Book One
Get Your Affairs in Order
Gather the accounts, documents and wishes your family would need.
Paperback, hardcover and ebook
See the bookEllis Family Guides · Books by Margaret K. Ellis
Practical, plain-English guides for life's biggest transitions.
For you today. For the people you love tomorrow.
The Peace of Mind Series
A little planning. A lot of peace of mind.
Practical, plain-English guides to estate planning, living trusts and retirement benefits. Four books. You don’t need every book, just the one that helps you move forward.
Meet the series · 36 seconds
Four books, one calm plan
A quiet introduction to the books and what each one can help you do. Press play for the film with soft guitar music.
Read the film transcript & credits
Three focused guides, plus one volume for wills, trusts and estate planning that combines Books One and Two. Find the book that fits your next step.
Make things clearer for the people you love. Put your affairs in order. Understand living trusts. Make sense of Social Security & Medicare.
Three focused guides, in paperback, hardcover and Kindle. Find your guide. Three in one: wills, trusts and estate planning. Books One and Two, combined, plus extra resources, in paperback and hardcover. ellisfamilyguides.com.
Music: “Solo Acoustic #3” by Jason Shaw / Audionautix, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Edited and mixed for this film. Paper sound: xkeril, CC0. Illustrative scenes include AI-generated imagery.
Book Two
Living Trusts Made Simple
Work out whether a trust fits, and what happens after you sign.
Paperback, hardcover and ebook
See the bookBook Three
Social Security & Medicare
Book Four · 3-in-1
Wills, Trusts & Estate Planning
Books One and Two, revised and combined, with additional resources.
Paperback and hardcover
See the bookBook Four is an alternative to buying Books One and Two separately. Social Security & Medicare is a separate guide.
A closer look, with five stars from Readers’ Favorite
Book One
Get Your Affairs in Order
Your complete Estate Planner: a plain-English guide plus a fill-in organizer for wills, trusts, digital assets, and everything your family needs to know.
About the book and all three editions →“It is not a dry legal textbook and deals with death empathetically… an outstanding work that is concise, clearly written, and full of practical advice, covering factors that you may never have considered. This valuable resource is highly recommended.”
Leonard Smuts for Readers’ Favorite, five stars
Book Two
Living Trusts Made Simple
Your complete Trust Planner: a plain-English guide to whether you need a trust at all — and, if you do, how to fund it so it actually does the job it was bought for.
About the book and all three editions →“Margaret K. Ellis’s Living Trusts Made Simple offers a clear, straightforward guide to handling property transfers and preparing for the future… It brings real honesty to long-term financial security… This book hands you the perfect roadmap to lock in your estate and protect your family’s legacy.”
Robert Collier III for Readers’ Favorite, five stars
Book Three
Social Security & Medicare
Your complete Benefits Planner: when to claim, which Medicare plan actually fits, and every deadline that keeps costing you if you miss it.
About the book and all three editions →“A comprehensive guide that will provide answers… a step-by-step guide that explains the entire process, from what you may claim to how to go about it. Ellis describes the rules, warns of the possible pitfalls, and demystifies the complexities… a valuable reference work for years to come.”
Leonard Smuts for Readers’ Favorite, five stars
Book Four · 3-in-1
Wills, Trusts & Estate Planning
The complete 3-in-1 guide: your will, your living trust, and every affair in order — in one book. A revised and combined edition of Books One and Two, with all 50 states at a glance and the worksheets printed right in.
About the book, paperback and hardcover →“practical, detailed, and written in everyday language”
Leonard Smuts for Readers’ Favorite, five stars, September 2026
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Your next step can be free
Useful pages, ready when you are. Free checklists, printable organizer pages, state reference tables and official resources for U.S. readers. No book purchase required.
- The Quick-Start Checklist
- 50-state reference tables
- Printable organizer pages
- The Yearly Estate Check-up
- Fifteen free, official resources
- Trust funding records and couples worksheets
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Get your free companion packGet an email when the numbers change
Medicare premiums, Social Security figures and state estate limits change every year. Join the free update list and you'll get one email a year with the new figures for your book.
One email a year. Nothing else, ever.
Send me the yearly updateStart with one useful step
Gather your Medicare review papers, help a parent organize documents or make an emergency folder. Our practical guides include free printable starting points.
Explore the practical guides →Our books show their work
Every figure in an Ellis Family Guide is checked against the primary source — the statute itself, not another book's summary. Where the law is genuinely unsettled, the book says so instead of guessing.
And because these numbers move, the books move with them: every title is reviewed and refreshed on a regular schedule. The current state-by-state tables are always free on the companion page — there, each figure is printed with the statute cited beside it, so you or your attorney can check the source directly.
Explore our sources →