Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Reminder: Check your life paperwork....

It's that time of year again. Everything is shiny and new and full of possiblities. Your calendar might not be stuffed to the gills with layers and layers of appointments on it. You might be thinking of decluttering or trying to be prepared for next Christmas or tax time as it begins to show up on everyone's radar or as your reflecting back on 2012 with any and all changes it brought to you. So what better time to take a good look at the paperwork of your life? If your not sure what I'm talking about then check out my post here and here.

What changes did the 2012 year bring to you? Did you have additions or subtractions from your family? Where you blessed or did you barely get through? Was there a marriage or divorce? Is there any thing that happened that might legally impact you? Ex. death, birth, marriage, divorce, health issues, insurance changes, needs for Power of Attorney, adoption, graduation, etc. etc. Do you have aging relatives that need to be taken care of? Use these questions to get you started thinking about what has changed in the last year and then ask yourself the really tough question "If I wasn't here tomorrow what would my ___ (wife/husband, mother/father, children, etc) need to know?" or "If I had a medical crisis of a heart attack or stroke what would my ___ need to know?" Is it up to date? Is everything still in the same location?

This may sound like a lot of busy work and a time eater but trust me doing it now will be worth it in the long run. The very 1st time I did this it took me a few weeks to pull it all together. But now that I've done the inital bit of work and spent all those hours putting it together, it's not been so bad to update each year. I foresee 4 hours being spent on the paperwork review this year maybe a little more or a little less as not a lot has changed. I do know that I have three new items to add to my life paperwork at some point this month but that is on another's schedule as I am getting into power of attorney stuff for elder care and getting off of some things for a person who's coming of age. I will say that both of these tasks would be so much harder if I hadn't gotten my life paperwork together and kept it up to date.

So again I urge you Please, Please, Please, check and make sure your life's paperwork is in order.