One thing you can do to eliminate some of the confusion is to get roboform. Have all of your accounts organized and create "Safe notes" with important information like...the combination to your safe! You can create folders for logins like "The Bills" "Bank Accounts" "Insurance".

You will have a single roboform password that will give your SO (significant other) access to everything.

I haven't read most of this but this thread rings very true to me. I'm in the same boat as Mario and my wife doesn't deal with much of our finances or what we have in place in case I die (3 different life insurance policies).

I lost someone who was a good friend last week. She was only 49 years old and died very unexpectedly so this thread is VERY REAL to me! Now during extreme grief, her husband has to struggle to figure out what the hell to do next. I couldn't imagine trying to figure out one single detail during this time even if I'm the one who's in control of everything.

A will is probably your best bet and I think your lawyer should handle your action plan. I'm sure if that's the best option to document all of your accounts and passwords but it might be good just to simply list those on a separate document and submit those to the lawyer.

Your not over thinking it Mario! Your simply making it easier when it does happen. And it will.......

Have you ever tried to keep an updated list of all your passwords on paper somewhere? Note how it gets out of date almost immediately, or it should if you are changing your passwords on a periodic basis, like you should.

Yes LastPass does work better than a notebook. What gets stored on the flash drive, is a list of all the passwords as they were when the backup was made, but it also is a key to get to the website, which will always be up to date, because the apps LastPass provides as plugin's for your browser, and OS passwords (if you have any of those) gets updated any time you change them.

So yes, smart ass, in a way it does update when it sees the internet. If you had gone to the link, and really looked at the product, you could have figured that out, then again...

It is ridiculous that we need passwords for everything, but the lack trust in people is well-earned. The Home Depot data breach has already cost me plenty of time because my bank reissues cards proactively, rather than deal with the cost of unauthorized use and disputed purchases. I will have to change the card number for every bill or account I have for online purchase or bill paying and that pisses me off. Beats having someone actually use it without my consent, though.

The earliest lock and key were discovered in the ruins of Nineveh, from about 600 B.C.- what does that tell you?

WRT to what becomes out of date quickly, most accounts stay the same for relatively long periods, but the passwords may change. Make a list of all accounts, but leave a secure list of passwords and the answers to secret questions, in the event that they're needed. I'm not sure I trust magnetic devices enough to rely on them exclusively, but saving this on a thumb drive with a paper document that can be updated every 3-6 months isn't a bad idea.

If she doesn't like to deal with finances and paperwork or doesn't do it well, it might not be a bad idea to leave it to an accounting/legal service.

Thank you for all that take this seriously and provided constructive information.

Sorry to hear about the loss of loved ones to ones that shared their loss here.

I'm thinking about this and want to make transition/take over of functions as easy and as painless as possible, because I love my wife and kid and because I know how much they love me and relay on me.

I have been using LastPass for about a year now.
Love the app.

Before using LastPass, I used to have same password for everything and would get pissed and confused when website would require special length or a digit, but the digit can't be the first character. Some require special character while others won't allow it.

Now my passwords are 12-36 characters and look like this: [email protected]%T&2eCaCWuNV, all auto generated by the app with a click of the button.
I have the app follow me in any Chrome browser.
I can go to lastpass.com and login while I'm at friend's or client's house.
I have it on my tablet and cellphone, but have it setup so that I have to put in the password the first time I use it and then it's good for so many hours. That way, if I lose the device, some jackass doesn't gain access to all my info.

In the year that I've been using it, I have 473 unique entries. That's 473 websites that used to use variations of password = Mario123.

One other thing that makes my day; everytime I go to a website that still shares my old password with another site, LastPass gives me a gentle reminder that this is not a unique password. At that point I can do a simple AutoGenerate, click OK, then Save and I'm done. So now if someone hacks one website, my unique passwords mean that all the other sites are still protected.

Few weeks ago, I showed my wife my LastPass program and told her a little about it with hopes that she wanted to use it for her stuff.

Now, I'm definitely going to spend more time with the program, setup folders, create secure notes with things like computer login, email credentials, list of all bank accounts, investment and insurance names.

Once I'm done, I'll sit down with my wife and show her what's what and give her my login credentials (that we can keep in the safe).

That way, with a list of accounts, she can easily search LastPass for 401K for example, which will show her the website with auto login option, etc.

BTW, LastPass also has a way for me to share credentials with someone where they can log in but won't know what password is.


I'm starting to feel better about this, but understand that living trust is still an important component that we both need to complete.
I will look online to see what's available. I can't imagine that something so seemingly simple would require a lawyer and hundreds of dollars.
I want a form that says: "when I die, I leave everything to Laura".

Yes, I agree. Was trying not to get too deep. Here is a quick, true story.

I'm driving down the road with my 11 year old. A commercial comes on the radio for life insurance. He wanted to know about life insurance. After explaining it to him, he says, "so when you die, we get free money?" Ahhh..., yeah, it will just cost me my life:)

We tend to use humor to avoid any painful reality.

Yes, LastPass works very well, and helps to make it easy for people in your family to share certain passwords. It Rocks!


I understand why you're reticent to spend the money... but I think you may have forgotten to think about issues a good estate planning attorney will bring to light. For example, if you die, obviously you want your wife and kids to be taken care of. If she remarries, and then she dies, do you want that money to go to your kids, or the spouse she has married? Without a special document, your kids may get none of that money! There is a way to handle this legally. My lawyer called it the stud-muffin/bimbette clause! There are lots of little situations you may not be thinking about now, where you want to control where the money you worked hard to provide your wife and kids, actually gets used first by your wife and kids. Just want to make you aware of such situations, before you dismiss the idea of estate planning with an attorney.

You've made the most important step though... you're making a plan! Good for you!

all my paper work is in a firebox, vanessa and my kids know how to access it. all my stuff is in order, my ex and i did that when we started to vacation without the kids.

all paper work is in a file cabinet with every file labeled accordingly.

an one call to my fnacial advisor and he will take care of the investments and life insurance. but the policies and all needed info are in the fire box.

so the only thing my loved ones have to worry about is getting the slushie machine filled wit strawberry margaritas and getting plenty of cigars. because its cigars and margaritas after the funeral mass. no tears... just party!

Okay, go online and save yourself several hundred dollars. Just don't ever tell a do it yourselfer that comes to this site to "hire a pro" ever again.

No offense, but seriously, what do you know about living trusts? There are too many fine points that you might miss by doing it yourself.

You may have hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of assets that won't end up with your loved ones if you fail to spend a few hundred dollars wisely. Trust me, after administering two estates in the past six years, I know.

Tom, that's exactly what I wanted to know.
I wanted to know from someone that went through it how much crap there is to it.
My ignorant thinking makes me thinking that it should just be as simple as "sent it all to Laura" with a signature, but if there's more to it I will hire an attorney because as you said penny wise pound foolish

There's nothing special about estate planning. Just lots of attorneys that are overpaid. Just like nothing to this whole CI thing, not much to think about, right? That's why the blue shirts at Best Buy can do just as good a job. (In case anybody didn't notice, that was Sarcasm!)

If you go to a lawyer, you'll end up meeting with them to determine what you want to do. If they say, oh, you don't need a document, and standard Living Wills are good enough, it won't cost you much. But, I expect you're about to get an education on what the issues are, and you're going to want things handled in a specific manner once you get educated.

Think of it this way, right now your attitude is like your customers who say, Bose is the best, that why they're the biggest name right? Right after they say that, you educate them. It's your turn to go get some education on estate planning.

Excel spreadsheet. Laminate it, and keep it under the icetray in the freezer.