In my job, we always give lessons learned. Either for sucker who has to do our job next or for other people doing our jobs across the country or pond (Holly-make sure you tell your mom this is aka the Atlantic ocean ;D).
So in honor of that tradition, I thought I'd give some lessons learned about this "experience"
1. Get life insurance. Not just the crap they give you at work but real life insurance. Get way more than you think you'll need.
2. Get the short term disability your work offers and get it at 100%. Its pretty useful and most of the time you can even use it for baby leave.
3. Get uninsured motorist coverage also can be used for under-insured motorist. There are people out there driving with crappy insurance and guess what they might just hit you. And guess what, they suck.
4. Talk about what you want out of a funeral. No one wants to think about what songs to be played or can even think about songs at this point.
5. Talk about what you want to do if you are severely injured and in a coma (and there are various stages of this). Its too hard of a decision to make as you are standing at the bedside.
6. Get a will. Even if its simple, its better than nothing. Especially if you aren't married yet. Get it signed too. A word document isn't worth much nor is an email.
7. Make sure your beneficiaries are up-to-date.
8. Make sure your emergency contacts are up-to-date. Like don't give people your home number if you don't ever use it.
9. Create a list of all your accounts like IRAs, 401Ks, checking, savings, titles of houses or cars, life insurances, reoccuring debits, car insurance, homeowners insurance, etc. Pretty much anything you can think of. Thank you Roger for making this list. I wish you would have kept it up.
10. Make sure someone knows where all the above are located. Don't make people search for this crap. It takes a lot of time.
11. Buy your survivors an accordion file to keep it all in when they have to start sorting through your stuff. This is the way I keep my sanity right now. Its the only thing I can control right now.
12. If you don't want anyone ever to read it or see it, then either throw it away or label it for a particular person. I can't believe how much Buffy stuff I've found.
10 comments:
I can not agree with you more about this stuff. Since I have worked at a cemetery I now know how important this stuff is. I have dealt with families that had someone pass and they didn't know where to start or what was going on and blah, and then families that had already made all prepration for this, you could see the relief on their faces. I myself have already started paying on my cemetery property. Yup Im 28 and paying on where I will be layed to rest. I think this is also something important for people to think about. Working there you would see in peoples files that they purchased their property when they were young and didn't pay much for it at all, and now it is done and out of the way. Im also want that out of the way for my daughter. And Lord forbid, I also have a policy for Nicole where Im paying for my cemetery property, if anything happens to her before she turns 21 everything that I own she gets for free and they will make it to where she would be right beside me. I hate to think about it, but you just never know!! You have done a great thing by posting this as a lesson, it is a great lesson, a hard one to deal with, but is VERY important!
Love ya Gal
Star, You are such a strong person.....I envy you for always knowing what you want and when you want it and exactly how you are going to do it.....I think back to when we were in 7th grade Social Studies with old Mr. Shaw and his stinky breath breathing down our necks. We had seats beside each other and one day you said.....Im gonna travel...i want to go to New York and this place and that place...and you have done exactly that.....Very few people know what they want out of life and actually do exactly what they said like you have......Im so sorry that you have had to experience the horror of this situation...honestly you are one tough cookie....and if anybody in the world can and will pick up and live for the sheer purpose of taking Roger with you and him living on within you thats what you will do. You are so lucky to have found that true love that everybody dreams of and if even for the short time that it was, you will cherish it forever and thank god for the chance you were given to experience it. Its hard to understand why we are faced with the things that we are but we are stronger for having gone thru them and as hard as it is to believe right now, God has good things in store and he will help you thru! Love you .... you are in our hearts
Great advice, Star.
I still can't get over his obsession with Buffy.
Thank you Star for your great advice and lessons learned.
I'm curious to see all this Buffy stuff. :)
LOL at Buffy!! I'm sure Roger's getting a big kick out of that!
Thanks for the advice...this is the type of stuff no one ever thinks will happen to them, but I thank God that you and Roger had so much of this stuff taken care of.
this is all such great advice...i'm going to make patrick sit down with me soon to discuss all of this. i know most of it, but not all of it. thank you for that!! it's so important...
Great advice, Star. We are working on our living wills, something we never would have thought to do yet. Buffy?? Too funny!
Great advice. We're definitely working on that list and we're making sure everyone else we know also has this stuff lined up.
And I still can't believe my mother didn't know what "across the pond" meant!!
I can't believe you can compose coherent thoughts but these are great and they seem like a great outlet. I'm not sure I would be so strong. This is important stuff that most of us never take the time to do yet it is so important. Thank you!
And, Mallory and I are thinking of you!
Thanks for the wonderful advise! Jon and I are meeting with a life insurance agent next week. We've also started working on our living wills.
stay strong.
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