What I've learned from my sister's illness

I've learned that it's vital to tell someone you trust where your important papers are, how to access your online banking, etc.

Getting access to her accounts to pay her bills, etc., has been a nightmare. Due to her brain injury, she cannot tell me where anything is located and I've made many trips to her house (50 miles away) to scrounge through papers, file cabinets, drawers and mail looking for insurance papers, tax returns, and so on. There's a safe in the house I don't have the combination to.

More than likely I will have to hire an attorney to to go before a judge to get power of attorney to keep her bills paid and sell her house if, God forbid, it comes to that.

She and I have talked about this in the past but never got around to it.
It's not a pleasant subject, but believe me, you don't want to have to worry about something like this when someone is ill.

You are SO right. I don't have that information for either my sister or brother - but they both have spouses. But what if something happens to them at the same time - like a car accident? I did make my mom send info about ALL of their accounts to my sister, who is the executor of the estate in the event anything happens to them.

...but that's a really good point. We should get all that info to our lawyer, and make sure my brother and sister know who that is.

....again, I'm so sorry about your sister.

I'm so sorry you have all that stress on top of everything else. I am SO glad mom took the time to show me where everything was while she was sick and still coherent. At the time, I thought it was just creepy but after she passed I realized she was trying to make things easier for me.

DH does all our banking and paying of bills. I've asked him to let me know what the passwords are for our account online, but I figured if anything happens I can just do the old fashioned thing and go to the bank (helps that all accounts are in both our names). But, we have to set up POA for someone else if something happens to both of us....god forbid.

Thinking about these things is never easy, but that you for the reminder.

I don't know what else to say

We're going through the same thing with Dottie's brother, and it's going to make a big difference that he didn't take care of stuff. Her sister is going to end up with an $80,000 windfall, cutting out the rest of the family, because of a little error he made.

for you and your families.

Hubby's not much for my filing system, but I have everything neatly in folders with phone numbers, passwords, etc. written on the front of them. It takes allot more effort then just throwing all our old bills in drawer but once you get everything set up it takes 5 minutes to put everything into it's folder.