The Importance Of Getting Your Affairs In Order - Especially During Life Transitions

Welcome to the D ship podcast, where we provide inspiration, motivation and education to help you transition from the challenges of divorce to discover the freedom and ability to live life on your own terms. Are you ready?Let's get the shift started.

Hi, and welcome to the D Shift podcast. I am so happy to have Mary Greenlee on the show today. And Mary is the founder of transition times LLC. She is a coach and author of The Life facts book. And she is here to talk to us all things planning, which is something I think we all put off. So Mary, wonderful to have you here. Thanks for coming on.

So pleased to be here on this hot afternoon. It is hot. That's alright, that's good for us. Yes, yes, at

least you know, if it's hot in the summer, then we're complaining it's too cold in the winter. So we're never, we're never happy. So Mary, you have a really interesting area of expertise. So tell us a little bit about what got you here and what your what your passion is where you see this kind of unfolding in people's lives?

Well, I am pleased to tell you, this is not something I plan for. And it all happened to us starting on Valentine's Day in 2009. And my husband was received an MRI that said he had pancreatic cancer. And so six days later, he was gone. Now, my husband was an intellectual property attorney and I had turned everything over legal and financial to him. I loved it. I didn't have to worry about it. If I bought it, all I had to say was can we keep it and I always had a price tag on it to take it back. I was spoiled to death. Did I have areas of expertise to that he didn't have Yes, but that's sort of the way a lot of households are put together as you know. So in my usual fashion, I grew a put a group of people around me to figure out what the next step to do. One of them was to get the law practice settled, and so forth. And then I had to figure out how to access any of the financials. It was a mess, all the same time my son was going through a divorce. So I was in an uproar. Well, I know that you can figure things out better with a good group than you can by yourself. And so I did indeed gather a group of people around me, in fact, started with five very good friends. They wanted to figure out how to keep me in my house. Now it was 2009. And you know what happened with the market and my husband had five companies that he was starting, it was a mess. Well, in the process, we sat around the table, and many of them had been through being executors of family members or whatever. And they said, Okay, let's figure out first of all, what you need. That morphed into a transition team of over 40 plus people. They were experts in every field, we needed doctors, lawyers, psychologists, everybody. And together, they put the life facts book. Because they knew that as individual professionals, they couldn't take care of all the other problems. And they had nothing that they could send to people could get them lead them to to be able to know what it was they needed to know, for when they needed to know it, that drove them all. It was exciting to sit with all these people and have groups of other people that were able to identify the most important things people should know, those two, four categories, financial, legal, medical, and personal. Now, my husband thought the financial legal was the most the largest. That's wrong. It's the personal information. And you have to be able to do that yourself. You can't turn that job over to somebody else, right? Yes,

yes. And first of all, I'm very sorry for the loss of your husband, I had my husband passed as well. And even though it was a long, protracted illness, he was not able to talk after his stroke. So it was all the personal stuff really was hard to get together, even though he was still there. So you really don't know when these things are going to happen. And I this is where I think, you know, you had the ability to bring this phenomenal group of professionals together. Most of us don't know those kinds of people who don't have access to those kinds of resources. So when you were doing this, you said that you thought that the person who was the was the most difficult Where's your husband had sort of thought that Financial and illegal? Can you talk a little bit more about? Because I know that's the first thing that attorneys and when people going through divorce, that's the first thing our minds go to right. financial and legal. So, a little bit about the maybe the disconnect between that. Yes.

The I think that we've bought into that, because that's where professionals are, and those are the services you can buy. And yes, you can buy them, there's no question. They may know them. But the fact is, they've never made them accessible to other people, other than the people they're dealing with. So if all of a sudden that person is out of the mix, it is really hard for the other person to know how to access it. It's things like, Okay, are you a principal on your credit cards, if you are not a principal, they close them down. American Express is famous for that. They just close it down, and you can't you have no end, if you haven't had a job and credit done your own credit building. You're in a real crazy place where you're dependent on somebody else, right? And so but there are so things and so that we teach people who are in a household together, that they both be principals on that just signatories, but principals on each of those, right? That goes for every kind of contract. Because those things are null and void once that death certificate is written, yes. And if you have access to all those in the way to do it. It's amazing what you can accomplish. Right.

And I think that there's a I'm kind of dating myself a little bit here. But I think there's a shift in younger people getting married and understanding that they both need to be involved in all things. Whereas the expectations maybe you know, 30 years ago, were the husband was going to manage stuff. I hate to sound sexist like this, but it really kind of was the husband was going to manage that the wife may be involved, and they have decision making and maybe, you know, they discuss things. But typically it was, you know, the husband's names on things. And in the United States. I'm amazed at this. I'm from Canada, but in the United States. I mean, it wasn't all that recently that women couldn't even go out and like get loans if they were

hard. Yeah,

yeah. So. So I think that this is something for women that are going through a divorce, they need to be aware of this getting into a new relationship to set these things up proactively. So that you know not, it's almost like a prenup. And I hate to bring that up, I know this has got nothing to do with that. There's nothing wrong with prenups people, they're good for you. But tell me about this. Tell me a little bit about the toll a little bit about what the struggles were around the personal stuff. If you wouldn't mind, Mary and I are what you think that people have difficulties around that personal stuff.

I think there are all sorts of things, there's the personal information about their family is and the kids and all that sort of thing. But we keep it in our heads. And we don't think oh my gosh, if you're writing an obituary, or you're going to who is going to be left as someone who's going to inherit something, you don't know what their full name is, you know, one of the things they told us is you need to put a birthdate with each of those names. Because there are people with the same name and a family who will come and then you end up in a huge lawsuit about who gets the money, all sorts of things like that, what I found was the most useful was the helpful hints that everybody brought from their personal experience. Those are not the facts that are recorded on the charts. Those are how to do life with the least amount of trouble, which I found is interesting that everything okay, so when you are one of the things that I heard again, and again, it made so much sense to me, each September everybody in the family if their kids or if their parents or grandparents whatever, each of them in the fall, this five people who they have all of their contact information for. It could be in laws who are in Florida or whatever, all of a sudden, somebody goes missing, whether it's a kid or a parent or whatever, they have five contacts before they call the police. So you just have set up with line of responsibility. Well, I never thought about that. Right now I do that all the time with parents and everybody else so little hints like that are almost as important as the information that you're gathering.

Right? Where did you where do you see the the what are some that will let me pick your brain what are some of the other little because I think that's a really good yeah, it's almost like they have like a lot of schools have those emergency response phone trees where if something goes wrong one person calls one person they call two people and before you know it, all the information is spread really quickly. Yes. Yes. What are some of the other things that you would think of that maybe people maybe just it's such a basic thing that people don't even think about it until there's something that comes up? Yes.

One of the things is a your three primary credit cards if you have a Visa, MasterCard, and a Discover card or American Express, whatever, you copy them on a copy machine, front and back, and you fold them up and put on the inside of your billfold. Then if something happens, and that credit card doesn't come back to your whatever you have in your fingertips, the way to stop it right then and there. Okay? Same thing with your, your doctor's, be sure you have that, and it doesn't take much. And you can put a lot who are your supplements, what are your medicines, and this, the billfold is the first place that the EMS guys look for, right. And if they don't know who to call or anything, so you have all of those things, and we don't think about them, we put them on our phones. But then if you're an accident, the phone may be thrown out of the car or be under the seat or whatever the case may be. But purses tend to be a little bigger and that disappear. I'm saying put it in the phone too. It's good for you. But papers never gone out of style.

I want to say something about the phone, I talked to standing in line at the grocery store. I talked to everybody, you know, I just don't care. And this lady was an EMS, first responder. And she said, What? It's great that you have all your information in your phone with a biometric lock on it that we can't get into it or a passcode the biological clock, they can, they can typically manipulate that if you're there yet, if you're unconscious, they get it open. But if you have a passcode on it, if you have like any of those pattern symbol things where yes, nobody can get in your phone, so you might as well just not even have that information. So yes. Okay, so that's really important.

Yeah. One of the other things is to just very straightforward, purchase a key box. And people know where it is, and you labeled the key. Because if something happens to you, and somebody comes in to do then all of that, whether it's for safety deposit box, whether it is for a cabin, if it's for a car, a boat, whatever the case may be labeling those makes it so simple. And if you're having trouble remembering, it's good for you to think about other people, but hey, we needed to

Yeah, yeah, so I really liked these ideas. Um, and if you let's say it's, let's say a woman going through divorce, or anybody going through divorce woman or man going through divorce, you've gone from, you know, a couple where you kind of you have that built in safety feature that backup person, and then now you're moving into either living on your own or maybe being a single parent working with, with minor children, you don't want your kids to have this responsibility, right? So how do you how do you pick? Who is going to be your person with all this information? Because there's always that concern even I mean, I would have no problem giving everything to my sister or her husband or her kids. I mean, I would trust them with anything I'll but but some people don't have that, you know, they don't have that family or that friends. So who how do you how do you choose? Or who can you turn to? We

talk about people who first of all have to be 18 years of age, okay, someone who is willing to do it, not just you know, sometimes people are assigned as executors and pay, I didn't sign up for this, what am I going to do exactly, someone that you are willing to share where the information is and know that they would value it and you can trust right are the most important things to do. And of course, somebody who has the ability to accomplish things. That person isn't always a kid. Sometimes it for sure isn't a kid. And other times it's an in law or a sibling or whatever. But you need to people always have one too. And they know where all of your records are. When we do the life facts book. There are 51 forms that are filled out. And you know that you keep them current and you have them in a written form not on the computer because you know what can happen to get computers and iPhones. And what you do is let them know where that is and how they can have access to it. In essence, what you do is have all of those facts of your life accessible to somebody you trust. Right? And that would include all of your medical things too. I would suggest that one of them has the medical power of attorney one of The or maybe the same person has the access to your bank account in my signature on that what you're doing is a backup system in case something happens to you, or whether you are enabled, not able to disable looking for, or whether it temporarily or permanently, someone that you know, would take care of it your way, what you're able to do is put those directions down. The peace of mind that you have when you've got that done is enormous. Right? Now, what you can't do is know everything. But what this group this transition team put together is everything you need to know to have 98% of your stuff accessible to you. And the backup position.

Yeah, and I liked I liked the idea. And when would you recommend that people do this?

The earlier the better. And the reason is, there's less information to collect your earlier you as you go through, you know, maybe you have an apartment, and you're buying furniture, and maybe you're getting some charge cards or whatever, well, that's pretty simple. But as we go through life, maybe not you but me, I collected a lot of stuff, and then start making investments. And then you might buy some artwork or some other things that need that. One of the things, there's a list in there as of your valuable property. And it's very important to know that you want that to get distributed before you go through probate. Because they that's one of the things they figure but something that I did when I had those things that were you know, of significant value I went through and I asked my kids to pick it. So they are if they want it, otherwise, it just goes Yeah. Now that that's dreary to some people, oh my gosh, I'm gonna die, but it gives you such then you know, somebody wants your things? And if not get rid of them.

Yeah, yeah. So I really liked this idea. The other thing that that kind of jumped out at me when you were when you were saying that is the more that you plan in advance, like you say, the more comfortable you are. And it doesn't mean in the event of your death, hopefully, I mean, we're all going to die at some point in time. But you know, you could have I had a COVID Let's, let's face it COVID has woken a lot of people up. So yes, let's say that, you know, heaven forbid, but you get COVID One day and you have to go to the hospital and you're you know, you're going to be in the hospital for two weeks, who's going to who's going to pay the bills, who's going to take it, who knows where anything is, if they don't have that written record, and you can't expect to do it. If you're in a hospital, if you're not feeling well, or, you know, if something just very unusual happens where you some kind of an emergency situation you want to have that you don't want to be sitting down, trying to get to the hospital and kind of write out your bank accounts. Like that's not going to be helpful. What are the

things that we recommend is a grab and go bag. And I will offer this to the people. It's health info at your fingertips. It's a ebook that I give away free. And what it does is put all of the important things like your medical power of attorney, your medical history, all those things are in and I recommend plastic folders with different colors for different members in the family that sit near the back door. So if you're going, you grab it, you've got everything you need. And when my husband went to the hospital, that's exactly what we had. So that I didn't have to think my gosh, I gotta go get something. Yeah, ready to go position. And as I say, the ebook tells you all those different things.

And one thing, the other thing I was thinking of when you were talking is you know, there's a there's a lot of issues around a lot of people have Bitcoin Aetherium, whatever you're investing in, again, great if you want to invest in it. But if somebody doesn't have the password to your wallet, I don't care how much money you've got in there, it's not going out, it's gone. It's gone unless you have that information. And obviously, that's not something you want to fall into the hands of your kids or somebody you don't trust. Um, but things like that, like we have so many, how many of us have multiple little online savings account where we keep squirreling away $20 A month as like a, you know, our mad money or whatever we want to call it and that that money is just gone if nobody knows it's there and how to track it down.

So I learned as my husband had opened up some savings accounts for two grandchildren. Four years later, I got a message with This is going to be turned over to the state unless you do something about it. I didn't know it was there. Right? Right. So it can happen. Let me talk about a minute about floating information. And I want to show you this. This is every account everything I have there seven pages. If somebody has to get access to my bank accounts and everything, it's all right here. Every time there's a change, and there are lots of changes, I change it out on the Word document. And then when I get five changes, I go in and redo it, file it, put it in the file for people to have, this will let you open up things that you would never have otherwise, you just wouldn't be able to. Now some people are very picky about this. And they keep under lock and key all the time. Well, I can't I do a clipboard. But that's, that's all right. But the fact is, we have a section that talks about all the different kinds of things that you need, whether it's a library card, whether it for like a theater group, whatever the case may be, and you just keep it there. Keep adding to it, change it, update it, I used to send them to my daughter, who was my helper, and I put copied them on different colors. So I'd say get rid of the pink one, the green one is accurate. But destroy it, you know, don't let it out there. But I think you know, as we have, there's so much we collect these days. Yeah. Now, when my husband died, there were no passwords written down, no anything. And of course, it was all up here because he couldn't, it was secret and all that stuff. It was the worst mess we ever had December 6. But at that time, I mean, he started with the secretary who wrote everything, you know, in, he ended up doing everything on the computer, right? A difference. Yeah. So just think about all of that sort of thing. But if you know what you need, and you start with the things that are the most important to you, and the easiest to do, it is an inspiration to finish the rest of stuff. Right? Right.

And I want to really stress, even even people that might only have one page of stuff. That's still important. It doesn't matter how big your estate, if you want to call that or your investments or your personal information, it can just be you know, if you're just starting out in life, maybe it's just one page. And that's not bad. It's still there. And you can go over it with your trusted family member or friend or or whoever, your sibling or whoever you're allocating and working with as your, your backup people.

And so change those people as you go, right? Because people move around and everything else, it's always good to have a spouse, no back and forth, and is there. Actually, you know, all of the things that came up with IDs and passwords came much later in my life. So we didn't have a reason or a system that we need to put in place, right? Didn't understand the consequences, right out the mouth.

And even to be honest, even once you've got and again, going from my experience, even if you got a death certificate, that's not going to get you in some of these accountants. So like, you know, it's unfortunately it is what it is. And they're, you know, they're, the banks will work with you. But it's a long process to get into them. Like you can't just walk up to the teller and say, you know, I need to access this account at a time when you may really need money, because maybe the person is the primary income earner. And this goes whether you're married, divorced, single anything at any walk of life.

It's an individual need. Yeah, really. Right.

Mary, this has been really fantastic. And I think I think it's a really important thing for us all to think about. When you're going thinking back on things we talked about, what do you think is the most important takeaway from our conversation you'd like people to think about when they when they keep driving or doing whatever good things they're doing right now? What do you want them to focus on?

There is the business of life. We're very used to working for another business, outside our personal business. There are some very important things that you need to do to keep things going so that you can be in the moment when it happens. Because it's going to happen. It always does big or little. If you have all of your information accessible. That you need. You can be in the moment. Deaf, a birthday party, whatever the case may be. Yeah, yeah.

Wonderful. So I think that's really good information. Mary Kate, do you happen to have a copy of your book that people can kind of see what it looks like and tell us how they can get ahold of you? Yeah. Formation.

Yes. I had it open. I was looking at it for another reason, but it is In a spiral, it's also available in a notebook, the contents aren't the same. But what's important to know is all of the forms in here are writable printable PDFs. Once you get the book, you get the code to go onto the website, and you can download them for life. And we talked about how you make copies of them, and if they're two people in the household that are had different forms, and all that sort of thing, and, but you can get this at w w, w, life facts book.com. And you can order either kitchen, and also my name is there. So if you want to ask me more questions, I always like to talk about it. I am doing this because I've lived it, not because I trained for it or get a degree for it. Because it's the most important thing that people can have is the gifts that give themselves and their friends and their family.

I love that thank you so much. And all of Mary's information is in the show notes at the bottom of the screen. And I really want to thank you Mary for coming in. This is such an important thing for people to think about going through divorce. Once you get through the divorce, this is a good time to kind of reset take a look at all your stuff and get all the new information lined out. If you haven't changed it for a while. This is a good time to do a reevaluation and anytime you have any kind of major life changes or additions to your to your life, this is a good time to come back and look at it. So thank you again, Mary and and we will do and we and thank you for bringing forth a very important thing.

Yes, good luck, everybody and getting your facts together.