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Thread: Organizing records for your executor

  1. #21
    Senior Member Simplemind's Avatar
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    It is a thankless job Pony Mom.....

  2. #22
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    My parents have all of their paperwork in order. My father keeps nagging my mother that she needs to go through the house and clean out and get rid of things so that I don’t have to deal with it “some day”. I keep telling her, I don’t care. I want her to have her house the way she wants it with the things in it that she enjoys and she should not be spending her life cleaning it out for other people. The only thing in that house I don’t want to have to deal with when she is gone is my dad!

  3. #23
    Senior Member iris lilies's Avatar
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    I think it is important to state “lack of” things to save executor time looking for them. We have no life insurance. We have no safety deposit boxes. We dont keep cash in our house. Etc.

    bae’s admonition about having enough available cash to run the estate while it is being closed is good. I dont hink it is a problem for us generally, but something to think about.

  4. #24
    Senior Member iris lilies's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Chicken lady View Post
    My parents have all of their paperwork in order. My father keeps nagging my mother that she needs to go through the house and clean out and get rid of things so that I don’t have to deal with it “some day”. I keep telling her, I don’t care. I want her to have her house the way she wants it with the things in it that she enjoys and she should not be spending her life cleaning it out for other people. The only thing in that house I don’t want to have to deal with when she is gone is my dad!
    Will you be able to actually get rid of anything in your mother’s house? Maybe your father forsees a day when she is gone and he has to deal with the stuff, along with you. Or, he forsees the day they will downsize and the stuff will consume them or her (if he is gone) in that event.

    This is not the friendliest of sites for people who wish to cling to their stuff. We hear plenty of stories from adult children who are exhausted from the mindless, energy draining tasks of dealing with their parents’ stuff.” But all of that said, you and a couple of other people here champion their stuff and their resolution to stay amidst all of the stuff until they die. The odds are against them in that, it is more likely that relatives will have to do the heavy lifting of cleaning out stuff against a hard dealine when the oldster is incapacitated. I guess we will all have a version of that, whether pur lives is jammed full of 20 rooms or two rooms.

    But two rooms are a snap. 20 rooms—not so much.

  5. #25
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    Actually, I am trying really hard not to “champion (my) stuff” here, as yes, I clearly got the message that it us an unwelcome position. However, my mother’s life would be much SIMPLER if she just enjoyed the things she has and her day to day life instead of stressing out about getting rid of things (I mean, clearly, if she runs across something she’s ready to get rid of, she should get rid of it, but I don’t think she needs to spend her energy searching things out)

    There will be time to get rid of the stuff when it is no longer wanted or needed (and yes, I will be able to get rid of things from my mother’s house, and honestly, it is likely that she will be around to help me because the odds are that there will come a time that she is alone and all of her friends are dead and I hope that she will then come here)

    if my mother goes first (unlikely unless there us an accident), my concern is less that my father will have to deal with the stuff and more that he will burn the house down with himself inside. She is literally his world.

    but, I bring up my point of view because, if it makes you happy to predownsize your stuff, then by all means do so, but if you are doing it “for your children” you might want to find out if that is what they want. Because doing it for me would be an unappreciated waste of time and energy.

  6. #26
    Senior Member catherine's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Chicken lady View Post
    Actually, I am trying really hard not to “champion (my) stuff” here, as yes, I clearly got the message that it us an unwelcome position. However, my mother’s life would be much SIMPLER if she just enjoyed the things she has and her day to day life instead of stressing out about getting rid of things (I mean, clearly, if she runs across something she’s ready to get rid of, she should get rid of it, but I don’t think she needs to spend her energy searching things out)

    There will be time to get rid of the stuff when it is no longer wanted or needed (and yes, I will be able to get rid of things from my mother’s house, and honestly, it is likely that she will be around to help me because the odds are that there will come a time that she is alone and all of her friends are dead and I hope that she will then come here)

    if my mother goes first (unlikely unless there us an accident), my concern is less that my father will have to deal with the stuff and more that he will burn the house down with himself inside. She is literally his world.

    but, I bring up my point of view because, if it makes you happy to predownsize your stuff, then by all means do so, but if you are doing it “for your children” you might want to find out if that is what they want. Because doing it for me would be an unappreciated waste of time and energy.
    Thanks for that point of view. Even though I'm 66 and my parents are long dead, I never had to deal with divesting parental possessions. I personally was grateful to have very little to do with regard to that.

    But I've heard some people say--maybe here, maybe somewhere else--that they were happy to go through the stuff for their parents. It was a labor of love and they didn't stress out about it--they simply did it.

    DH and I attended a Decluttering seminar recently at a local church. It was really a sales presentation in a way because the person leading the seminar owns a "Senior Solutions" organizing/decluttering business. It sounds SO tempting. He works with older people and their adult children to strategize and plan moves out of the primary home and into either assisted living or a downsized home. He takes measurements of living spaces and then helps the customers decide what will fit and what will not. He and his team empty the unwanted stuff using junk trucks, donations, estate appraisers, craigslist--he does it all.

    He sees the whole process through to the actual move, unpacking and set-up of the new home.

    DH and I were thinking it would be great to hire him to help US! I've been chipping away at the house to make it presentable for sale, but it feels overwhelming. I would never want to dump those feelings of overwhelm onto my children--so maybe in my little packet of "what to do when I die" I should include this guy's card!
    "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every, every minute?" Emily Webb, Our Town
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  7. #27
    Senior Member Teacher Terry's Avatar
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    When my mom was 60 she asked me to help her go through the stuff in preparation for a house sale and moving to a apartment. We had fun doing it together and was in no rush. We had a bunch of garage sales over 2 years and took a bunch to thrift stores. Buy the time they were ready to move into a apartment they were ready. When she knew she was dying she got rid of more of her stuff at 89. I have had to get rid of a few in-laws stuff after they died and it’s not fun. We have gotten rid of a ton of stuff so our kids won’t have to deal with it. It’s a gift.

  8. #28
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    I understand that it is a gift, but again, some gifts (especially on this forum!) go straight to the thrift store or landfill.

    a key guideline for simplifying your life is not to do things you are doing just for other people unless you are sure that is what the other people want. One way to find out is to ask them.

    mil is constantly cleaning out her house so that we won’t have to, and she is constantly batch emailing the entire family photos of things that nobody wants one at a time and then nagging everyone when some people don’t respond. She honestly thinks this is helpful. This is not helpful. She asked her kids to make a list if things in the house that were important to them so that she could leave instructions or even give the thing away now if she wanted to. THAT was helpful. Dh sister is probably going to need to hire a moving van to go through the house maybe two. That is her deal. The brothers (and their wives and children) can probably sort through the rest and pull out what they want in less than a week. The auctioneers from everything but the house can handle the rest of it.

  9. #29
    Senior Member Teacher Terry's Avatar
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    I have already given my kids the things they wanted. I don’t see a problem with taking things to the thrift stores for others to enjoy. My MIL was a hoarder and I took everything she gave me because I knew it would be one less thing to deal with someday. I only kept a couple of things and displayed them and everything else to the thrift store. Since my husband was a only child we had to deal with it. My kids said if we leave behind a bunch of stuff they would call one of those companies to come get it. I certainly don’t want my money wasted on getting rid of stuff that I can do myself. Plus as I shed stuff I realized how much improved my life has become. Much faster to clean and donating my collections has helped so many fundraisers that need nice silent auction items. It has felt great to help.

  10. #30
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    So teacher terry, I would say you are doing this for yourself. Because you enjoy it, it improves your life, and it aligns with your values. And that is great!

    time and money. I am perfectly content if mil chooses to use her time to get rid of stuff and it results in us getting more money. But I am not willing to “earn” that money by spending time dealing with dozens of emails. I also do not care how she spends her time and wether she enjoys it. But i want my mother to enjoy her life and be happy. And if it costs me money later because she made that choice, I will be glad to give it up. I would be sad to know that she sacrificed her time so that we could inherit more of her money. I guess if you were my mom, I would be happy knowing that it made you happy use your time to save more of your money for me. But if my actual mom wants to give me some of her time, I want the actual time with her, not money that she traded it for by doing things she did not like (which clearing out is in her case - if she got paid for, say, doing library story time with little kids and gave me the money, that would be fine - fun for her and a gift for me.)

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