I have been REALLY sick.

As in, I had last Friday off. I could theoretically sleep in and knock out the cold. I was STILL on the couch for most of the weekend and stayed home Monday and Tuesday as well. And then I spent the rest of the week trying to catch up, and am still only about halfway there.

Sigh.

On a brighter note, I managed to get a submission into the Carnival of Personal Finance over at A Geek's World. I'm not the most regular contributor to carnivals. I'm forgetful, but I also don't want to contribute a less-than-personal-best post just to get some link traffic. But I felt that my post on life lists as shortcuts to estate planning was sufficiently on-topic, specific, and actionable to send on in. I also really liked The Finance Buff's post on Open Enrollment (as I'm dealing with it myself), Dogberry's comparison of 529 plans for the Dogberry family's OWN tax situation, and Tired But Happy's feelings about (not) planning for inheritances.

Also, I had my full annual review a few days ago. Despite receiving a mid-year (and completely unexpected) promotion, I still received a raise and a small bonus. Two raises in a year is quite all right by me. The bonus is mainly going to be funnelled back into my emergency fund. While ideally I would replace ALL the money I took out for my car repairs, if I can get $800 from "extra sources" (bonuses, gifts, and tax returns), I'll probably let myself go back to a normal contribution schedule and focus more on my downpayment fund.

And now, to catch up on still more work.

Finding what you need when you need it.

The Frugal Duchess offers up a worrisome post about upselling in the funeral business. While I've never had to deal with anyone pushing video presentations on me, my family was shocked at the prices of a lot of the services that go along with having even a relatively simple funeral.

We did figure out one way to save money, though. The suggested urns were priced in the hundreds. And I thought about how my mother loved her Delft tobacco jar that she'd purchased in Colonial Williamsburg and had given it pride of place in our front room for years. "Dad, I think she'd get a kick out of it." And with a minor fee for the seal, we had a lovely and meaningful urn.

Now that I've been reading these blogs for several months, I've decided that it's not that coincidental that I really started paying more attention to my finances at the same time that my mother declined. She had planned to draw up a will, but couldn't find an attorney that would come out to meet her and was in no state to leave the care center, nor, eventually, the hospital. The one saving grace was that most of her assets had direct beneficiaries or gave my father right of survivorship. It could have been an even more difficult time for us otherwise.

So over the past few months, I've assigned my financial assets to my father and brother. That doesn't do much good, however, unless I tell them how to track them all down. I know some people have detailed binders that keep track of every possible contact and contingency, but I wanted something simple that would fit on a single sheet of paper and allow my family to deal with my affairs if anything should ever happen to me.

And so I developed the life list.



I've generalized and redacted the presentation here, but it explains the general organization. It lists which accounts I have active, the account number, and the contact information for each account. (As a general rule, I find "contact us" URLs best because they'll also include links to common questions. For my retirement and life insurance, however, I included a link to the PDF of the form required.) Then I provide an as-of-date balance, and the beneficiary. If someone would get the account based on standard order of preference, then I refer to them as an automatic beneficiary. If I actually filled out a payable on death form or something similar, then they are listed as an applied beneficiary.

Loan accounts are similar, with the obvious exception of the beneficiary field. Again, all balances are as of a certain date. I update this along with my net worth spreadsheet.

And finally, I provide a list of my current utility accounts. Although my rent and my car are not "standing accounts," I also include them here. My state's DMV offers instructions about how to dispose of plates and titles and how to change resigstration, so I include links to that and to the county website.

This is no substitute for careful estate planning. My goal for next year is to procure an official will and better documentation of my holdings, but knowing that my family has a copy of this list will make it much easier for them to take care of eventualities.

The insanity has not abated.

So I'm still going to be kind of spotty round these parts. I am still checking out posts for the upcoming roundup, so feel free to drop me an email if you think I might have missed yours.

At any rate, I was pleased about one thing. Despite pulling money out of savings for my car repair and reducing the value of my car by $100 (it's already below the KBB "fair condition" estimate and was fully repaired, but I wanted to account for the accident), my net worth IMPROVED by a few hundred dollars.

Thanks, big runup in my retirement account!

Thanks, loan payment that is no longer negligable!


Also, before my father left this weekend, I finally gave him a copy of the life list. And I dropped off my last POD form at my credit union today. Except for one account I've decided should go to my brother, he's now the named beneficiary on all my financial accounts (or the automatic beneficiary, in a few cases). I still need to do a proper will, but at least my financial assets wouldn't have to go through probate if something were to happen to me.

And if you're in the U.S., remember to vote tomorrow! If nothing else, it will be the END of those appalling ads.

How to be beneficent.

Windy City Blues mentioned the lack of beneficiary designations as a strike against online banks.

I actually found it much easier to set up a beneficiary for my online banks than my brick-and-mortar credit union. Being that I still have no dependents, I wanted to make any potential transfer as simple as possible, so I looked for places with an easy nomination process.

One of the things that really pleased me about EmigrantDirect's redesign was the ability to set up a beneficiary right from the main account page. I just provided the SSN, name, contact information, and relationship, and the form was stored with my account. If I ever choose to change it, I just have to select "change beneficiary" and repopulate the form.

VirtualBank isn't quite as straightforward, but still uncomplicated. VB uses a message center to keep up communication between you and your "personal" account representative. She told me that I simply had to send a message with my beneficiary's name and SSN and it would be stored with the account. So I did. (I do need to follow up to make sure it's been properly recorded.)

Of course, it doesn't do any good to nominate beneficiaries if they don't know about it. That's why I provided my aunt with a copy of my "life list," covering pretty much every asset and liability that I have, contact information for the companies involved, and the respective beneficiaries (if applicable). So in case I'm ever hit by a bus, they don't have to sort through my hideous filing system to figure out what to do next.