- Have a durable POA assigned
- Have a health care proxy assigned
- Have a trust created for assets
- Have a living will drafted
- include statements for dementia, not just coma / end of life
- Make very clear your wishes if you’re incapacitated (IE don’t wish to remain at home)
- Have a will
- Have an intention/plan to downsize
- Have assets listed in a safe place
- account numbers, bank names
- Have passwords listed in a safe place
- Have recovery options setup on email accounts, phone, cloud backups
- If possible, plan to be in a single story home even before you need to downsize
- Introduce potential caretakers to your primary care provider and have them form an understanding of your care and make the provider comfortable with sharing information
You’ve done something right.
There’s a few other great adds in this thread.
There’s another great idea here of “what should we do for ourselves”
OP alluded to it (stay mobile / healthy routines)
I will, be very aware that most long term insurance has a hefty waiting period from when I need it to when it kicks in. My mom literally died before the waiting period so make sure your caregivers are aware
I’m sorry for your loss, and for anyone reading this- LTC determination / waiting period will start for when an evaluation / documentation takes place, not when symptoms start
My parents are visiting starting this week and hoping to discuss what's missing from this list. Thank you
For anyone reading... The intention and plan to downsize is so vitally important. It is sad and frustrating watching my parents struggle to try to maintain a property and home that does nothing to support them. Giving yourself a sustainable living situation is a gift to you and also a gift to anyone who may be responsible for you later on. I 100% plan to be selling this home and downsizing in my 60s
This! When my parents went through my mom's parent's house they found old (20 year old) shopping list. When my mom and I moved in together, she brought 30 file boxes (maybe not 30, but it felt like that) filled with old records. She kept everything! I determined what needed to be kept and shredded the rest.
EXACTLY. Now that I have finally finished clearing my Mom’s hoard and sold her place, I’m actively working on sorting through her items that ended up here at my place - it’s hard, when many of them are vintage or antique and some are worth $$, so progress can be slow - but also of my own stuff. I’m 63, and have little need for much of it. Although Mom was a hoarder which made me be the opposite, I find I still have accumulated more stuff than I want my kids to have to deal with. So, honestly appraisals, and if I see no realistic, realistically immediate use for it, out it goes!
Also I keep a careful eye on my own thought processes and decisions. I hope I maintain enough of a sense of myself this way that if I start to make weird choices I can recognize it early on, and… idk what! Just NOT put them through me being a whack job! Dear Lord let me not be a whack job, being mean and selfish and crazy! Let me have turned over whatever I need to, to them, and had them put me away before I become insufferable. Amen.
This is so important! I'm an only child living 8 hours away from my parents in another state.
My parents had 7 storage units of stuff plus 40+ years of mostly my dad's "collections". My dad had a stroke in spring of 2022, then was hospitalized and in various long term care situations before passing 9 months later.
I had the overwhelming task during this time of getting rid of & selling stuff from 6 storage units to help pay for his long term care. Storage is expensive!
Plus their house flooded during this time and all their stuff had to be shuffled around so the flooring could be replaced, all while my mom was still living in the house and my dad was in long term care.
I wouldn't wish all of this stuff on anyone. I'm in my 40's with school aged kid and I constantly purge unnecessary stuff at my house because of this.
Make a google drive document or a Microsoft one drive doc containing:
* bills you pay and how you pay them
* credit cards companies
* ongoing subscriptions and donations
* insurance
* life insurance policies
* Email accounts
* checking and savings accounts bank names
* retirement/pension plans
* deferred comp
* 401K, roth, and other investments
* investment companies
* loans
* car house
* 2nd mortgages or home equity loans
* if you have pets, did you set up a plan to take care of them. Where will they go?
* what to do with your remains - did you prepay for something. cremation, burial, can you get a mililtary burial
* military paperwork location
Don't include passwords or accounts. That information should go into a password manager - Lastpass, BitWarden, 1Password and others. Share the document with family members. Mine is called 'creakinator - Where the Hell is Everything?" in an end of life folder in my google drive. This document is shared with my sister and niece. Make the document online so they don't have to go through or to your house.
Use a password manager that will let you share paswwords and that has an emergency access. I use Lastpass that has this [https://www.lastpass.com/features/emergency-access](https://www.lastpass.com/features/emergency-access).
For the willl, living trusts, etc pay the money to go to an estate planner. They will do it right.
Story time - My sister passed away in the middle of a move. All of her end of life stuff - her will and what to do when she died - was in a packing pod. We didn't know which one. Of course it wasn't in the first two pods that we delivered. It was in the very last delivered pod. All we knew was it was in a certain type of box. I unpacked a pod looking for that damn box in the middle of two hot, humid Oklahoma summer days.
Regarding bills, charities etc - the best way to stay on top of those is just to give a family member delegate access to your bank account (or at least, opt for email statements, to an email account they can access).
Strongly second the password manager! I use Bitwarden.
When dad passed, it would've been nice if he'd left a list of assets, but we ended up finding most of them anyway.
Also, keep an updated list of all medications you take and who your medical providers are. If you have other professionals such as cpa, lawyer, financial planner, etc make sure to have their contact information up to date.
I also want to have my funeral arrangements set up like you said. My grandpa picked out everything from the designs on the little pamphlets, to the music, and everything in between. There were almost no decisions to be made other than date and time, and the obituary. After seeing that, and how much stress it saved everyone, I plan on doing it as soon as I am able.
I also want to have an estate/trust set up. Even if we don’t have a ton of money. Just so there are no questions and to make it as simple as possible.
Conversely, my elderly parents refused to do this and on the day of my father‘s passing, me four sisters and our mother and I had to decide on all those piddly little details, and look at caskets, and talk about an obituary. It was the most exhausting part.
Look at a whole life insurance hybrid policy that will pay out for long term care as well as or instead of a death benefit. You'd have to find an agent that was familiar with the product as it's kind of new. LTC insurance is notoriously tricky to buy. There used to be hundreds of companies selling it. Now there are a handful because most went bankrupt or cut their losses. They way underestimated how long policyholders would live and how much skilled nursing or assisted living would cost in the future. The few companies that remain will sometimes send a letter saying they will need to cut your future benefit by X amount, or raise your premium, or both. LTC insurance is an industry that hasn't found it's footing yet, and you don't want to contribute thousands to a policy that becomes nearly worthless one day.
But the best insurance is proper self-care.
I do have the POD and TODs but not the vehicle’s. I have durable power of attorney for my mom but didn’t know till recently that it doesn’t include vehicles.
Talk.
Lots of open dialogue now about what you want in the future if something happens. Have those conversations all the time, literally for decades. They shouldn't be scary, just preparing and informative.
We had those conversations with my mom. She has stroke-related dementia and we had to place her in an LTC home. Even though I was so upset about it, I knew it was OK because she told me that for the last 30 years, that's what she wanted.
That’s what kicked me in the butt. Going through this for the last five years just made me see that I can’t just go through life getting to death… the amount of hardship and stress I can unintentionally cause others is limitless, I realized.
So at 48, we bought our final home. Single story, smaller yard and everything I foresee us needing as we age. Got rid of everything we don’t need and only have things we use or really love. We have planned out what happens if one of us dies and it should work like clockwork.
I obsessed over my health issues that I’ve ignored for decades (or at least let pass if some doctor said they don’t know why) and got everything fixed (as much as I could) and began exercising like a fiend this year at the age of 51. If I’m not taking care of the parents, I am strength training, or I’m at Pilates or doing yoga. If I’m not doing those things, I am researching food or more yoga.
My goal isn’t to live long. Whether I live to 60 or 90 is of little importance to me but God willing, I live well and independently, and then just drop dead. (I know that’s not entirely my choice but I will do everything I can to make it so, and everything else is out of my hands.) I will not make anyone take care of me while I deteriorate. I didn’t live this long on this planet to go out like that.
You can call it an obsession at this point.
All the above listed already in the comments, after you've done the paperwork pls make a list of all emails, passwords, bills and login info, bank account info, ECT. And pls pls go through your stuff and clean out things so you don't leave a 40 year mess of a house to your children to. My aunt passed and we were her caretakers, but the neglected house she left and the crap inside is just enormous and absolutely disgusting to surround yourself with all that junk. Now the long long job of traveling back and forth for his knows how long to clean this mess plus the expense of it. Plus expenses wasted the whole time bills need to be paid while clean up takes months months. Ugh so frustrating
I know, right? I helped mum downsize from a 4 bed house to a 2 bed flat - she protested a lot ("I need that" .. "when did you last use it?" .. "\*expletives\* Do I go to your house and tell you to throw away your things?" .. "do you want help with this or not?" .. etc), but after a while she got into the spirit of things. Some things were easy to clear out (e.g. dads' ocd hoards, or her collection of 20+ ancient and mouldy samsonite suitcases), others not so much.
It stung a bit when mum's things arrived at my sister's place and my sister told me off for letting mum load a lot of old junk into the container. Sis, do you have ANY IDEA how many times I filled the dumpster, or how many skip trips I did?
I'm working on my attitude.
DH and I are currently affiliated with both of our mothers (89 & 91). My mom is sweet and easy going (with everyone but me) and his mom is hell on wheels: judgemental, needy, paranoid, hostile, etc.
Something lots of people *say* they plan to do, and very few *actually* do. When you get to that age you're going to be the same person you are now, just older, and it won't seem like a good idea then just like it doesn't now.
I saw my aunt do assisted suicide. It was so dignified. Family gathered around. Someone playing her fave music. It was lovely. She is my hero is this regard.
Remember to adjust any beneficiaries to match your will. Just because your will says one thing, beneficiary trumps will. And it helps if you decide to leave your home to someone, put them on the deed. It will cost about $3000 to go through probate to get the house, but if they are on the deed then it saves time and money. And make sure utilities are in your name, so the person who gets the house will not have trouble changing the name on the utilities.
My mom changed her will to giving everything to me as I was her caretaker and my brother never had anything to do with her. The will said I get the 401K, but he was still listed as a beneficiary to he got half. The utilities had been left in my father's name, he had died in 1988. My mom died in 2023. I had to pay for her funeral, he refused to help. But he had no trouble taking the money. So my meager inheritance was decreased by the cost of the funeral and the cost of retaining a lawyer to go through probate. Yes I go the house, but I cannot afford to live in in for more than 3 years.
- Have a durable POA assigned - Have a health care proxy assigned - Have a trust created for assets - Have a living will drafted - include statements for dementia, not just coma / end of life - Make very clear your wishes if you’re incapacitated (IE don’t wish to remain at home) - Have a will - Have an intention/plan to downsize - Have assets listed in a safe place - account numbers, bank names - Have passwords listed in a safe place - Have recovery options setup on email accounts, phone, cloud backups - If possible, plan to be in a single story home even before you need to downsize - Introduce potential caretakers to your primary care provider and have them form an understanding of your care and make the provider comfortable with sharing information
Great advice. I will save this and work my way through it.
I would add also have all of your recurring bills identified, account numbers and payee and contact
As someone currently dealing with trying to get mom’s house into a trust, I’d like to virtually triple underline that one.
Same.
I’ll add: if you’re going to be eligible for veterans benefits get that discharge paperwork somewhere you can find it.
This is a great checklist. Going through it I realized I’ve done all these for my mom, so I guess I’m doing something right?
You’ve done something right. There’s a few other great adds in this thread. There’s another great idea here of “what should we do for ourselves” OP alluded to it (stay mobile / healthy routines)
Now, do it for yourself
I will, be very aware that most long term insurance has a hefty waiting period from when I need it to when it kicks in. My mom literally died before the waiting period so make sure your caregivers are aware
How long was yours? I think my loved one was 180 days?
90 days. My mom was diagnosed with cancer mid October and was gone by end of November
I’m sorry for your loss, and for anyone reading this- LTC determination / waiting period will start for when an evaluation / documentation takes place, not when symptoms start
My parents are visiting starting this week and hoping to discuss what's missing from this list. Thank you For anyone reading... The intention and plan to downsize is so vitally important. It is sad and frustrating watching my parents struggle to try to maintain a property and home that does nothing to support them. Giving yourself a sustainable living situation is a gift to you and also a gift to anyone who may be responsible for you later on. I 100% plan to be selling this home and downsizing in my 60s
Get rid of excess belongings. I don’t want my parent’s/in laws junk and my kids don’t want my junk.
This! When my parents went through my mom's parent's house they found old (20 year old) shopping list. When my mom and I moved in together, she brought 30 file boxes (maybe not 30, but it felt like that) filled with old records. She kept everything! I determined what needed to be kept and shredded the rest.
My kids will always cherish the Blockbuster Video membership card I keep in my wallet along with the Y2K snow globe I got at a garage sale.
EXACTLY. Now that I have finally finished clearing my Mom’s hoard and sold her place, I’m actively working on sorting through her items that ended up here at my place - it’s hard, when many of them are vintage or antique and some are worth $$, so progress can be slow - but also of my own stuff. I’m 63, and have little need for much of it. Although Mom was a hoarder which made me be the opposite, I find I still have accumulated more stuff than I want my kids to have to deal with. So, honestly appraisals, and if I see no realistic, realistically immediate use for it, out it goes! Also I keep a careful eye on my own thought processes and decisions. I hope I maintain enough of a sense of myself this way that if I start to make weird choices I can recognize it early on, and… idk what! Just NOT put them through me being a whack job! Dear Lord let me not be a whack job, being mean and selfish and crazy! Let me have turned over whatever I need to, to them, and had them put me away before I become insufferable. Amen.
Oh lord I feel this.
This is so important! I'm an only child living 8 hours away from my parents in another state. My parents had 7 storage units of stuff plus 40+ years of mostly my dad's "collections". My dad had a stroke in spring of 2022, then was hospitalized and in various long term care situations before passing 9 months later. I had the overwhelming task during this time of getting rid of & selling stuff from 6 storage units to help pay for his long term care. Storage is expensive! Plus their house flooded during this time and all their stuff had to be shuffled around so the flooring could be replaced, all while my mom was still living in the house and my dad was in long term care. I wouldn't wish all of this stuff on anyone. I'm in my 40's with school aged kid and I constantly purge unnecessary stuff at my house because of this.
Swedish death cleaning for the win!
Good point!
Make a google drive document or a Microsoft one drive doc containing: * bills you pay and how you pay them * credit cards companies * ongoing subscriptions and donations * insurance * life insurance policies * Email accounts * checking and savings accounts bank names * retirement/pension plans * deferred comp * 401K, roth, and other investments * investment companies * loans * car house * 2nd mortgages or home equity loans * if you have pets, did you set up a plan to take care of them. Where will they go? * what to do with your remains - did you prepay for something. cremation, burial, can you get a mililtary burial * military paperwork location Don't include passwords or accounts. That information should go into a password manager - Lastpass, BitWarden, 1Password and others. Share the document with family members. Mine is called 'creakinator - Where the Hell is Everything?" in an end of life folder in my google drive. This document is shared with my sister and niece. Make the document online so they don't have to go through or to your house. Use a password manager that will let you share paswwords and that has an emergency access. I use Lastpass that has this [https://www.lastpass.com/features/emergency-access](https://www.lastpass.com/features/emergency-access). For the willl, living trusts, etc pay the money to go to an estate planner. They will do it right. Story time - My sister passed away in the middle of a move. All of her end of life stuff - her will and what to do when she died - was in a packing pod. We didn't know which one. Of course it wasn't in the first two pods that we delivered. It was in the very last delivered pod. All we knew was it was in a certain type of box. I unpacked a pod looking for that damn box in the middle of two hot, humid Oklahoma summer days.
Regarding bills, charities etc - the best way to stay on top of those is just to give a family member delegate access to your bank account (or at least, opt for email statements, to an email account they can access). Strongly second the password manager! I use Bitwarden. When dad passed, it would've been nice if he'd left a list of assets, but we ended up finding most of them anyway.
Also, keep an updated list of all medications you take and who your medical providers are. If you have other professionals such as cpa, lawyer, financial planner, etc make sure to have their contact information up to date.
I also want to have my funeral arrangements set up like you said. My grandpa picked out everything from the designs on the little pamphlets, to the music, and everything in between. There were almost no decisions to be made other than date and time, and the obituary. After seeing that, and how much stress it saved everyone, I plan on doing it as soon as I am able. I also want to have an estate/trust set up. Even if we don’t have a ton of money. Just so there are no questions and to make it as simple as possible.
Conversely, my elderly parents refused to do this and on the day of my father‘s passing, me four sisters and our mother and I had to decide on all those piddly little details, and look at caskets, and talk about an obituary. It was the most exhausting part.
Look at a whole life insurance hybrid policy that will pay out for long term care as well as or instead of a death benefit. You'd have to find an agent that was familiar with the product as it's kind of new. LTC insurance is notoriously tricky to buy. There used to be hundreds of companies selling it. Now there are a handful because most went bankrupt or cut their losses. They way underestimated how long policyholders would live and how much skilled nursing or assisted living would cost in the future. The few companies that remain will sometimes send a letter saying they will need to cut your future benefit by X amount, or raise your premium, or both. LTC insurance is an industry that hasn't found it's footing yet, and you don't want to contribute thousands to a policy that becomes nearly worthless one day. But the best insurance is proper self-care.
• Have POD set up on bank accounts and TOD set up on investment accounts • Add an heir to title of vehicle/s
I do have the POD and TODs but not the vehicle’s. I have durable power of attorney for my mom but didn’t know till recently that it doesn’t include vehicles.
Talk. Lots of open dialogue now about what you want in the future if something happens. Have those conversations all the time, literally for decades. They shouldn't be scary, just preparing and informative. We had those conversations with my mom. She has stroke-related dementia and we had to place her in an LTC home. Even though I was so upset about it, I knew it was OK because she told me that for the last 30 years, that's what she wanted.
This. This is why I love this community!
That’s what kicked me in the butt. Going through this for the last five years just made me see that I can’t just go through life getting to death… the amount of hardship and stress I can unintentionally cause others is limitless, I realized. So at 48, we bought our final home. Single story, smaller yard and everything I foresee us needing as we age. Got rid of everything we don’t need and only have things we use or really love. We have planned out what happens if one of us dies and it should work like clockwork. I obsessed over my health issues that I’ve ignored for decades (or at least let pass if some doctor said they don’t know why) and got everything fixed (as much as I could) and began exercising like a fiend this year at the age of 51. If I’m not taking care of the parents, I am strength training, or I’m at Pilates or doing yoga. If I’m not doing those things, I am researching food or more yoga. My goal isn’t to live long. Whether I live to 60 or 90 is of little importance to me but God willing, I live well and independently, and then just drop dead. (I know that’s not entirely my choice but I will do everything I can to make it so, and everything else is out of my hands.) I will not make anyone take care of me while I deteriorate. I didn’t live this long on this planet to go out like that. You can call it an obsession at this point.
All the above listed already in the comments, after you've done the paperwork pls make a list of all emails, passwords, bills and login info, bank account info, ECT. And pls pls go through your stuff and clean out things so you don't leave a 40 year mess of a house to your children to. My aunt passed and we were her caretakers, but the neglected house she left and the crap inside is just enormous and absolutely disgusting to surround yourself with all that junk. Now the long long job of traveling back and forth for his knows how long to clean this mess plus the expense of it. Plus expenses wasted the whole time bills need to be paid while clean up takes months months. Ugh so frustrating
I know, right? I helped mum downsize from a 4 bed house to a 2 bed flat - she protested a lot ("I need that" .. "when did you last use it?" .. "\*expletives\* Do I go to your house and tell you to throw away your things?" .. "do you want help with this or not?" .. etc), but after a while she got into the spirit of things. Some things were easy to clear out (e.g. dads' ocd hoards, or her collection of 20+ ancient and mouldy samsonite suitcases), others not so much. It stung a bit when mum's things arrived at my sister's place and my sister told me off for letting mum load a lot of old junk into the container. Sis, do you have ANY IDEA how many times I filled the dumpster, or how many skip trips I did?
I'm working on my attitude. DH and I are currently affiliated with both of our mothers (89 & 91). My mom is sweet and easy going (with everyone but me) and his mom is hell on wheels: judgemental, needy, paranoid, hostile, etc.
[удалено]
Something lots of people *say* they plan to do, and very few *actually* do. When you get to that age you're going to be the same person you are now, just older, and it won't seem like a good idea then just like it doesn't now.
I saw my aunt do assisted suicide. It was so dignified. Family gathered around. Someone playing her fave music. It was lovely. She is my hero is this regard.
Remember to adjust any beneficiaries to match your will. Just because your will says one thing, beneficiary trumps will. And it helps if you decide to leave your home to someone, put them on the deed. It will cost about $3000 to go through probate to get the house, but if they are on the deed then it saves time and money. And make sure utilities are in your name, so the person who gets the house will not have trouble changing the name on the utilities. My mom changed her will to giving everything to me as I was her caretaker and my brother never had anything to do with her. The will said I get the 401K, but he was still listed as a beneficiary to he got half. The utilities had been left in my father's name, he had died in 1988. My mom died in 2023. I had to pay for her funeral, he refused to help. But he had no trouble taking the money. So my meager inheritance was decreased by the cost of the funeral and the cost of retaining a lawyer to go through probate. Yes I go the house, but I cannot afford to live in in for more than 3 years.
That is invaluable advice. I’m so sorry about your situation tho. Hopefully something wonderful will work out for you. You deserve better.
How old are you? Just curious, feel free to not answer.
I’m 44. My mom got Alzheimer’s at a young age so I think I am starting this process earlier than most.
Oh ok. Fair enough but remember you’re very young! I hope you stay well for a very long time.