Gosh darn! I did it again! I forgot to post yesterday!
Now, I was doing well, at the beginning of the week I had an idea for what to post about - which I forgot, but as I wrote this very line, the idea came back.
Husband has been having a bad week - his back now is down to an ache and it varies from worse to better - twice it disappeared completely for a couple of hours - but sometimes it gets worse when he takes the medication or when he soaks in a hot shower, the idea our doctor recommended. We happened to be at the doctor’s office today - before all this with his shoulder, I had made appointments for our annual visit and its bloodwork, and today was the bloodwork. Doctor said it could take 6 weeks for his shoulder to stop hurting completely - 4 more to go and neither can take much more of this - for him the pain and inability to go out and do things as he gets too exhausted and it makes his shoulder/arm/ - and now also - neck hurt more. He is frustrated with it all and I am exhausted from trying to help him. Every thing is a bit confused. I am not completely sure what day it is unless I check. (Good thing we have our pills in several day of the week boxes, so it helps remind us what day it and whether or not we took our medications.) When we go for lunch at Wendys I order and get the lunch while he gets the table - the opposite of what we normally do - which also confuses the employees - one fellow there lists me as Mrs. “husband first name”. Others just list with me his name. And then again, the weekend crew which does not know us as well asked for my name - I gave him my middle name to avoid having to spell my name.
On the other hand I have gotten a lot of decluttering done as we are home so much. I have finished scanning in the articles from the older reenacting magazines that we decided to scan the articles he wanted into the computer and then get rid of the magazines. They are now stacked up to take to next month’s reenactment unit meeting and pass them along to others who have joined more recently and not had a chance to read them. In one magazine he only had one article marked to scan - and that was two pages - see, we really did not need to keep the entire magazine at all. As these magazines leave, I have room for the newer ones. I started today scanning in the articles from the magazine from the national of my embroidery club. These magazines after they are scanned go with me to the meetings or places where we do a “stitch in public” and I give them out to people who might be interested in joining us so they can see the nice magazine they will get from national and also get rid of them without throwing them away (ditto the other ones we bring to the reenactment unit meetings). I also have been making telephone calls that I put off as we are not home and awake enough time to make the calls. I still have to call our eye doctor and make an appointment for us - but not sure when to do so as he can’t drive out there.
Okay, now the idea I had for this week. Have you done anything to allow someone else to take over running your household if they had to? For decades I tried to get my husband to pay attention to our finances - where we bank, what money comes in, what bills have to go out, etc. He never wanted to talk about it - it would be bad luck. I started paying his bills for him before we got married and kept doing so - “You’re an accountant. You do it. You are better at it.” I would say to him as I tried to get him to look at things and how I do them “What would happen if I was kidnaped and you had to find the money to pay them to get me back?” Death was not allowed to be mentioned. “I would tell them that have to put you on the phone to tell me where the money is so I could pay them.”
In December 2012 we were in a bad car accident - in front of the house next door to ours. We luckily were not only still alive somehow, but also uninjured. This scared him. He suggested to me that I should I make up a notebook with all the information that someone would need to take over our bills, deposits, running the household, etc. By this he meant, even more than himself, if someone had to take it all over because we were injured.
I started doing this and in the ensuing 6 years I have done parts of it and then redone so. To date it is in my computer and not in a notebook, but I am working doing so. I found a old looseleaf book to use. (Better to recycle it to this than have it sit in the closet and buy a new one.)
My first go around with this - back in 2013 - was to write copious notes about when each bill comes in, when it has to go out, how I write the check, and how I post it in my financial software. Second go around, I scanned one of each bill into the computer as an example.
Currently I am scanning in each bill (first page only) when it is paid along with the check that pays it, anyway, as part of my bill paying. I have to make new notes about each bill and put it the notebook. I also figured out that I would put in the information we receive annually about our garbage pickup, with written instructions to go along with it. I want to write up information about how to use the washer and dryer. How and what I clean (okay, plan to clean and don’t always get to). When things such as the oil burner inspection needs to be done (the company we have a contract with did not call last year - or this year and with dealing with husband and still trying to get to my client to go to work there (for 2 months work now) I never had a chance to call them to ask why I haven’t heard about an appointment for 2 years or set up an appointment. Where what Christmas decorations are stored in the basement and so on.
What prompted to me to write about this now is an article I read in a publication reminding me how hard this can be on the survivor(s). I have had several clients who had their home/family run traditionally. The wife took care of the house and the husband took care of the finances. In each case the husband died and I had to help the widow figure out what they had. This was in the pre-Internet days which was an advantage as for some items we just had to wait until the widow received something in the mail. In January/February one receives all the papers for income taxes so that helped. In addition in some cases we had to check the state unclaimed/abandoned property office (each US state has one - not sure what is done in other countries) to see if anything had slipped by us and had been turned over to the state for the state to hold until it was claimed. Especially important for all spouses (and/or someone else) to know about is any life insurance which has its premiums paid off as nothing may come in the mail from the insurance company.
In addition these days the items maybe sent by email - and one may not be able to check the spouse’s email. Generally items online are not something that can be inherited. By this I mean if your spouse had an (or more than one) email accounts and you do not know how to sign into them, you may not be allowed to get into them as they were your spouse’s account not yours. In addition if there is a Facebook account etc. you may not be given the information to sign into it - it is their account not yours. Do you and your spouse (by which I mean any significant other) share a book download account? If it is in your spouse’s name you probably lose the books in it as they are not for sharing and cannot be inherited.
So if you and someone share accounts make sure that both of you know how to sign into them and what the passwords are. In the article I mentioned, the poor widow was going crazy trying to figure out her husband’s security question answers to be able to set new passwords when she did not know what the passwords were to the accounts. Her husband’s first pet’s name - she put in what she thought it was, but it did not work. His first school - not the one she thought it was.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
None of us likes to think about injury or illness or death of ourselves or those we love - and we think that we have lots of time to deal with it. One never knows. Make sure that you and your other half -if you have one - or someone else who is close and responsible - know about each other’s accounts and log in info. Make sure that you both know what your (joint if applicable) financial situation is and how and when money comes in and goes out and from where it comes and where it goes. Make sure that both of you know about all insurances related to each other. Try to have a list of bills you pay monthly, quarterly, annually, etc. for reference. Have a list of incoming money and when, how and where it comes- especially money that is not a paycheck. If you own a house, car, stocks, etc. make sure both (or all) of you know where the ownership papers are for it. Bank Vault? Locked box in the closet? The back of several drawers? Also if you (or your other) has jewelry include the information about where it is, what it is, and if it is valuable. (My husband knows that the jewelry in the jewelry box on top of dresser is all junk jewelry of no value, but there is a small box stashed with minor items that are real jewelry and the rest is in our bank vault.)
Also if you have all this information organized, in case of an emergency you can take the information with you if you have to flee your home from any of these horrible weather situations which have become more common in recent years. I have a copy of the computer data backup I put in the bank in my “grab and go” folder which has copies of our car and house titles, insurance policies, and I put the bank statements when I reconcile them in the folder - and take out the prior month’s statement and file that one away. This way I have the most recent bank statement to come with us - including the ones for the two organizations that I am treasurer of.
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