spent a ton of time trying to figure out the best option for us. Do we or don’t we want to keep stuff in storage? If we put stuff in storage, should we use transportable storage containers or have movers unload into a storage building, and then later have movers move from the storage building to our final destination? If using storage containers, will it be easier to use a few smaller containers or one big one? Should we use their movers or hire our own? If our couch is too big to fit in the less expensive containers, are we better off getting rid of the couch and buying a new one? We decided on a 28′ moving trailer from U-Pack. A moving company will load it for us, then U-Pack will pick it up and park it at a storage lot until we need it. My takeaway is that the storage container options aren’t great. PODS is expensive, U-Haul’s containers are small. There are a few other options that are some combination of too small, bad reviews, sketchy, etc.
• Got “no parking” signs from the city of San Mateo so we can reserve space on the street for our moving trailer. I’m still a little worried about this.
• Packed Emily and my bikes in boxes. If I could do it again I would pay one hundred whatever dollars per bike for the local bike shop to pack them. Or at least my bike. It sounded expensive, but after having done it myself… it was definitely a pain in the ass. It was hard to pack the bikes in a way where I felt comfortable that they wouldn’t get damaged in the move.
• Packed a ton of boxes.
• Also, of course, continued raising two kids.

Friday, March 1 was Emily and my last days at our respective jobs. We’re flying out April 9th, which gives us only five weeks to prepare and we have a long list of things to do. We’re two weeks in. Let’s recap what we’ve accomplished:

• Interviewed listing agents for selling our San Mateo condo and signed with one. This was stressful and not something Emily or I enjoyed.
• Researched and bought a laptop for me.
• Ordered new glasses for me.
• Returned some library books and checked out others.
• Gave away lots of baby things that we no longer need.
• Sold our bed frame. Emily has never liked it and it’s a good time to replace it.
• Took our 2003 Toyota Corolla in for a recall service. This car has had 10 recalls, four of them are for airbags, and it only has two airbags.
• Bought our plane tickets.
• Wrote my last newsletter for our homeowners association (I was appointed to the board last year after the previous Secretary moved away).
• Organized my homeowners association notes and handed off responsibilities to my replacement.
• Did our taxes.
• Mailed in a form to request a refund for money on one of our Clipper cards.
• Straightened out some pre-tax transit funds shenanigans.
• Went running (four times!)
• Went climbing (twice!, though I climb once a week anyway, so nothing new here).
• Averaged more than 7 hours of sleep a night.

One observation: Our kids are in daycare during the day and Emily and I initially felt weird being at home and not being responsible for them. We can do whatever we want without worrying about saddling the other person with kid duty.

As mentioned earlier, Emily and I are moving out of our condo in San Mateo. We had to decide whether to keep it as an investment (and probably offer it for rent), or sell it. It’s not an easy question! If we sold it we’d likely invest in stock market index funds, so let’s compare the two.

Return on investment

This is the most qualitative consideration. We want to know how much we would expect to earn in a typical year from the two options.

Our home was first sold on December 12, 2003 for $620,000. Current value as of March 12, 2019 is approximately $1,300,000. That’s a return of 209.68% over fifteen and a half years, which is an annualized return of roughly 5%. That’s just for the property itself.

Expenses are $13,156.12 yearly property tax and $618.74 per month HOA dues, which comes out to $20,581 per year. That reduces the annualized return to 3.42%. Note that yearly property tax is only allowed to increase at most 2% per year due to Prop 13, so assuming Bay Area real estate appreciates more than 2% per year, property tax can be expected to become less of a burden proportionally as time goes on. Also I expect the monthly HOA dues to increase at a greater rate than inflation as part of the HOA’s plan for the reserves to be “fully funded.”

What if we rented it out? Looking at similar-sized rentals on Zillow we could expect a renter to pay between $4,000 and $5,000 per month. Let’s assume $4,500 per month. Let’s also assume 100% occupancy, 10% property management fee, and $1,000 per year in maintenance expenses. That’s $47,600 income per year. That brings the annualized return up to 7.08%—hey, not bad. If we wanted to be generous and assume $5,000 per month rent with no management fee and no maintenance then that’s $60,000 per year which is an annualized return of 8.03%.

Now what about the stock market? Let’s look at SPY because it’s enormously popular (most assets of any ETF). Let’s use the same fifteen and a half year time range as above. Assuming this random website that I found with Google (appears to no longer be working as of 2019-03-14) is correct, the total return is 244.19% which is an annualized return of 8.45%. That doesn’t account for taxes paid on the dividends. And of course there’s no guarantee future performance will match this rate.

So that’s pretty close. Of course there’s a high margin of error in the above numbers and it only increases over time. There’s no guarantee real estate or the stock market will appreciate at the same rates. But from my point of view it’s basically a wash. Neither option is obviously better than the other.

Effort

Owning stock is trivially easy. We use Schwab with “reinvest dividends” turned on, so there’s no ongoing work. The yearly tax filing effort is negligible—we’ll own stock either way, so there aren’t any additional 1099 forms.

Owning a home and not offering it for rent is fairly easy: Pay yearly property tax (manually-initiated online ACH transfer once or twice a year). Pay monthly HOA dues (auto draft). Maybe carry some kind of insurance (maybe not necessary if it’s unoccupied, since the HOA carries insurance on the building). Vote on HOA ballots.

Offering it for rent is significantly more work. Approving tenants. Coordinating with management company. Deciding on repairs while not being local. Dealing with tenants who might violate HOA rules. Keeping track of income and expenses and handling it correctly when filing our taxes (and forcing us to file with California, too).

Volatility

How dependable are the two options? The stock market has ups and downs but it averages out over time. I think it’s unlikely the US economy will collapse and never recover, and so risk of catastrophic loss of value is low.

Owning an expensive home is scary. It’s a lot of eggs to have in one basket. I’m not worried about sea level rise (I think it’s likely dams and locks will be built at the Golden Gate when sea level rise becomes severe enough to affect us). I’m not worried about fire. I’m mostly not worried about dam collapse (though I believe we are in the path of the Crystal Springs Dam). I’m mostly not worried about the Bay Area real estate market collapsing (there might be dips but I think it’ll be ok in the long run). I’m a little worried about potential loss of value from catastrophic earthquake.

So I think it’s unlikely the condo will lose significant value, but conventional wisdom is that it’s better to diversify. Real estate in aggregate is a sound investment but one unit of real estate has risk.

Summary

• The return on investment from operating the condo as a rental is not clearly higher than investing in stock market index funds.
• Owning the condo, and especially operating as a rental, is more work than stock market index funds.
• Owning the condo has more risk, though this factor is insignificant.

And so in an effort to simplify my life and responsibilities, my preference is to sell the condo.

Two footnotes

At the top I said, “we’d likely invest in stock market index funds.” That’s not 100% accurate. We’d probably spend part of the money on a new house (or down payment on a new house). If we didn’t sell the condo then we’d quite possibly need to get a mortgage in order to buy a new house. It’s possible that mortgage rates are low enough that the mortgage would be effectively “free”—I haven’t checked.

When selling a primary residence there’s a “home sale exclusion” where, for married couples filing jointly, up to $500,000 of profit from the sale is tax-free. It seems like it’s not possible to take advantage of this if the property is converted to a rental. Which means that when the property is eventually sold we’d need to pay taxes on around $300,000 of profit (the approximate increase in value since we’ve lived here) that we otherwise would have avoided.

Friends! The time has come for Emily, Ruby, Edie, Toro and I to move back East! In April we’ll be selling our condo in San Mateo. We’ll be bouncing back and forth between Raleigh and Wilmington for a few months starting in mid-April while we figure out our next jobs and where we’ll be settling down long term.

Leaving our friends and family in the Bay Area is definitely the hardest part. We’ll miss you! We’re working through the end of February then taking all of March to pack and clean and plan and prepare. We’d love to see people before we go!

Why are we moving, you ask? A lot of little reasons that add up. We’d like our kids to see their grandparents more. We’d like a bigger house (two kids in our two bedroom condo is tight). We’d like a yard. We’d like to spend less time commuting. We’re hoping to spend less on daycare (currently about $40,000 a year).

Friends and family in NC: Looking forward to seeing you in a few months!

I’ve started listening to a lot of podcasts over the last few years. Mostly when walking to and from work. I took some time to write my thoughts about each one. Partially because I thought other people might be interested, but also to have notes for myself because my memory isn’t great.

To give you an idea of my interests, I like listening to podcasts that help me have informed opinions. I prefer non-fiction. I prefer hearing facts and information rather than feelings. I prefer hearing aggregate data rather than personal stories.

Here’s the list:

The Memory Palace

Recommended? Yes! But you’ve got to focus and listen actively.

“A storytelling podcast and public radio segment about the past.” Ten to fifteen minutes long, every other week. Little tales from history. Usually great. Well-researched and wonderfully written. Nate DiMeo is an amazing storyteller. One of the best of our time. For an example episode, try “If You Have to be a Floor.” He chose it as his episode of the year last year and it’s kind of a masterpiece. If you’re still undecided, here are a few other episodes that I thought were above average: “Snakes!,” “Numbers,” “No Summer,” “Every Night Ever,” “Overland,” “Lost Locusts,” “Victory,” and “Local Channels.”

Planet Money

Recommended? Yes!

NPR’s economics podcast. Eighteen to twenty minutes long, twice a week. Usually great. Three example episodes that I enjoyed are “Cow Noir,” about cattle rustling, “How to Hide a Million Dollars in Plain Sight,” about money laundering, and “The Man Who Sued Iran,” which describes what happens when a US citizen sues a country in a US court.

The Indicator from Planet Money

Recommended? Eh. I suggest Planet Money, first. If you like that and want more, then listen to this, too.

Shorter, less-refined, economics-related stories from NPR’s Planet Money team. Nine minutes long, five days a week. Usually pretty good.

99% Invisible

Recommended? Yeah, if you make things or are thoughtful about how things work.

“The thought that goes into the things we don’t think about — the unnoticed architecture and design that shape our world.” Twenty to thirty minutes long, weekly. Usually great. For anyone who builds things (software in my case), it’s always good to have regular reminders of design considerations even if they’re totally unrelated to what you’re working on.

This American Life

Recommended? Yes!

Each week they choose a theme and present stories related to that theme. Sometimes journalism. Sometimes humorous. An hour long, weekly. Often great, though sometimes I’m not interested in the theme or specific story. A good amount of variety. On the journalism side, their story “Didn’t We Solve This One?” about granting visas for Iraqis and Afghans who have helped the US was something I hadn’t heard about before (semi-related: the ProPublica story “How Asylum Works” has great info about the asylum process). On the humor side, “Kid Logic 2016” is great. “No Coincidence, No Story!” is also an easy listen.

Serial

Recommended? Only if you have a lot of time to listen (e.g. road trip or long commute).

Investigative journalism/long-form telling of a nonfiction story. About “love and death and justice and truth.” Three seasons so far of nine to twelve episodes each. Thirty to sixty minutes per episode. It’s well made and the stories are interesting, but it’s a big time investment. Like reading a novel vs the CliffsNotes.

S-Town

Recommended? I guess. I think your average podcast listener would enjoy it.

About one man and a small town in Alabama. Seven parts, around an hour each. Not exactly my cup of tea, but the story is fairly interesting and the production quality and writing are top-notch.

Containers

Recommended? Eh, probably not. Unless you’re particularly interested in container ships, in which case maybe start with Episode 3.

About global trade, economics, and container ships. Eight parts, around thirty minutes each. It’s alright. The episodes rely on a lot of anecdotes and interviews, which I’m generally not interested in. It might be Episode 3 that talks in detail about how the ships and containers and ports work that I found most interesting.

Criminal

Recommended? Mildly.

Stories about interesting crimes. Thirty minutes, every other week. I was worried it would be dark and gruesome, but it’s mostly not. Not really educational, just entertaining. An example episode that I liked is “On the Run.”

The Breakthrough

Recommended? Only if you have a particular interest in how journalists work.

Interviews with investigative journalists about how they got the information for their stories. Released sporadically and currently on hiatus. I have a great appreciation for ProPublica (disclaimer: I’ve donated a few hundred dollars a year for the past few years), but this podcast is just ok. I think it’s helpful for journalists to disclose how they obtained their information when possible, and I like hearing the details of investigations, but I found myself wanting to hear the story itself, not just the investigation. I would prefer a podcast that walks through the story as well as the work that went into researching the story.

Reveal

Recommended? Meh.

They attempt to “hold the powerful accountable and reveal government fraud and waste of taxpayer funds, human rights violations, environmental degradation and threats to public safety” and “shine a bright light on injustice and protect the most vulnerable in our society.” Fifty minutes, weekly. Mostly good. I always appreciate the benefits of investigative journalism to society and I appreciate the work done by Reveal, though I do feel like their stories tend to present a single viewpoint rather than the viewpoints of all affected parties. And sometimes they focus too closely on individual anecdotes without discussing aggregate data. I think it’s fair to say they have a bias in defense of social justice. Also, I think it’s satisfying when journalism hints at ways to improve the problems they’re discussing and I feel like Reveal generally doesn’t do that. It’s a great podcast for anyone looking for problems that need solving.

Embedded

Recommended? Nah.

They take a story from the news and do a deep dive. Forty minutes, once a month on average, though episodes aren’t evenly spaced. It’s decent, but not for me. They cover news that I’m interested in, but there’s generally nothing revelatory. Lots of recap and anecdotes. I’ve usually heard most of it just from keeping up with the news on a daily basis.

Trump, Inc.

Recommended? Meh.

An open investigation into Trump’s businesses and administration. I think Trump and many of his associates are sleazy and I appreciate that people are investigating, but I don’t like hearing the details of their sleaziness on a regular basis. I’m not in danger of forgetting about their sleaziness. Possibly useful for law enforcement looking for crimes, or lawmakers looking for loopholes to close.

What Trump Can Teach Us About Con Law

Recommended? Yeah, if you’re interested in law.

Discusses the constitutionality of various actions by Trump. Twenty-five minutes, once a month. By Roman Mars of 99% Invisible. I like it, but it’s pretty dry.

30 for 30

Recommended? Yeah, mildly.

Each episode does a deep dive about a major sport-related topic (though season 3 was entirely about one topic). Around forty-five minutes, once a month (though they’re released in batches and the podcast includes other interviews between the batches). Pretty good overall, though the stories are heavy on interview content. Not really educational, just entertaining.

Outside Podcast

Recommended? If you like fitness, hiking, camping, climbing, or other outdoor recreational activities.

A wide range of stories and interviews about recreation, the outdoors, the human body, health and fitness, survival, and gear and apparel. Around thirty minutes, two to four times a month. It’s a good change from the rest of the podcasts I listen to. Some of their stories I like and others I skip.

The Sharp End

Recommended? If you’re big into climbing or you’re a gym climber thinking about climbing outdoors.

Each episode discusses a climbing accident in an interview format. Around thirty minutes, once a month. Mildly interesting, but I don’t think I’ve learned much from it other than obvious things like: be conservative, be cautious, limit risk, wear a helmet, tie a knot on the end of your rope. Associated with the American Alpine Club and Accidents in North American Climbing.

Your Parenting Mojo

Recommended? Nah.

Research-based parenting ideas. Twenty to forty-five minute episodes every other week. It’s ok, but not for me. I found the parenting suggestions to be useful but I’d rather hear a summarized version. This podcast goes into too much detail about the underlying research for my taste. I’ve only listened to about five episodes, so my opinion is limited. It seems like episodes are usually either interviews or recaps of science journals/research studies. It felt like the presenter was almost reading an article, which I found tiring to listen to. I would like it more if it was shorter: Just suggestions + very quick reasoning about why, rather than longer explanations.

Science Vs

Recommended? If you’re the kind of person who is prone to believing misinformation from people around you and you think you’d benefit from hearing impartial information.

Picks a topic (gun control, MDMA, vaccines, nuclear power, etc) and discusses it using facts and data. Forty to fifty minutes long, averages around two episodes a month, though they’re released in batches. It’s ok. Easy to listen to. Fun. I like puns. I stopped listening about a year ago so this may not be true anymore, but I don’t like that they try to narrow down topics to a single “good” or “bad” verdict. In reality most issues are much more complex. I especially noticed this with the gun control debate. It’s a very difficult question… It can’t only be decided by science. Also philosophy, psychology, and economics. How much value do people put on their freedom to own a weapon vs their freedom to be safe from other people’s weapons. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely think the US would be better off if guns were more restricted. I just think it’s hard to make that case using data.

Welcome to Macintosh

Recommended? Nah. Unless you like obsessing about Apple.

Assorted stories about Apple and Apple products. Twenty to thirty minutes per episode with shorter stories mixed in. Released in seasons of five or eight episodes about once a year. Some interesting content, but I never found the stories super compelling. A little too anecdote-y for me. I prefer meatier info and I prefer hearing about things I’m not familiar with.

Freakonomics Radio

Recommended? Mildly.

Wide range of interviews, discussion, and information. It’s hard to pin down. Thirty to sixty minutes, weekly. The content is good. I stopped listening because I don’t have quite enough time for it and there were other podcasts I preferred more. But I imagine I’ll listen again eventually.

Wolverine: The Long Night

Recommended? Nah.

Detective fiction featuring Wolverine (yes, the one from comic books). One season so far. Ten parts, thirty minutes each. It was ok. I like mysteries, Marvel, Wolverine, and interesting radio fiction, but I thought the story was just average. The Wolverine/mutant aspect is actually pretty minimal. It mostly just feels like crime fiction. I guess I liked listening to it, but my attention waned.

Bundyville

Recommended? Nah.

About the Bundy family—the idiots who occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge for a month in 2014. Seven parts, thirty minutes each. I think the story is mildly interesting to read about, but listening to it for three and a half hours is probably overkill. Basically the family thinks they’re entitled to use federal land because they think the federal government has no legal claim to it and the legal system repeatedly sides against them.

Other

If you’re still looking for things to listen to, here’s a random list of other podcasts that I’ve seen recommended but that I haven’t listened to.

• The a16z podcast
• BBC Radio 4 In Our Time
• EconTalk
• The Enormocast – A climbing podcast.
• Exponent
• Joe Rogan
• Hardcore History
• The History of English
• The History of Rome
• The Information’s 411
• The Long View
• Longform
• Omega Tau
• Peter Schiff
• Presidential – “In 44 chronological episodes, the Presidential podcast takes listeners on an epic historical journey through the personality and legacy of each of the American presidents.”
• Reply All
• Revisionist History
• Revolutions
• Sam Harris
• Science Friday
• The Skeptics Guide to the Universe
• To the Mouse and Back
• Song Exploder
• Startup Podcast
• Stuff You Missed in History Class
• Stuff You Should Know
• TED Radio Hour
• To the Best of Our Knowledge
• The Weeds (polictics)

And it’s awful.

If you want to punish people for crossing the border illegally, fine, whatever. But that is not an acceptable reason to separate a child from their parent. Children don’t control whether their parents bring them across the border and it’s not ok to put them through additional trauma because of it.

My understanding is that on May 7 Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the Justice Department would begin attempting to prosecute every person who crossed the Southwest border illegally, and such prosecution entails separation. And we’ll do this even if the adults are seeking asylum.

Jeff Sessions said, “If you’re smuggling a child, then we’re going to prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you, probably, as required by law. If you don’t want your child separated, then don’t bring them across the border illegally. It’s not our fault that somebody does that.”

Someone should tell him it’s also not the fault of the child.

There’s a Washington Post article that goes into a lot of detail about the timeline (though don’t worry much about the 1500 missing children—see this long Twitter thread for the reason why).

At one point White House Chief of Staff John Kelly said, “The children will be taken care of—put into foster care or whatever.” Which is, of course, ridiculous. In this situation it isn’t difficult to avoid creating orphans.

Side note: At some point Trump tried to blame this situation on democrats, for some reason. This is basically bullshit. See CNN fact check and some info gathered by Huffington Post.

Addendum added a few hours after posting this: I said “If you want to punish people for crossing the border illegally, fine, whatever.” To clarify, my intent wasn’t to sound anti-immigrant here. My intent was to be dramatic and stay focused on separating children from their parents. But I also feel that we’re not meeting our obligation to assist those seeking asylum, and in general I feel like we spend too much effort trying to reduce non-asylum-related immigration.

Now that we have kids, Emily and I thought it was important to make wills so we could designate guardians in case we die. Our situation is straightforward, so I was hopeful we could find a cheap and easy off-the-shelf solution. I’m also hoping these wills won’t get used. If I thought there was a higher chance of one of us dying I’d consider spending more effort to find a good local lawyer. I read a bunch of stuff online (how-to guides, explanation of right-of-survivorship, the Wikipedia page on probate, etc), but it was mostly unnecessary. It didn’t affect our will in any way.

We decided to use the Mac download version of Nolo Quicken WillMaker Plus. The list price is currently $70. It looks like there might regularly be coupon codes available, so you might be able to get it for less.

I think it works well and I’m happy with the decision. It asks you a bunch of questions about your property, your family, your pets, who you would like to be the guardian of your kids and pets, who you would like to be the will’s executor, etc, then it creates a pdf for you to print. There are instructions for how to sign (need witnesses) and instructions for the executor. It took us around two and a half hours. It could have taken a lot less time but I wanted to read every bit of help text to make sure we didn’t miss anything.

Other notes:

• Remember to talk with your guardians before including then in your will.
• Willmaker Plus does not support joint or mutual wills and that was fine with us. The program has a feature for automatically mirroring a will for the spouse. That’s what we used and it worked great.
• An advantage of download software compared to a web-based solution or a real life lawyer is that we can use it multiple times while only paying once. There’s no additional cost for creating two wills or for revising the wills when your situation changes. On the flip side, the software might become out of date.
• To give myself confidence in the wills from Willmaker Plus, I made a will using one of the websites mentioned below and compared it to a Willmaker Plus will. They were similar and the differences were inconsequential as far as I could discern, so I felt pretty good about it.
• Separately we made three lists to make things easier for our executor: a list of all our assets, bank accounts, etc that are covered by the wills, a list of retirement accounts that are not covered by the wills, and a list of recurring payments to cancel. These are informational only—not technically a part of the will.

Other options

I looked through many pages of Google search results before deciding on WillMaker Plus. If you don’t want to use WillMaker Plus and don’t want to find a local lawyer, these three seem like the next best options:

• Rocket Lawyer – Seems great. A website that walks through mostly the same questions as WillMaker Plus. Looks like it might be more current when it comes to digital assets. Maybe $20 per will.
• US Legal Forms – Just a form that you fill out yourself. Seems pretty respectable. $30 for two individual wills or $65 for a mutual will.
• Legal Zoom – Seems good. A human reviews the entered data. $69 per person as far as I can tell, not a combined price for a couple. They advertise on NPR (or KQED, anyway).