Boy oh boy. There are a lot of things about losing a parent that are very difficult. OK, I know, there is NOTHING about losing a parent that is NOT difficult. But I have a point here so I'll get right to it.
When you die, which, I'm sorry to tell you, you will do one day, someone is going to have to tie up all sorts of lose ends for you. They will be struggling with grief, guilt, stress, worry, heartache, and any number of other fun things that go with losing a loved one, so they won't be thinking all that clearly. So go ahead and set aside some time to get your "stuff" in order. It's probably one of the most loving things you can do.
I'm not saying my dad left a mess. It wasn't incredibly difficult, but then again, it wasn't very easy, either. His records -- those that I could find, anyway -- were a mish-mash of papers crammed in one big ol' drawer. No order, no system, no logic. An investment statement might be right next to an empty envelope from the phone company. My mom, bless her heart (and I sort of mean that in that southern way right now) is NO HELP. She wants to help, but she has perfected the helpless damsel in distress role to a high art form. Here are some things that you might want to think about.
Funerals are outrageous. I think we spent about $25k, and that didn't include a cemetary plot. We didn't, at least to my knowledge, do anything extravagent. The problem is, you're making decisions when the death and grief and shock are so fresh that someone could tell you that you will need an elephant at the funeral and you'd just sign the form. I'm not saying we were taken advantage of -- maybe we were, maybe we weren't --- but for sure, no one in my family was making any smart decisions about that purchase. Preplanning a funeral, while a depressing way to spend money, would be a really good thing to do.
Remember that someone will need to make sense out of your finances. Someone in your family should have a list of things like:
-do you have a will? Is it current? Where is it?
-life insurance and 401k. do you have a policy at work? who is the contact at work?
-passwords -- for bank accounts, computers, 401k, etc.
-what bank accounts do you have?
-where are important papers kept?
-who do you owe money to?
-does anyone owe YOU money?
-where are your tax records from previous year?
These are all things I've had to figure out on my own. Fortunately, my dad was not a very complex man, and he did not have complex finances. Simply gathering a month's worth of mail pretty much told me everything I needed to know. His bills were few, he hadn't set up any online accounts, and he had a will. The most challenging thing, so far, was deciphering his tax form from the previous year .... he did his own taxes, by hand, in his terrible handwriting.
I am the person in my family who handles all the finances. My husband doesn't like that sort of thing and is happy to just not worry about it. But if I die unexpectedly, he wouldn't know where to start. And I only have one son, so the thought of him having to make funeral arrangements all on his own breaks my heart. I am going to make it my business to get my "affairs in order" this year. You should too.
