Helping Women over 50 Get Their Financial Records In Order

Life after fifty can be an exciting time, particularly if your financial planning and personal records are in order. What would happen if you became seriously ill or had a major accident – unable to make decisions for yourself? How would a family member or friend step in to help until you were back on your feet? Or if you should die, who would know about your end-of-life wishes? A lack of planning by you now could make a bad situation in the future even worse.

Not an easy subject to think about, is it? You know you should write down all your personal information and the location of important documents but the problem is how to get started. What information needs to be recorded? What plans need to be made? It is difficult to know how to take the first step but here’s a simple solution to get you organized.

Before It’s Too Late – Don’t Leave Your Loved Ones Unprepared is an easy-to-fill-out workbook that leads you through a simple step-by-step process of writing down your information. It covers a wide range of personal, financial and final arrangement details. This indispensable tool will explain where to find your important documents, what plans you have made and whom to call for help. Your family or friends will use this centralized resource when they deal with the big decisions and small details concerning your illness or death.

Before It s Too Late is divided into three sections:

• Personal Information – Important names & phone numbers, document locations (including your will, power of attorney, social security card and birth certificate), family history, medical conditions/medications, important possessions etc.
• Financial Information – banking, credit cards, bill payments, loans, investments, insurance, personal property, car and house titles, safe deposit box, retirement plans, computer passwords etc.
• Funeral Planning – Create a complete funeral plan by recording all of your final wishes. Your family won’t disagree or feel guilty about making wrong last-minute decisions.

By taking a little time now to get organized, you will be giving yourself the peace of mind knowing that your loved ones will know how to help in a time of need. For personal and financial planning, baby boomer women will find this workbook invaluable.

Emily Oishi and Sue Thompson are the co-authors of this workbook. We both dealt with the deaths of our parents and the resulting estate problems because essential information was missing. Important documents couldn’t be found. A bank had changed its name and a saving account was almost overlooked. Funeral plans were argued over by family members. We decided to write Before It’s Too Late-Don’t Leave Your Loved Ones Unprepared when we couldn’t find a simple yet complete personal affairs book to fill out with our own information for our spouses and adult children to use when needed.