Preparing for our death – again

[iris lilies]

Yesterday, the husband of our close friend died suddenly from a heart attack. He had not prepared his spouse to take over running of the household. All of the banking and bill paying was done by him online. It’s all locked up behind digital gates, passwords unknown.

Our friend, the wife, is not stupid and she knows generally about their financial mechanics, but she is stuck at the moment. Her daughter is helping to get access to all of the accounts.

Get this— Their daughter took his dead finger and impressed it into his phone to try to open up the phone, which is the keys to the kingdom. For some reason that did not work.

DO NOT PUT YOUR LOVED ONES In the position of having to utilize your dead limbs. Is too much like Winter’s Bone.

so, here we can have yet another discussion about how to prepare for our death, the records I mean.

[iris lilies]

Fortunately our friend has plenty of money so she will not be financially strapped, but it’s maddening that she cannot get to it.

she said that for years, she had her own credit card and paid the bill with a check, but he set it up for auto pay without telling her. She noticed one day that it had been a while since she had received a bill. He thought he was doing her a favor.

personally, I like autopay and if in her situation, I think I would be OK just to make sure the bank where debits occur always had a ready supply of cash. But she does not especially want to get into to the world of online banking. And this of course is not a time to learn new stuff because there’s so much else going on with a sudden death.

[iris lilies]

https://www.simplelivingforum.net/showthread.php?20679-Making-life-easier-for-your-family

I see we have already talked about this exact concept, the very efficient spouse who handles all of the household finances through digital communications, but couldn’t be bothered to share passwords with the remaining spouse.

well it sucks. Don’t be those sucky people!

[CompulsiveGardener]

When covid hit and there was a lot of uncertainty, and bodies were piling up in various cities, I (primary finance person in the household) updated my password keeping application, printed everything out, and put it in our lockbox. Also created a file that had essential information about each family member's medical history, what all the different accounts are, and other information that largely resides in my brain... also printed and in the lockbox.

Right now, we're going through this with my parents. My father's physical and cognitive health is failing, and he's been unable to access various accounts. We are lucky that he can still help us get access and transfer the information to my mom's laptop, and help her learn the system.

This has reminded me that I need to update all the things in the first paragraph!

[pinkytoe]

I continue to procrastinate on this big job. DH is not interested in managing finances so it falls on me to get all this together for whoever is left to deal with it.

[ToomuchStuff]

My family is trying to push me to do online banking, personally I find that stupid. Yesterday I rewatched Tuesday's with Morrie, which I read years ago and gave the book away, after that I ordered a used copy of The Last Lecture and Swedish Death cleaning, as I am in the mood to work on my estate, just in case (yes treatment is going well).

A couple weeks ago, I had a friend in Hospice, on his deathbed, non responsive and they said he had maybe three days left. That Sunday, he walked in the restaurant, and I am still shocked. He is still dying (two things), but it made me think there are a lot of tougher people, and I don't want to be like my father with all kinds of stuff, that others will have to dig through (to find passwords) or deal with.

[iris lilies]

tMS, don’t worry about doing online banking. Set up system that works for YOU

Due to our friend’s death I was thinking yet again about passing on records.

I am on seven different boards. As you can imagine, My offices produce records. I keep anything important and long-term in paper form. This is in case I drop dead suddenly, DH can pass physical records onto the garden club and plant societies easily.

I’m also setting up a digital file for one organization so that we can pass around bylaws and other key documents in digital form, and I’ll keep that on a thumb drive.

[iris lilies]

I continue to procrastinate on this big job. DH is not interested in managing finances so it falls on me to get all this together for whoever is left to deal with it.

that is too bad. I cannot imagine, turning my back on our household finances. It is true that DH does all the day-to-day financial matters, but I talk to him about his methods, where things are located, etc.

If he dropped dead, the one thing I would be stymied by is income taxes. UGG.

[sweetana3]

My husband does all the finances but I have access to our password vault with all the access data. We do communicate regarding purchases, investments, etc. However, it would be a time consuming struggle for me to take care of finances if he should die or become unable to do it. Been this was for around 45 years.

He is NOT good at being able to communicate the how to do it in a simple way. I do have some friends and a good credit union/investment account to help with any transitions if something should happen.

[iris lilies]

My husband does all the finances but I have access to our password vault with all the access data. We do communicate regarding purchases, investments, etc. However, it would be a time consuming struggle for me to take care of finances if he should die or become unable to do it. Been this was for around 45 years.

He is NOT good at being able to communicate the how to do it in a simple way. I do have some friends and a good credit union/investment account to help with any transitions if something should happen.

My husband is better today than he was, say, 15 years ago about communication on finances. That is because I keep talking to him about our incapacitation and death, and what *I* want to know (not just what he thinks I should know.)

For instance, many years ago when I began asking him about his overall system, he said “you can’t know about the system without learning the details” because he is a detail person. Actually in real life, he has trouble summarizing processes, events, issues because he wants to convey too many details.

But no, I want the executive overview and want my questions answered not *HIS* questions answered. He also forgets I ran a department at work that spent $3 million a year and I had responsibility for that. That is a little bit different from our small household finances. I know what I need to know to feel comfortable in running our household finances.

the one area that’s been utterly mysterious and scary to me is income taxes. I always thought DH was a financial genius in the way he submits appropriate tax information to our tax guy. But then, in recent years, I’ve seen the worksheet that starts the process, mailed to us by the tax guy. Oh! It is a form we fill out! I need to follow the form as guideline and that would help me get all the information together.

so now I feel somewhat better about the income tax process.

[Tybee]

Because I am Mom's executor and have been dealing a lot with her estate and my father's, too, I am realizing that a really important thing to do is to keep getting rid of files as you go.
Dad was great at putting important papers away. What he did not do was keep things up to date, so that he had insurance policies on the house, for example, going back 40 years in the important papers desk, but just kept adding on top of that system, never got rid of the old.

Mom was good at it but she lost her executive function and stopped culling things in the last 15 years of their lives, and she was the one who was good at keeping things up to date. So it's like that function of culling just stopped.

So now, to prepare for our deaths, I am trying to go through old files and get rid of what I know we are done with, stuff that has ended.

Since they didn't do that, it was a nightmare trying to figure out their bank accounts, and add to that mergers and name changes, and you were doing forensic accounting. If they had gotten rid of the old accounts and stock records, then we could have known what was current.

So that's my emphasis now, getting things in shape for the next generation, without ceding control to an outside trust officer, the way my brother is doing.

There's nothing intrinsically wrong with that, but I am seeing mistakes they are making, and I would prefer to remain in control.

[iris lilies]

Oh yeah, deleting old records is important. I will say that DH is fairly good about that, he dumps records every few years and he’s a paper hoarder.

about stocks: we had an unfortunate stock event that I complained about here on this website where all of a sudden the employee owned stock bought us out and dumped a ton of money on us, generating a huge tax bill.

But there was a major silver lining to that event: now there is no complicated list of stock certificates to deal with in selling the stock. This greatly simplifies our financial holdings. It was painful, but in the end a good thing.

[Tybee]

You are right, that is a real improvement, getting away from the certificates and simplifying.

I did find some old certificates that we were able to cash in.

[catherine]

A long time ago I did a video of myself explaining everything and I put it on a thumb drive. I also left paperwork with passwords and banking information.

Unfortunately all that is SO out of date. Plus, who uses thumb drives these days? Aren't PCs and Apple taking USB ports off their computers? This is a good reminder to get my butt in gear and make sure people will have some guidance if I fall down dead someday.

[iris lilies]

A long time ago I did a video of myself explaining everything and I put it on a thumb drive. I also left paperwork with passwords and banking information.

Unfortunately all that is SO out of date. Plus, who uses thumb drives these days? Aren't PCs and Apple taking USB ports off their computers? This is a good reminder to get my butt in gear and make sure people will have some guidance if I fall down dead someday.

wait…are we supposed to be storing our financial info on the cloud?

oh FK no!

Our asset statement lists all of our accounts with account numbers, etc. We store that on a thumb drive but also have a printed copy that we could always revert to if the data storage went bad. I am Not putting that stuff on the cloud

[happystuff]

A long time ago I did a video of myself explaining everything and I put it on a thumb drive. I also left paperwork with passwords and banking information.

Unfortunately all that is SO out of date. Plus, who uses thumb drives these days? Aren't PCs and Apple taking USB ports off their computers? This is a good reminder to get my butt in gear and make sure people will have some guidance if I fall down dead someday.

I use thumb drives and SD cards all the time. With the crashing of my computer a couple weeks ago, I now have an SD card in the slot and continually use it to store whatever normally would end up in the hard drive "Documents" file. While I didn't lose anything drastically important, there were some things that would have been nice to still have. Also, when I do annual taxes, I have Turbo tax save the file(s) to a thumb drive just of tax stuff and I work off of that.

[ToomuchStuff]

A long time ago I did a video of myself explaining everything and I put it on a thumb drive. I also left paperwork with passwords and banking information.

Unfortunately all that is SO out of date. Plus, who uses thumb drives these days? Aren't PCs and Apple taking USB ports off their computers? This is a good reminder to get my butt in gear and make sure people will have some guidance if I fall down dead someday.

Oh heck no. USB is used for everything from keyboards, mice, printers, drives (hard, thumb, phone, etc) camera's, etc. It is staying for quite a bit.

I still use thumb drives, helps with the accountant and tax guy. SD cards are used by camera and Raspberry PI's.

[catherine]

My MacBook Air does not have a USB, and I remember Steve Jobs saying that his dream was that Apple computers would have no ports--eveything would be in the cloud. Not sure it that will ever happen, but all I have is the connector for my cord, and my headset.

I actually haven't used a thumb drive in a long time--maybe twice in 3-4 years.

[ToomuchStuff]

Morbidly funny story.

So about three weeks ago, a friend was in Hospice, on his deathbed with an estimated three days to go (completely non responsive).
That Sunday, he walked in the restaurant and I thought no way in hell am I hearing his voice. I called his childhood best friend, via videophone (first time I ever used that) and he about defecated himself, and thought he was talking to a ghost. (he had just talked to the family on that Friday)

Well, today we were told he passed yesterday morning. First thing was condolences and let us know when the funeral is.
Second thing that crossed our minds was, can someone make sure he is dead this time. We don't need him sitting up at the funeral. He would be laughing his butt off at that.

[iris lilies]

Morbidly funny story.

So about three weeks ago, a friend was in Hospice, on his deathbed with an estimated three days to go (completely non responsive).
That Sunday, he walked in the restaurant and I thought no way in hell am I hearing his voice. I called his childhood best friend, via videophone (first time I ever used that) and he about defecated himself, and thought he was talking to a ghost. (he had just talked to the family on that Friday)

Well, today we were told he passed yesterday morning. First thing was condolences and let us know when the funeral is.
Second thing that crossed our minds was, can someone make sure he is dead this time. We don't need him sitting up at the funeral. He would be laughing his butt off at that.
Wow, he had one last hurrah at your restaurant. He must love it!

it is amazing how some people can rally for a final day or two

[catherine]

My MIL rallied on her deathbed, which gave us so much false hope that she might not be dying. It was miraculous. She gave a stand-up show that rivaled Rosanne Barr--she literally "roasted" each of us standing around her bedside, in a kind and funny way. I, too have heard from hospice workers that it is not uncommon to have a final rally.

But frankly, TMS, I'm really amazed that your friend actually went out to eat at his last rally!!

[jp1]

Years ago I put a copy of my password vault on a thumbdrive but in a somewhat hidden place. SO would undeoubtedly be scrounging around my den trying to find it since he knows it exists but has certainly forgotten where it is. Thank you Iris. I now have one hanging from the side of my bookcase. Tomorrow I will make a sign that says "PASSWORDS HERE". If I drop dead tomorrow SO will be able to access all my financial accounts.

[frugal-one]

Years ago I put a copy of my password vault on a thumbdrive but in a somewhat hidden place. SO would undeoubtedly be scrounging around my den trying to find it since he knows it exists but has certainly forgotten where it is. Thank you Iris. I now have one hanging from the side of my bookcase. Tomorrow I will make a sign that says "PASSWORDS HERE". If I drop dead tomorrow SO will be able to access all my financial accounts.


And, so will anyone else be able to access. Ha.

[Tradd]

I’m always reading that thumb drives are not good for long term file storage.

[catherine]

I’m always reading that thumb drives are not good for long term file storage.

Yes. I keep thinking about the floppy discs that I kept around for a while after the drivers were history and then I finally threw them out without knowing what's on them. I think that thumb drives will suffer the same fate.

[iris lilies]

Because I am Mom's executor and have been dealing a lot with her estate and my father's, too, I am realizing that a really important thing to do is to keep getting rid of files as you go.
Dad was great at putting important papers away. What he did not do was keep things up to date, so that he had insurance policies on the house, for example, going back 40 years in the important papers desk, but just kept adding on top of that system, never got rid of the old.

Mom was good at it but she lost her executive function and stopped culling things in the last 15 years of their lives, and she was the one who was good at keeping things up to date. So it's like that function of culling just stopped.

So now, to prepare for our deaths, I am trying to go through old files and get rid of what I know we are done with, stuff that has ended.

Since they didn't do that, it was a nightmare trying to figure out their bank accounts, and add to that mergers and name changes, and you were doing forensic accounting. If they had gotten rid of the old accounts and stock records, then we could have known what was current.

So that's my emphasis now, getting things in shape for the next generation, without ceding control to an outside trust officer, the way my brother is doing.

There's nothing intrinsically wrong with that, but I am seeing mistakes they are making, and I would prefer to remain in control.
It has occurred to me that next generations probably will not have to deal with boxes of old files, bills, etc because all of that is now digital.
While that has significant effect on archival needs, it is great for crap that should have been tossed but wasn’t.