It's Smoke Season, sadly. There was a Stay Indoors Advisory issued today for the rest of the week. As much as that is inconvenient for us, it's because someone else's life went up in literal flames.
Which then made me think of this:
I have a document safe that we bought when I was closing the parents house. I was embarrassed/horrified that they had such a proactive item and we did not. Also, I have to share that I found theirs under shoeboxes in the back of the closet; after I had looked everywhere for some needed documents. It is not only a great hiding space for such a thing; we probably should have known prior to The Whole Thing. As a result of that experience, the kids already know where ours is located.
Anyway, right now the lock box has our birth and marriage certificates and divorce decrees. Titles to our vehicles. Everyone's social security cards. Death certificates for both parents. Insurance & Life insurance information. A printed listed of passwords because, of course, I have a spreadsheet of them. A notebook listing the items in the house with their approximate worth and where they came from. ("end tables from your nana's house prior to the Moody House" kind of thing) I need to print a budget kind of thing because only I handle that kind of thing.
Our wills are in progress; as are the Advanced Directives. Kevin has a guy at work who is a Notary so one day soon I'll just go have lunch with Kevin and get it all notarized. My goal is to have them completed this month. There are free templates on the interwebs. Surprisingly the American Red Cross is where I found ours. (freewill.com - Not An Endorsement)
While doing this, be prepared to make some difficult decisions. Also, know that you will have to answer "But what if" a few times. As in, I bequeath my personal property to Niece and Nephew. Well, what if they die before me? Then I bequeath it to the Young Nephews. What if they die also? It's a little madness making, really.
AND in the willI learned something new, there is a section for Digital Executor. It has you decide who and how you want your digital life handled after your passing. Digital Property includes all your socials, website or blog, email. While a fantastic idea, that's another thing to think about.
Also, MyChart has a whole section where you can enter your needs, wants and wishes when it comes to end of life care. People who are relatively healthy and young have a Living Will or Advanced Directive. Elderly and/or folks with chronic/incurable/palliative care have a POLST, formerly known as a DNR.
Then because once you read anything on the interwebs, the algorithms think that's all you want to read; I read that anything you have residing in a file cabinet should be scanned and put into the cloud. I have two issues with this: data centers that house said cloud items and Kevin's statement of "If you die, I won't know where anything is and "in the computer" is not going to be helpful." Fair enough.
The filing cabinet has become a little obsolete and it's one of my least favorite things. Because of that, I'm looking forward to using it for a different purpose. Also, I know that I'll probably still keep hard copies of some things but not nearly as much as before.
Then there's CD's and thumb drives of photos. Most of which probably already live in the cloud but I have to Make Sure. Once that is done, then only important photos will go onto the thumb drives and into the safe. (family historical, etc.) (this is now done in the time it took to finish this post)
Also on the list was recent taxes. Already I have the past five years sealed in a large ziplock but that will take a big space in the safe. The rest are bundled together and I need to just shred them. But the What-If's are making me keep them right now. Maybe once Kevin retires. These are also scanned also but I've heard that often hard copies are what is needed. (I have no idea why in this day and age) Thus causing the purchase of the second smaller document safe.
Then it mentioned jewelry. Now I have another thing on my to-do list. I have to call the insurance to ensure that my mother-in-law's wedding ring is insured. The original appraisal was for a surprisingly high amount and I wear it every day so it feels like something that should be prioritized. Anyway, we have a few heirloom rings and watches that just sit in a box and now I have to think about what should go into the safe. #firstworldproblems #privilege
Then Kevin chimed in with getting an actual safe and bolting it to the floor of a closet. Umm, no. I'm overwhelmed with THIS task. Maybe once I have everything organized. Nothing we have is that valuable. Calm down, Kevin.
This is how I think it will break down: the smaller of the two document safes are going to have ID's, titles & certificates; stuff that we will be absolutely stuck without. The larger will have the taxes, jewelry, notebook, etc. Things that will be inconvenient if we didn't have.
(Oh, expired ID's. Somewhere it was suggested to keep your expired license so if your current one is lost, at least you have SOMETHING. It's not a valid form of ID but it's something instead of nothing)
What started as a fairly easy project - one that I thought I'd already handled pretty well - has now grown into A Thing. A summer project, for grownups.
So, along with the Raising Parents chapters, we have Raising Ourselves.
