Are You Prepared?

Confession: Those Boy Scouts were on to something.

Unfortunately, I've had several reminders this week that life is a delicate, precious gift that can be taken away in an instant, without warning. No one is ever emotionally prepared for the loss of a loved one, but having your affairs in order in case you were to pass away unexpectedly can save your spouse and/or children an immense amount of psychological stress.

Working at a tax office, I constantly see examples of clients passing away and their surviving spouse not having a clue about how many retirement accounts, insurance policies, monthly bills, etc., they have. These are not all elderly couples, either. Tragedy can strike at any time, regardless of age. I think those Boys Scouts were on to something when they chose "Be Prepared" as their motto.

Now here is the real Confession to this post: I'm preaching from a totally and completely hypocritical soapbox. I handle all the bills, insurance policies and finances in general for our household. If I were to die unexpectedly, I would leave a huge headache for my husband, and as much as I love him, I think he'd be kind of lost without me as our financial operations status currently stands.

The only way to create change is to act, so I'm going to act. My plan is to make a Family Binder to house pertinent information in one place. You can find many amazing ideas for in depth, completely comprehensive Family Binders on organizing blogs and sites like Pinterest, but I think our binder will be fairly simple.

I'm hoping to have a good start on the binder this week, and I will check in with you when it's complete. Do you have a Family Binder? What suggestions do you have for organizing your important information?