Being Prepared!!!

When my children were small my husband's work took him away from home a lot and I was worried what would happen if anything happened to me in his absence so I arranged with my parents that whenever he was away I would ring them every morning and if I didnt they would ring me. I was also fortunate that DS was born calm and responsible so by the time he was three he knew his name and address by heart and knew that if mummy ever went to sleep and wouldnt wake up he should dial 999 and tell the policeman.

More usefully to us now Age UK has a form that you can fill in with all the information anyone may need if you die or become incapacitated, which you leave somewhere accessible. It can be found at the end of the following document on their site:
www.ageuk.org.uk/Documents/EN-GB/Factsheets/FS27%20Planning%20for%20a%20funeral%20November%202010_fcs.pdf?dtrk=true

Going back to car keys: we leave ours in the car when it's at home. Living up a very steep, pitch dark hill and "off road" up a bumpy track does have its advantages in that respect.

Mind you, I used to do the same with my old Fiesta in a suburban area of Oxfordshire. It was so old and scruffy – dent in the back bumper (not by me), moss growing on it, 'mobile shed' look about it with allotment tools in the back, string tying up a rattly bit of the front grill, etc – nobody but me wanted it. I loved that car. DDs 1 & 2 still talk about good old Diggory.

So many useful tips on this thread.Must act on them and get things sorted and organised.
Live alone but in a terraced house with good neighbours. One has a spare key.
No underarm hair-wouldn't care anyway.
NY resolution to list my passwords and document locations,pack my hospital bag and look into leaving my body for research.

In the days before passwords, what happened to bank accounts and so forth? Won't the same checks will apply now? I might decide at some point to appoint someone with power of attorney over my affairs but I won't be leaving records of my passwords to anything or for anyone because I think that's rather a risky thing to do. If someone would like to convince me that it really would be a good idea, I'm listening, but we are told not to tell others our secure passwords, nor to write them down in a recognisable form.

I wrote my funeral arrangements out when I was in the depths of chemotherapy, and have just been back and rewritten them into something shorter and simpler!

bagitha I have thought that too . The bank can have no idea who is operating a bank account on line. I am interested in having access in the event of my husband being out of action in the short term or an emergency! The other stuff is so I know who to contact if the very worst happens.

We found Mum's bank very helpful and efficient when we first started to deal with her estate. I think it just took a confirming letter from the solicitor to get things going. However I agree that it might be very different dealing with an acute, short-term problem. I really must get that Power of Attorney sorted out!

I suppose we ought to leave the password for Gransnet too!I've already pondered how we would know if someone had died...or is that too macabre

No it's not, Grannylin On FaceBook it is, apparently, very difficult to delete the account of a dead person; I still see the name of a friend, who died over a year or two, there.

Geraldine?????

I have not given internet passwords on my list for DDs, just account numbers. I have Lasting Power of Attorney in place, they have a backlog so it took 9 months from first visit to solicitor until completion. This would have made life very difficult had an emergency situation already occurred, so I am pleased that I did it, although the solicitor's fees were not cheap!!!

I have a list – growing ever longer – of clues to my passwords, just so that I get the right ones for whichever site. For example, against gransnet, it might say "middle brother date", so that I know it's my brother's middle name and birthdate. (It doesn't – I haven't got a brother.) Whether Mr absent would ever be able to work out what these mean is another matter all together. I guess he might be able to do it with the help of absentdaughter. A puzzle to keep them happily occupied and out of mischief for hours. I shall have to give him the Sainsbury password and, possibly, another one or two, when I go off to New Zealand for the birth of my grandson in March as I plan to be away for 4–6 weeks and we can't have the cats going hungry.

I still get invitations from facebook to make friends with someone who died 2 years ago this month... Poor lad.

My brother in law suggested that you only ever use 3 passwords because most sites give you three chances to get it right. I now do this and I think it's a great idea. My husband knows the three and I know his three so, unless we are killed together in a dreadful accident, we should be able to function enough to get by for a bit.

oh dear..gulp!! think i best get my paperwork sorted lol...passwords..lol..yes they can be quite complex.as we have to give "clues" favourite films etc..but then that would be too easy.I must make a list tomorrow.

Like Kittylester I have three passwords, but more by accident than design. I also have a spread sheet hidden in an unexpected folder with an unexceptional name. The three passwords are labelled 'usual1', 'usual2' etc and I indicate which one is used for each password protected website.

I plan to send my children an email with the key to this file for them to keep on the basis that any one trying to find the key is going to have to be very determined to first hack my children's computers to get the key and then hack mine to find the spread sheet and then raid my Amazon account!!

Have only just come into this thread, and as Biker has said gulp. Am now getting my rather muddled life in order. I need to give passwords and the like to the children. The only thing is my children are a bit head in the sand and hate to talk about my demise.I think they hope I'm immortal.

one thing that did strike me!! a while ago is!! if one of our gransnetters were (sad) to not be around.in via .unexpected circumstances (sad) sorry 2 sads lol. ,,,,then like O/P we would prob never know {shock).. I mean eventualy we would say " ohh! we havn't heard from such n such! ...it would then be quite sad,,but I suppose unless we left instructions then.??

That crossed my mind too biker I was reading about the lady who was found murdered in her lonely cottage and I thought "she could be one of us" I think I will write a note and put it with my will asking my family to announce a knees-up in memory.

When I pop my cloggs I would like to think of all you lovely lot having one of our famous virtual parties.

So as I am totally unprepared in this area, have not even got my will done (been thinking about it since Dc were small but thats as far as I has gone)

I need to get my act together as a good pal was just telling me the other day.

You have all shaken me into action, I need a to do list

A continuing thread on my French ex-pat forum is what people would do if their partner died. It is quite common for one of a couple to speak some French and deal with everything, whilst the other never gets beyond a few words. Most of the women members say they would sell up and go back to the UK, but some have been in France so long their children have gone to school and college here, and all their friends are here.
I find it amazing that there are still couples where the wife (usually) does not know all about their financial affairs, bank accounts, pensions, insurances, mortgages, etc. I think some women enjoy being treated like children, but some men are obviously stuck in the dark ages when 'the little woman' didn't worry her pretty little head about such things.
I trust none of this applies to any Gransnetters, but if it does, do something about it now, please!

greatnan it would be the other way in our house, OG leaves it all to me. You have never seen how a bloke can be so hopeless and when in his professional life he is very very clever (I think it is easier to play dumb)

Greatnan I think there are two different issues here. I do know all about our financial affairs as we talk about what we are going to do with regard to investments etc BUT my husband actually DOES it. It's a bit like talking about what to have for dinner and then I cook it! We play to our strengths! Plus he has the time, and enjoys, investigating investments etc. This being the case, I need to know how to access things on the internet.

On a lighter note - we believe in fair division of labour in our house - he makes the money and I spend it!

That's fine, kittylester, you obviously make a great partnership!
When I was giving seminars to 'trailing wives' in Brussels (women who follow their husbands to posts around the world) I was told by one idiot that she thought it was morbid to ask her husband what provision he had made for her and her three children in the event of his death.
Sometimes I think it is women like her, rather than men, who are holding back the struggle for equality in the West.

Guilty Greatnan of letting DH see to all things financial except I have my own savings and I am quite a shrewd invester. When he is doing something dangerous or travelling I ask for the insurance papers but he just laughs.

I'm afraid that when dh was dying I made him get all his affairs in order and accounts sent to the accountant. It was very helpful and accountant made a suggestion that saved me a lot of money. I knew all my own affairs but not dh's.
He died knowing all was under control and I did not have that extra stress to deal with on top of my grief.
We were always practical people. Even me in spite of my apparent "fluffiness" as my husband called it. Eg when I told him I had just saved us £300 by not buying a nice pie crust table I saw. This then meant we had £300 extra to spend.
Men can be very slow to grasp logical concepts at times!