Even if you do everything in your power to stay healthy and organized, life finds a way to throw even the best prepared among us for a loop, typically of the blue. The only way to combat this reality is to prepare as best you can, so your loved ones will have some guidance and direction if an emergency strikes your loved ones.<\/p>\n
It’s easy to get overwhelmed by financial and estate planning. Here are five tips from the authors of IN CASE YOU GET HIT BY A BUS: How to Organize Your Life Now for When You’re Not Around Later.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n These tips might help you wrap your head around getting your entire life organized without losing your mind. In addition to helping you sleep better at night, your family would have everything they need if something happened to you.<\/p>\n Communication is key! We’re well aware that it’s easier to talk with your family about fun stuff, like a good show you watched or places in your neighborhood with the most delicious takeout, as opposed to life insurance and medical directives. It’s essential to have a clear goal of what information you want to share and what information you want to gather in advance.<\/p>\n Examples:<\/p>\n Find ways to make it about yourself to get others talking about their plans.<\/p>\n If you need to create a Will but don’t know where to start, consider starting a conversation about how your parents made theirs and let that naturally lead to you requesting advice.<\/p>\n Say you’ve been interested in buying life insurance and want to find out if others in your life have an active policy. Find stories in the news, like someone whose life was saved because of organ donation, to talk about medical decisions.<\/p>\n Or a celebrity who didn’t create a Will, and now everyone’s fighting over the money.<\/p>\n You can do many things to open a line of communication, find out what others are thinking, and then use the natural flow of the conversation to get the information you need. When you lead by example and emphasize your own planning efforts you can get them to open up about theirs.<\/p>\n If there’s one thing we mention in the book repeatedly (and over and over) it’s passwords. In just a few short generations, we went from maybe having one PIN code to access an ATM to have a different password to access everything about our lives. These passwords include your phone, computer, or tablet, as well as everything else online or in the cloud such as social media, shopping, entertainment, benefits, rewards, family photos, and videos, and so much more.<\/p>\n The first step towards bringing order to your digital disarray is to keep your passwords organized and always up-to-date. The best way to do this is by using a password manager because they’re secure, easy to use, and you only need to remember one master password.<\/p>\n Changing how passwords are saved may be a tough sell if you’re worried about security or like keeping a document with all your passwords.<\/p>\n However, if you give a reputable password manager like LastPass, Dashlane, or 1Password a shot you’ll soon wonder why you’ve been making it so hard on yourself for so long, and appreciate the simplicity of having all your passwords in one place.<\/p>\n Don’t let disorganization become one of your biggest financial problems.<\/p>\n You most likely have lots of money in different forms scattered all over the place. Some are liquid, like the ones in your bank accounts, investment portfolios, and possibly hidden in a box at the back of your sock drawer.<\/p>\n The rest is part of your net worth, including retirement accounts, real estate, possessions, and perhaps a Life Insurance policy. These are the things you know have value, often the majority of your wealth, but turning them into cash isn’t always that simple.<\/p>\n There are severe penalties if you dip into a 401(k) or IRA before you’re permitted, and high-value items rely on the current state of the market. If you have a Life Insurance policy, you usually have to, um, how do we put this gently, die, for it to pay off\u2026 and you won’t be doing any of the spending.<\/p>\n When it comes to planning, the amount of money you have or owe doesn’t matter. Your net worth might be important for your sense of security, a financial advisor, the IRS, or your heirs hoping to inherit a fortune, but it doesn’t help you get everything organized. Only focus on what you have.<\/p>\n For years people have told us they avoided planning because they don’t want all of their sensitive information in one place where others can easily find it. What they don’t realize is how much money they have doesn’t matter.<\/p>\n What matters is letting someone know the name of their bank or place where they keep investments, and that’s not sensitive information. Run down the street and yell, “I have an account at Fidelity!” over and over again, and no one will care. They might think you’ve gone insane, but they’re no closer to finding out what you’re worth or how to access it. Sharing the basic stuff won’t put your information in peril.<\/p>\n For your peace of mind, you may want to use an online financial aggregation tool, like Mint, ClarityMoney, Trim, eMoney, or a host of other services that allow you to import all your financial information into one place so you get a full picture.<\/p>\n These tools can also help you create a budget, be more aware of all your recurring expenses (and possibly cut a few you’re no longer using), and spot irregularities (like fraud) without having to log in to each specific account.<\/p>\n Plus, you can keep the password for this service in your password manager. If something happens to you, your family will clearly understand your finances without needing a forensic accountant.<\/p>\n When you can’t make health decisions for yourself, an Advance Directive guides your loved ones and doctors in the right direction.<\/p>\n We make a joke in our book that this medical document might sound like an 80s action movie — Advance Directive starring Sylvester Stallone and Bruce Willis! — but it’s the universal term for how you’d like to be treated in the event of a medical emergency or at the end of your life. There are two parts:<\/p>\n This person advocates for your care when you can’t. We call it a “Proxy,” but it can go by different names such as Health Care Power Of Attorney or Medical Power Of Attorney (not to be confused with the financial\/legal Power Of Attorney), Health Care Agent, Representative, or Surrogate.<\/p>\n This states the types of medical treatments you do or do not want.<\/p>\n The bulk of the effort you’ll spend when filling out these documents are the decisions you have to make. They’re not all that pleasant to think about, but when is being in a hospital connected to tubes a good time? The goal is to have all these complex and sensitive questions completed and out of the way when you’re healthy. If and when the unfortunate situation arises, your family won’t be burdened with making this tough decision on their own.<\/p>\n The best part about these documents is that they’re entirely free, and we have them all on Everplans.com. Go there, search for your state, and get to work.<\/p>\n The sum of your life isn’t simply numbers, tasks, legal documents, and possessions. On paper, most of us are pretty much the same, give or take a few zeros. The real meaning of your life is what you experienced, how you affected other people, how they affected you, and the lessons and legacy you want to live on after you’re gone. While we offer a system to organize photos (both digital and physical), recipes, and family heirlooms, there’s one thing that can make all the difference: An Ethical Will.<\/p>\n The name might seem a bit formal — or sound like a Will with high moral principles. Instead — think of all the personal lessons, tips, and knowledge you’d like to leave behind. Perhaps, it’s information about your family history, things you’ve loved about life, and lessons you want to pass on to future generations.<\/p>\n These five starting points hopefully will inspire you to get better organized and prepared.<\/p>\n How to get your life organized without losing your mind<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":757,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[139,140],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spring-summer-2021","category-spring-summer-2021-columns"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11212"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11524,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11212\/revisions\/11524"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Start Talking<\/h3>\n
\n
Digital Order<\/h3>\n
Money Matters<\/h3>\n
Healthy Choices<\/h3>\n
Naming A Health Care Proxy<\/h3>\n
Filling Out A Living Will<\/h3>\n
Your Story<\/h3>\n
About the authors of IN CASE YOU GET HIT BY A BUS: How to Organize Your Life Now for When You’re Not Around Later<\/a>:<\/h5>\n
Abby Schneiderman<\/strong>, co-founder, and co-CEO of Everplans<\/a> is an industry expert in the areas of digital estate planning, technology, and consumerism.<\/h5>\n
Adam Seifer<\/strong>, co-founder, and co-CEO of Everplans<\/a> has helped create multiple huge online communities and networks and is an inventor on \u201cthe social networking patent\u201d now owned by LinkedIn.<\/h5>\n
Gene Newman<\/strong> serves as Everplans<\/a>\u2019 editorial and education director and has spent his career as a writer, editor, and content leader for Maxim.com, Hachette Filipacchi Digital, and other lifestyle properties.<\/h5>\n
<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"