by Nicholas Hamner
Investment Advisor Representative & Director of Marketing
[email protected]
When I was eight years old, Norfolk Southern railroad condensed their depot in my hometown. As part of this downsizing, they dumped a bunch of solid oak desks at the curb. My dad grabbed two busted ones, cobbled together a functioning desk out of the usable pieces, refinished it, and that was my childhood homework desk. I used it through college, and my parents still have that desk in their house today. Last time I was home, they pointed me towards my childhood desk—now with three feet of scattered papers, envelopes, and folders on top of it—and said, “In case something happens, all our info is on that desk.”
While I feel like I could say this about a lot of things, it’s especially relevant here: Please do not copy my parents.
You need to make an “In Case Of…” Case. Put your documents in a central location so they can all be found. Organize them so they make sense. And put them in a place where your family can find them should you not be there to point it out. This sounds easy, but nobody wants to do it, and those that do rarely do it correctly. Why?
Getting your affairs in order… particularly when it comes to personal information… despite being a fairly straightforward endeavor, is hard. And here’s why:
- Nobody likes to think about estate planning… or anything else that carries with it the implication that whoever is planning is not going to be around to implement it. Jeremy touched on this last week. It’s human nature, and it’s how we deal with our fear of death. We tune it out, we pretend like we can put it off one way or the other.
- It takes some effort to start. You have to figure out where to keep this information and how to organize it. Then you have to start the process of gathering the info. It takes considerable effort to get going.
- It’s tough to know what to include and what to not even bother with. Do the kids need to know your Facebook login? Probably not. Do the kids need to know who your mortgage company is? Probably.
- It requires regular maintenance. All good estate plans are reviewed every three to five years. How many people are doing that? Updating things like medication lists and doctors? That could require monthly updating and—retired or not—most folks don’t feel like they have time for all that.
Mark Twain had a method for doing things he didn’t want to do. He called it “eating the frog”. His quote was, “If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.” The message being: if you have to do something you don’t want to do, go ahead and do it and get it over with.
So what do you need to do to get started on this proverbial frog?
Start with a fireproof, waterproof file box. You can find some hard-sided ones like this on Amazon as well as some soft-sided ones that, to me, are a little questionable. You could, if you’re not worried about flood or fire, just use a regular file cabinet, plastic bin, or desk drawer. But it must be centralized, easy to spot, easy to get into, and able to hold a bunch of papers.
What’s the difference between this file and a safe?
You may already have a safe in your home. Maybe you’ve always had it, maybe you got one when your bank closed down all the local branches and quit offering safe deposit boxes. While both may be fireproof and heavy, the “In Case Of…” Case is different than a safe in a couple of ways. First, the safe should be hard to find. Your “In Case Of…” Case should be easy to spot. You don’t want people to find your safe. You do want people to find your “In Case Of…” Case. Second, your safe should be hard to open. You’re keeping valuables in there. Your “In Case Of…” Case should, on the other hand, be easy to open. No keys or combinations. You’re only keeping papers, photos, and maybe some keys in there.
Once you have your storage method worked out, it’s time to start storing things. We put together a list of information you should include in your “In Case Of…” Case and you can download it here, but feel free to expand on it if you think of things we didn’t. Maybe you have expensive motorized toys—planes, boats, ATVs, etc.—that need special documentation. That should definitely go in. Maybe you’re still working and there are work-related things you want to include. There is no perfect way to build one of these, but you do want to build one.
The goal isn’t to give yourself peace of mind. If anything, this will cause no shortage of anxiety for you as you put it together. The goal is to give whoever is coming behind you the best chance to make the correct decisions for you and to carry on your legacy as best as possible.