Clutter Awareness Involves More Than Your Stuff
Are you leaving a financial mess for your loved ones?
This year, March 16-22 is Clutter Awareness Week. This blog article won’t be diving into ways to manage your physical clutter. Plenty of resources already exist to help you organize or, better yet, purge your excess possessions.
Instead, this post will focus on financial clutter. If something happened to you or your partner, could they take over your financial responsibilities? Many people struggle to manage the finances of a loved one who becomes ill, and the stress of figuring out someone else’s financial situation adds unnecessary emotional strain.
Consider these common questions:
· Which bills are auto-deducted and from which account?
· Which bills are received via e-mail or mail? What are the login details to access them?
· What investment or retirement accounts do you have, and how are they managed?
· Are there life insurance, disability or similar benefits to be claimed? How do your loved ones access them?
· Is there medical, dental, vision that your family needs that terminate if you died or lost employment?
If financial responsibilities fall upon someone unfamiliar with them, imagine how their stress and anxiety is increased while they figure them out. This is likely taking place on top of loss or related life adjustments.
Here are some ideas to help you prepare:
1) Death Binder: A collection of instructions for funeral arrangement and financial matters. They can also provide instructions regarding maintaining your home, yard and vehicles.
2) NOKBOX: A tool for organizing and storing important financial details for loved ones to access if needed. Use this link to check out this amazing tool.
3) In Case You Get Hit by a Bus: How to Organize Your Life Now for When You’re Not Around Later: A light-hearted book addressing important end of life subject matters. It contains tips to help initiate difficult conversations with reluctant family members.
4) Dress Rehearsal: Since you have likely split up household responsibilities, observe your partner during billpaying cycles. Ask questions and take notes about their process. Don’t forget to use this process for other shared responsibilities.
In my situation NOKBOX was also helpful in clearing up some physical clutter as I merged and various files. It also removed financial clutter as it encouraged us to address rarely used accounts and services.
Organizing your finances isn’t just practical—it’s a loving gift to those who make need to take over later.
Written by Brian Mitchell
Brian Mitchell has experience leading Total Rewards strategy and implementation for large employers.
Benefit Boosts by Brian Mitchell© – Vol 2025-003
You may also like these articles:
