Organizing records for your executor

[Teacher Terry]

We have named my oldest son as executor. He is the most capable of my 3 kids and extremely trustworthy. Of my husband’s 2 kids one I don’t trust at all due to things he has done. His youngest is willing to help my oldest if needed. We have spelled out distribution in our wills. Not going to hire a lawyer to do what 2 of our kids can easily do. If we live a long time the only thing left will be the house. My sister handled my mom’s and it was fine. If I had a big estate it would be different but we don’t.

[pinkytoe]

What does one call the book of instructions? The Death Book sounds a bit dreary but I would like DD to know there is such a book and that it has a name when I finally put it all together.

[sweetana3]

We call ours the Life Book.

[catherine]

I think Dave Ramsey calls it the Legacy Book

[iris lilies]

It is DONE! I have completed the Legacy bag (thanks for the name catherine and Dave Ramsey) that will guide 90% of the job of our trustees. It will also help DH or I if one of us dies. We can also grab it in an emergency and have all of our documentation in one place.

It ain’t perfect, but since perfection is the enemy of completion, I cannot care.

Now, once a year, we will review the materials in it and update. I dont mind that chore really. It was the initial work (took us nearly two years) of moving all assets into our trust that took time. That sucked majorly and there is no way I could have tackled that before retiring. That examination forced us to close and cash out some accounts just to reduce the unwieldy number of places we have parked money.

[Tybee]

Good for you! Your thread is inspiring us to start working on this; we started yesterday and today bought the notebook. We're starting with making sure all accounts have beneficiaries.

[iris lilies]

Good for you! Your thread is inspiring us to start working on this; we started yesterday and today bought the notebook. We're starting with making sure all accounts have beneficiaries.

I think that is a great place to start.

[Tybee]

We are calling ours The Domesday Book, haha.

[Teacher Terry]

I love it Tybee!

[jp1]

I'm the trustee for my best friend's (19 years older than me) trust. He recently completed his book which he just calls "The Binder." I know where it is, and knowing him I'm sure it's insanely well organized and thorough. We've had plenty of discussions of the basic contours of how he wants things distributed, so hopefully when the time comes the task won't be too onerous.

If it were up to me to name a book like this I think I'd call it "Material Me", a take on the book in Harry Potter "Magical Me".