Being Ready

Recently a friend of mine's husband left on a trip. He is always there, taking care of things. Marriages are like that, one spouse does bills, one does repairs, one manages the car and the other food, the yard etc. However, when a spouse leaves, sometimes even for a little while, it is often very difficult for the remaining spouse to know where things are, especially phone numbers.

Take an evening and write down on a spread sheet all the names and phone numbers of all of the repair people you know. Print it out and put it in a plastic sleeve and keep one copy in your office and one copy in your kitchen. Include, plumber, vet, doctor, car repair person, landscaper, pool person, housekeeper, electrician, anyone who helps you.

Take another evening and do this for all of your bank accounts, investments, savings accounts. Record every account name, account number, toll free number and contact person for every single type of account. You will be amazed at what you have and didn't realize it.

Take another evening and put on a spread sheet all of your addresses and phone numbers for friends and family. If something happens, a crisis, and you have to let a lot of people know, you will be amazed at how helpful this will be. If you have an elderly parent, work with this parent while they are alive to accumulate all of these little details. Once that person is gone, it becomes very, very difficult to contact all the people you need to inform about that person's life situation, including their eventual death.

This happened with my mother-in-law died last spring. People are still upset with us because we did not contact them when Sylvia died, but she had a million little pieces of paper all around her 46 yr old house with a million phone numbers on them. Blessedly, she did a better job of managing her accounts and we were able to sort those out.

Being ready is really helpful for everyone in your family.