Let’s face it. None of us enjoy thinking about our own demise or contemplating losing loved ones. We’re mortal and death is a part of the cycle. Since we tend to avoid even thinking about our departure, it is really easy to put off some simple, straightforward planning and organization that makes things much easier for our loved ones after we are gone. We all have a financial legacy that will remain after we are gone, regardless of how much wealth we have (or don’t have).
Your financial legacy isn’t just about the assets you leave behind. Sure, the wealth you’ve worked hard to accumulate is part of the picture, but it’s also your wishes for how your “stuff” should be handled and the unfinished business that outlives you and needs tidying up.
I’m participating in a daily writing challenge next month, aptly named the write-31-days-challenge. As part of the challenge, I will be posting every day during October {gulp}. I’m going to use the challenge to climb right up on my soap box. All my posts during the challenge are focused on capturing and organizing your financial legacy for your Very Important People (VIPs). This series of posts will take you step-by-step through the process of getting all the mission critical information in one place and put together in a way that is meaningful and useful to you and helpful to your VIPs after you are gone. I call it a creating a legacy notebook.
Having recently wandered my way through some of the chores estate executors are tasked with, there is a bunch of stuff that your people need to know at precisely the moment you are no longer around to tell them. And it isn’t necessarily the big stuff like where your will is located, although that is helpful. It’s also things like which banks do you have accounts with, which bills do you have auto-deducted from your account each month, how does one access your e-mail account, and whether or not you maintain any life insurance policies.
None of this is especially fun, but these are the kinds of things that someone will have to try to figure out when you aren’t around to tell them. The idea behind the legacy notebook is to give your VIPs one place to look to get a basic understanding of the situation and to make an already stressful and emotional time just a tiny bit easier for your people. We all have “our people” that are by our sides through it all and creating a legacy notebook is ultimately a parting gift to your people; the ones who will be tasked with carrying out your wishes.
Source: tina-del-rey.tumblr.com
This series is not going to venture into anything in the realm of complex estate planning. We are going to stick to the personal finance basics that we all need to address, whether we have $1,000 in the bank or $1,000,000 or somewhere in between.
The legacy notebook series is about sharing guidelines, actionable steps and a process for capturing your key financial details and ultimate intentions for your belongings in a manner that makes it easy to share with your VIPs when appropriate.
I hope that you’ll consider joining me in this process over the course of the next month. Creating your legacy notebook will take worries off your shoulders that you didn’t even know were there. Subscribe below to get the series delivered to your inbox, along with helpful checklists and worksheets. Let’s do this!
thanks for reading,
Lesley
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The guide includes everything you need to get started: a cover sheet and divider pages to set up your notebook, an overview of each topic, checklists, worksheets, and writing prompts to guide you through the process.
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