Making life easier for your family...

[iris lilies]

Now I am searching for photographs for our obituaries. I always think getting a photograph of someone in their 50s or 60s is the best bet. That’s young enough that super decrepit old age has not set in, it’s not so young that the fashion of photography at the time is distracting.


Our funeral plan calls for an obituary in the local weekly paper, but our town also has a quaint habit of printing 4” x 5” obituary cards and distributing them around town to businesses where they sit on service counters so that town’s folk know the deceased person has died.

[jp1]

I've wondered if storing passwords in a little desktop digital wallet would be a good place to store pass words. It would be somewhat secure since you would need a password to acess things, but it would only be one password and in a central location? If a person changes their passwords routinely like you're supposed to it's sort of an ongoing task regardless of how passwords are kept.

Similarly i’ve got a thumb drive with all my financial passwords in a vault with the password to the vault written down on a piece of paper. This is all in a paper file folder stored in one of those old fashioned plastic document boxes. I’ve told SO it’s there but should probably remind him.

[kib]

I’m putting together what I refer to as the “Tradd’s dead - now what?” binder

I love that!

I get caught up in wanting to write letters of remembrance and reassurance, because yeah, the money stuff is cold and complicated. I know that the cold complicated part should come first, my people know I love them, but somehow I stall out.

My parents presented me occasionally with these fill-in books from places like AARP, which organize what people need to know in the event of death. The essential information was always missing. That is, the information I already knew was filled in, but the stuff I needed to know was left blank "for later". So maybe it's genetic?

[Rogar]

I like the idea of a legacy box and just started mine with an out of use small hanging file box.

A password issue I ran into once as an estate executor is if the person has added a second level of security. If you have the password, but have cancelled cell phone service for someone diseased, it can get difficult.

[iris lilies]

I love that!

I get caught up in wanting to write letters of remembrance and reassurance, because yeah, the money stuff is cold and complicated. I know that the cold complicated part should come first, my people know I love them, but somehow I stall out.

My parents presented me occasionally with these fill-in books from places like AARP, which organize what people need to know in the event of death. The essential information was always missing. That is, the information I already knew was filled in, but the stuff I needed to know was left blank "for later". So maybe it's genetic?

Taking care of the cold, complicated part i.e. finances *IS* the act showing love, remembrance, and reassurance.

some people go to great lengths in their legacy file to detail utility providers and etc., but I figure our executor will be able to figure that out and easily. I don’t need to keep detailed lists about that.

Don’t forget to make a list of the things that you do not have. Such as, we do not have life insurance. We do not have a bank box. We do not have car payments. Etc. saves executors crap tons of time in not having to look for these things.

[nswef]

Good point IrisLilies. Let them know what needs to be found....

[Alan]

I like the idea of a legacy box as well, although in my case it's a legacy briefcase. I have an old American Tourister briefcase I purchased in 1973 to house travel docs, training certificates, medals and awards as I travelled from one military assignment to another. Over the years I added birth certificates, marriage license, medical/educational records and other such items as they were acquired. Last year we updated wills and medical power of attorney's and added them to the briefcase after distributing copies to our daughter. We also took that opportunity to put together a financial master document with account locations and numbers as well as website user credentials and passwords for her use should we both die tomorrow. She knows about the briefcase and it's location so all she has to do is retrieve it when the time comes and all I have to do is keep it up to date.

[Tybee]

The books I ordered arrived and I opened mine and couldn't even start it. I think I will try to do one page a day. Or maybe week? I was going to fill in the location of my burial plot that I purchased, and it was just one line, and everything else I haven't done yet, and that one purchase tooks months and months of work and thousands of dollars, and it's going to be one line. So it's a little daunting.

[Tradd]

A cautionary tale:

A friend’s mother died about 18 months ago. Friend has a brother. There is a house and some investments. Friend has been living in the house while cleaning it out and getting some repairs (basic stuff) done. Her mom didn’t do a lot of maintenance. Brother is refusing to allow the house to be sold or other stuff to be done with the estate. Friend is executor. She has been paying taxes on the investments herself to the tune of $20K a year. She’s running into financial issues because of this. I’m sure there is info I’m missing or didn’t understand, but this is what I’ve been told. Friend is going to hire her own lawyer to get things pushed through

[iris lilies]

The books I ordered arrived and I opened mine and couldn't even start it. I think I will try to do one page a day. Or maybe week? I was going to fill in the location of my burial plot that I purchased, and it was just one line, and everything else I haven't done yet, and that one purchase tooks months and months of work and thousands of dollars, and it's going to be one line. So it's a little daunting.

The more I think about it, the more I think over the last couple days that I will not name a place for our remains. We are being cremated, so ashes consider around for a while until the people who remain decide what to do with them. I could put a note in my legacy file of what appropriate Ash gathering would be even though I don’t really care.

if we buy a burial plot though, it’s not thousands of dollars. If in your home guy estimated $350 to $500 at the Catholic cemetery.

That book rate reminds me of the time that we set up our trust. Well, there was a lot of back-and-forth about decision-making in the trust, there was tons of tedious detail to get assets placed *in* the trust. That was a pain in the ass and not one I’m looking forward to revisiting.