Planning for retirement takes time.
What about planning for after that?
Or what about if you die even before you get a chance to retire?
Should you care?
You might not care very much if you should die first. But if your spouse dies first, do you have a plan?
So again, should you care?
If your spouse dies, being organized will help you.
If you die first, being organized will help your spouse.
If you both die at the same time, it will help your children.
The death will either come as sudden and unexpected or as slow, protracted, and expected.
For the sudden option, it is definitely good to have everything prepared and set. There will be no time to ask questions or change anything.
For the slow option you might have time, but you may be busy with other issues related to the sickness.
It is good to just bring everything in order as soon as possible. After that, to stay current, updates will be needed as soon as something changes or at least once a year at the time of tax preparation.
I would separate the preparation in following categories.
1. Assets (mainly property and bank accounts).
2. Liabilities (mainly recurring bills and credit cards).
The additional category which is not directly connected to money but still important is
3. Account access (logins and passwords).
1. Assets
If assets are only in the deceased name, everything will go to probate. Probate takes time and money. Depending on where you live, probate process can cost 10% or more of your gross assets.
I am in process of organizing our assets. We have a will, power or attorney and the living will.
We don't have a trust. But do we really need one? See my answer to this question here.
2. Liabilities
Recurring bills billed to a joint checking account should not be a problem. Those which a billed to a credit card account which only one one of the spouses owns might become difficult. See how I am organizing this here.
3. Account access (logins and passwords).
With some services you may need to log in to change the billing information. Some people recommend secure or locked apps to keep all passwords. It is a good solution, but remember you will also need the password to that app to open it. I think a paper copy kept secure somewhere in the house is still a good back up option.
It will take some time to set up everything, but slowly one thing after another, working with a good to do list it could be done. I am giving myself 2-3 months to get it all finished.
