Comments on: Out With The Old, In With The New: Prepare for the Inevitable http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2010/12/20/out-with-the-old-in-with-the-new-prepare-for-the-inevitable/ Financial talk for the rest of us Sat, 16 Feb 2013 01:14:45 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: Marle http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2010/12/20/out-with-the-old-in-with-the-new-prepare-for-the-inevitable/#comment-933293 Marle Tue, 21 Dec 2010 12:32:30 +0000 http://www.thesimpledollar.com/?p=6401#comment-933293 What is the best way to have a master financial record and secure it? I need something like that for my husband, because he doesn’t pay attention to that stuff and if something happened to me he wouldn’t know how to find any of our money. I access all my accounts online, so the easiest thing for him would be the usernames and passwords (a list of account numbers he wouldn’t know what to do with, and since I didn’t change my last name it might be quite difficult for him to get access to the accounts that aren’t joint). Obviously, a list of usernames and passwords to all your banks is a big security risk. So what would you do with it? If it’s stored on a computer connected to the internet how do you make sure hackers can never ever get to it? If it’s physically written down or on a usb drive, where would you put it so that if your house was robbed theives couldn’t find it? A fireproof safe would be a idea, but wouldn’t theives just take the safe and break it later? Maybe I’m just being too paranoid, but at my age it’s a lot more likely my house will get robbed than I’ll die anytime soon. I’d like to have a master financial record for my husband, but if that got into the wrong hands it would devastate us, so I haven’t made one.

]]> By: Sandy http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2010/12/20/out-with-the-old-in-with-the-new-prepare-for-the-inevitable/#comment-933290 Sandy Tue, 21 Dec 2010 06:13:24 +0000 http://www.thesimpledollar.com/?p=6401#comment-933290 @ Briana – you are never too young for a will – no doubt at your age you don’t have much, but what you do have should go to the people you want if you should die.
@ Katie – you got it girlfriend. My parents had me late ( Mum was 41 – late for having a baby in 1967 ) and I’m an only child too, and this year I have had to go through utter hell trying to sort them out. Mum had to be put in a dementia unit, and neither Mum nor Dad had made any plans for their old age. I had to go to court to get control of her finances because Dad is beyond doing it. It was expensive and unpleasant, and if my parents had set an enduring power of attorney in place – I could have stepped straight in.
Now, I have to go in and sort their house out because its too much for Dad so he can also go into a home.
All this, on top of my own marriage break up made for a really great year – not!
Parents – PLEASE get yourselves sorted wrt wills, enduring power of attorney etc, as an only child left to sort out a huge mess, believe me, its horrible.

]]> By: Briana @ GBR http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2010/12/20/out-with-the-old-in-with-the-new-prepare-for-the-inevitable/#comment-933280 Briana @ GBR Mon, 20 Dec 2010 23:48:35 +0000 http://www.thesimpledollar.com/?p=6401#comment-933280 I’m only 20; am I too young for a will? I will be preparing a master document though with important log in information for my personal accounts.

]]> By: Katie http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2010/12/20/out-with-the-old-in-with-the-new-prepare-for-the-inevitable/#comment-933276 Katie Mon, 20 Dec 2010 22:44:30 +0000 http://www.thesimpledollar.com/?p=6401#comment-933276 Couldn’t agree more about the importance of preparing for the inevitable. If you could give your loved ones peace of mind on the worst day of their lives by spending fifteen minutes filling out a form, would you do it?

Do you know who would make your health care decisions if you couldn’t do it for yourself? Especially if you are separated but not yet divorced, single, or part of a committed couple that is not legally married, you might be astounded to learn who state legislators think should be making your life and death decisions.

Do your decision makers know what you’d want? My experience has been that most people assume their loved ones know, but find out the hard way they don’t.

I am a much bigger fan of having a health proxy or power of attorney rather than an advance directive. Most advance directives contain boiler-plate wording about what treatments you would and would not want: ventilators, feeding tubes etc. This is rarely useful in medical crises.

Most people’s choices hinge on probability and degree of recovery. For example, if you had a bad car accident and needed to be in the intensive care unit with a ventilator and a feeding tube for two weeks but were expected to fully recover, most people would choose this care. But if you were unlikely to recover much brain function after your ICU stay and thus have a high chance of needing years of nursing home care for diaper changes, some people would rather forego the ventilator and tube feeds and let nature take it’s course.

What makes this so difficult is that in the most dire situations, there’s usually a less than one percent chance of an unexpected but dramatic recovery, a real chance that you die no matter what treatments are tried, and a fairly large chance that if aggressive measures are taken you’ll survive the ICU stay but require years of permanent nursing home placement.

No advance directive can possibly anticipate the complexity of the medical decisions faced by most families. Much better for you to chose someone you trust and have a frank conversation about what degree and probability of recovery would make it worthwhile to you to undergo aggressive treatment. Are you an optimist, willing to risk a high chance at years of nursing home placement in exchange for a small chance at full recovery? What does adequate quality of life mean to you? Mountain climbing? Or being able to listen to books on tape? Are you a Patrick Henry who’d rather ‘live free or die’ than go to a nursing home? This is what your loved ones need to know.

Facing these questions is tough. The paperwork is easy. Most states allow you to download a health care proxy form from the internet, select your first choice and a backup, and sign the form in the presence of a witness or two. Some states won’t let the same person be your financial and health care power of attorney or proxy.

Let all of your loved ones know who your decision makers are, and the broad outlines of your wishes. This will help preserve family unity and support your decision makers if they must face the challenge of carrying out your wishes. On the worst day of your family’s life, you will have given your loved ones a measure of peace. It’s worth it.

]]> By: Maureen http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2010/12/20/out-with-the-old-in-with-the-new-prepare-for-the-inevitable/#comment-933269 Maureen Mon, 20 Dec 2010 21:28:51 +0000 http://www.thesimpledollar.com/?p=6401#comment-933269 How did that meeting with your family go? Were people receptive? How did your parents feel about it? I am also wondering if you would still recommend having such a meeting with your parents and potential heirs.

]]> By: Interested Reader http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2010/12/20/out-with-the-old-in-with-the-new-prepare-for-the-inevitable/#comment-933263 Interested Reader Mon, 20 Dec 2010 20:25:40 +0000 http://www.thesimpledollar.com/?p=6401#comment-933263 Are you still recommending that people have an “estate handling” meeting with their families?

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