Organizing finances

[k3am]

I'm in the process of going through my moms and she's a mess. Everything is paper based - I don't think she's thrown out any paperwork from the last 20+ years. She previously worked in finance, but that was years ago. You can tell when her memory started to decline because it just became stacks and stacks, missed payments, double/triple payments, etc. 

It's been a bitch of time trying to find out what accounts she actually HAS and needs to pay, what's a valid charge, what isn't, etc. Her stacks have actually been helpful at least, now that we've gotten them organized, because if I find a paper for something unfamiliar, I can call and ask questions.

Anyways, I've mostly sorted through her stuff. And then got home and mentioned to DH that I needed to make payment for aftercare. I manage all of our finances and he had no idea when the bill was due, that it wasn't on autopay, or the amount. And then he asked me to log into the credit card and pull a statement for him for his expense report because he doesn't know the log in.. I operate entirely paper free, in a manner that makes sense to me. But probably won't to him. 

I think he'd have an easier time sorting through our finances than we're having with my mom's, but I'm hoping for strategies/methods to help lesson the burden if something ever does happen to me.. 

So how do you organize your finances. Your usernames and passwords? Your subscriptions, your insurance policies, etc. 

[ellipses84]

Nearly everything is digital and I have a book of username and passwords - financials, utilities, healthcare, etc. accounts for the whole family. Include email because he could reset all passwords that way if needed. This is not my DH’s forte and I honestly always imagined my mom would be the one to swoop in and help him out. My mom was dx’d with Parkinson’s last year so now we are worried about her future and I’ve been asking her to get organized and make sure the rest of the family knows what they need to. My biggest concern for DH is setting up him and the kids financially. I’m the primary breadwinner and I want him to have access to cash right away and be able to maintain our lifestyle without much change until the kids are grown (and he’ll be ok long term with my retirement).

My friend has been helping out elderly relatives with something similar. Her uncle handled all the finances and had a stroke. Her aunt had literally no idea about anything. He got better enough to handle finances again but then started making a lot of irrational decisions so my friend had to intervene.

[hazelden]

I recently got a part time job as a household manager and I'm tasked with doing this for the family I'm supporting. I'd love any suggestions on the best way to set all this up too!

I'm planning to use this free Big Book of Everything as a starting point. www.erikdewey.com/bigbook.htm

[Violet]

I’m paperless too. I just started using an app called Copilot and I am loving it. The downside is that it costs $70/year after the trial but it’s better than YNAB, Mint, Personal Capital, and the others I’ve tried. It allows you to add all your accounts (assets and debts). I figure if I die, someone just needs my copilot login and that a good start to finding everything. I have an excel list and some other things too. You can just watch the balances or you can track your transactions and budget if you’d like. It’s much faster to load in transactions than YNAB was. I like this because as soon as something posts in my checking account, it’s in copilot. It also automatically categorizes and it’s very good at doing that. It tracks recurring payments like the electric bill and tells me if the bill didn’t get paid.

I am thinking about using this to money my moms finances and my business too but I haven’t researched if I can add separate profiles yet.

Edit: I just looked and my copilot referral link gets you a month free trial if anyone is interested: Use my code: 86DPXX or copilot.money/link/ziSkpYZasBQsQsgu7

[waverly]

User name and passwords are in a saved document.

I’m not sure what you mean on insurance. Health is separate but I have all the cards because they give duplicates for the kids. We go through a large insurer for our other stuff so we could call our agent or use the app/ log in online.

Finances have been multiple spreadsheets and we also use software. DH likes Simplifi and I have liked Mint.

I don’t think we both have to know every single thing but it’s important to be kept in the loop enough to where they can figure it out.

We also have a shared email for bills. The shared email also helps with school stuff, sports, scouts etc.because typically they only send the newsletters and info to one email address. You can set it up to forward to another email so they don’t have to log into something else either.

[awkwardpenguin]

Getting everything organized was on my 2021 to do list, and I've made some really good progress. I handle the finances entirely on my own, so my wife would have to figure it out and I wanted to make it as easy for her as possible.

For everyday finances and expenses, I track using YNAB and use Personal Capital for the 30,000 foot view. I don't expect anyone would take this system over though, it is just my system for keeping on top of everything.

For usernames and passwords, I use Google's password manager. My Google password is written down and stored in a document safe. I also have a short document I keep with our wills (in the document safe) that has instructions for accessing all of the digital information I have put together to allow someone to take over our finances. My BIL and mother have keys to the safe, as they'd be the ones in charge if something happened to both of us.

I used the Big Book of Everything spreadsheet posted above as a jumping off point to make a set of Google Docs that have all the information someone would need to take over our finances and figure everything out if something happened to us. I have the following documents:
Table of Contents - a list of all the documents, who they are shared with, and a link to access each one.
Financial Accounts - a list of all our accounts (banking, credit cards, investments, retirement, HSAs), account numbers, where they are held, whose name they are in, etc.
Important Documents - which documents we have in place and where to find them. Includes dates each document was executed so that if there are any outdated copies of anything floating around out there, someone can use this to find the most current versions.
Insurance - all the information for our insurance policies - health, life, home, auto, umbrella
Real Estate - all the information pertaining to our house, the mortgage, property taxes, etc.
Health information - one of these for each member of the family, has the major points of each person's medical history, current medications, doctor contact information.
Social media - our accounts, how to access them, and what to do with them.

I'm still working on this project, and I plan to update them at tax time if anything changes in the year.

[magdala]

www.aarp.org/caregiving/financial-legal/info-2018/organize-financial-records.html

This was a helpful starting place when I had to organize my grandmother a few year's back.