Sonia Reese 0:00
Many people are in denial of that they believe they will always take care of it and, and whatever it is, nobody else needs to know. And that is so, so wrong, we all eventually are going to need help. Either, we're going to need help, gradually, because we just lose our skills in keeping up with everything, it gets too big for us. Or, suddenly, something happens.

Steve Fast 0:27
Even if you've never thought about it, even without your knowledge, your life can be spread out across dozens and dozens of pieces of paper. Welcome to random acts of knowledge presented by Heartland Community College, where we talk to experts on topics large or small, and hopefully gain a little new information. I'm your host, Steve fast. Today, we're talking about what you can do to get all of those elements of your life scattered across documents and online accounts and even just post it notes and put them in one place for yourself or for those connected to you. And to do that we welcome today's expert,

Sonia Reese 1:03
I'm Sonia Reese, and I teach people how to get their records organized, mostly for themselves, but also, for anybody else that's going to help them along the way, if at some point, they can't do this, it's a pattern that all of us need to get into. And the earlier we can start doing it, the better off who I am. And what I do here, are not intimately connected. It's something I do, in addition to a lot of other things that I do.

Steve Fast 1:36
What led you to do the thing you're doing here, a casual

Sonia Reese 1:39
conversation with a friend who said, so what are you been doing lately, you know, besides my job, and I said, Well, I'm working on a project at home, I'm trying to put together some records so that my son knows something about my business affairs. And she said, sounds interesting. Tell me more. And the story goes from there. So with her encouragement, she said, we're going to be having a training program for people about money, called Money Smart Week. This is a whole process that the Federal Reserve started all across the nation, to educate young people. But frankly, people of all ages, about money, how it can be saved, how can be invested. And she thought that this topic might play well into that series. And so I quickly put together something did a little session, did some promo and I had a bumper crowd that came for it. And that told me that there was an interest in this idea of having your own personal records better organized. And that led me to do another one and another one. And by now I've done about 90 Plus, of these seminars,

Steve Fast 3:00
organizing important papers is a benefit to everybody. I mean, it's better to be organized and not organized. But it certainly helps, as you mentioned with your son, for a loved one for a family member. Because eventually, all this knowledge that we have about what we're doing, someone will have to help you sooner or later,

Sonia Reese 3:17
sooner or later. That's exactly the case. And many people are in denial of that they believe they will always take care of it and, and whatever it is, nobody else needs to know. And that is so, so wrong. We all eventually are going to need help. Either, we're going to need help, gradually, because we just lose our skills in keeping up with everything. If it gets too big for us. Or suddenly something happens. And overnight, we are incapacitated and can't take care of things. Maybe we can return to it. But there may be a period of time that we're not able to. And then of course, there's the in time where we're doing everything, right and then boom, we're gone. And nobody else has has had an opportunity to know about our affairs. So my attempt is to organize records that will help me every day, manage my life. And as time goes on, if I have good pattern, a good habit of keeping records where I can find them. It'll make it easier when I get a little, a little unable to do that as as easily as I can today.

Steve Fast 4:30
I think most people would agree that getting your records together, getting things organized, and even preparing them to have someone else have easy access to them. But those are all good things. Those are helpful things, but very few of us do it. And I think maybe the reason why is because we think oh that's one of those things I should do. But then when you start to think about why you have to do it, maybe it's daunting. Yeah, maybe it's seemed like to work as a job.

Sonia Reese 4:55
Yeah, so we don't know what to do right start and end how do i Do it, do it, do it on the computer. And some people think that's what they have to do, when in fact, that's not the case, pieces of paper are just perfectly fine. And most of us know how to do that. And, and so convincing people that you can do it with piece of paper is a good idea. So that's kind of the strategy that I've taken in working with people. I've prepared a list of 32 topics that will help them think through, what are the things that they should get in what I call their grab and go book. So everything you need to know, you could pick up that three ring binder, and walk out the door with it, and you'd have your essential business records in your hand.

Steve Fast 5:46
You mentioned the computer, you know, that could actually be a barrier for somebody, if you were incapacitated, a loved one, a child had to go and find all of your information. And it was all computerized. Well, the first thing they need to know is your password probably is Yeah, to get that

Sonia Reese 6:02
you are exactly right, Steve. Exactly. So that's a factor. I think some people feel that they've got children living perhaps on either coast. And if they put it there and upload it to the cloud, their kids can get to it. And in those cases, maybe that's true, it's a little more complicated to update all the time, unless you just spend a lot of time and scan and post,

Steve Fast 6:25
if you are going to get a start. And this is maybe something you'll cover when you talk about this. But what are some of the most important documents you should prioritize?

Sonia Reese 6:35
Well, I suggest 32 topics Now that sounds like a lot. But I organize them into clusters. So there's a cluster of topics that are all about you and your health. Things like Who are your physicians? What has been your medical history? Just a brief outline, when uh, when did you have your tonsils out? Or when did you break your leg? Or any of those things? What are the meds that you're taking? And how do you get them? Are they coming by the mail, because quite a few more things have over the years have been mailed to me. So they kind of come automatically, after so many refills, then you have to get a doctor's order to refill it again. But you know, it can go for 18 months before you have to get it refilled? Who is your doctor today. And we don't have just one doctor, we've got somebody that's maybe our primary care, but then we've got a dentist and we've got somebody that deals with our hearing and vision. So give me a list of that. So our family knows who takes care of us. And a list of things like who are the people to notify, if suddenly, I'm not well,

Steve Fast 7:47
that one of the things that I see as a suggestion is that as you organize these things in these categories, as you say, if you put all that information together in a category, it can make it a lot easier. So somebody if you have a doctor that's asking about medication or or who is who is your mother's cardiologist, who's your father's cardiologist, something like that, that information all being in one place and being easy to easy to find? Probably who is your

Sonia Reese 8:12
cardiologist? Because the first thing is, do one for your son, right? And then you can help your parents?

Steve Fast 8:19
Well, let's talk a little bit about that. If you're trying to get the information together for yourself, one of the focal points, I would say information probably have to be with tax time, you know, to get all your records together for taxes, a lot of us kind of have big piles of things, and they need to go through TurboTax or whatever else and they go through it. And it's just this chore. But that's probably a good way to approach organizing your financial records is when you prepare all this material for taxes, you can get it organized in that way.

Sonia Reese 8:49
Well, that's that certainly is part of it. Some of the things that will not be in your taxes, but are part of your financial record, have to do with your insurance plans. What do you have about life insurance? Or what do you have about homeowners? That's a an important one. And what do you have with your automobile coverage? So insurances don't always show up in taxes. But in tax time you do deal with your investments, with anything that somebody owes you. Do you have some some money coming in? Do you have property that you own, and you're paying taxes not only on your home, but you've perhaps got a cabin somewhere or you've got farmland, so you're you're correct. It's a good time to think about those things.

Steve Fast 9:40
And it might be a good time to also think about as you say, if you have the all these pieces of property to be thinking about, for instance, where's the title to the vehicle, right? Where's the deed to the house? Where's the it's an opportunity to think about all of those things that you would want to get organized to make them easy to find exactly.

Sonia Reese 9:55
You can put all that in a three ring binder I've got my now in a three inch three ring binder for a long time and a two inch. Now it's kind of grown to a three inch. So but that's not a big process. We can buy binders everywhere we can buy dividers, and then it's just sitting down and finding the papers you've got and sticking them in the folder.

Steve Fast 10:17
As we were talking a little bit about earlier, it might be good to have a paper record of the things that you've done that have gone paperless, right? If you do online banking, if even your 401k statements and stuff like that, a lot of us just check those things online. And if someone else needs access to those records, or even if you want to get them centralized. So you can remember where all those things are to check as you're reviewing them, should you be creating a section of that binder, that book where you have all that information, so you know where to go,

Sonia Reese 10:47
what you should. And here's what I would suggest, I recommend people do a simple spreadsheet, I use Excel, but whatever works for them, that allows you to identify where is the place that this money is being held? Is it with a bank? Is it with 401k? Somewhere? What is it? Who is the person you deal with? What's the phone number to reach them? What is your account number? What is the amount of the money that's invested there? What earnings does it have? So you can just do that a row right across? And easy then to total it up and say, What have I got? And where is it. And while you're doing that, then you're going to think about the possibility of putting somebody else's name on it. So not just you, but maybe have the person that you're going to trust to help you with your affairs have their name on some of this or all of it so that if something happens, and you can't manage it, they can for you?

Steve Fast 11:48
What are some of the documents that people commonly overlook? If you sit and think about all of the things that we have, that we'd have to organize, there probably are a couple of things that might fall down through the cracks that you would want to make sure, well don't forget about this or don't forget about that?

Sonia Reese 12:05
Well, I think it varies with the person and how close they've been to a crisis that caused them to know this. Some people are very money astute, and they know all those elements and know where to find them. Sometimes they're not, they've trusted somebody else to take care of it. So as I'm working with families, oftentimes with couples, and I'll find one of them, pays all the bills, and the other one does all investing. And I really want them to exchange information, find out where it is, and switch the job once in a while. If you pay the bills all the time, turn to your partner and say, this month, you pay the bills, and I'll be here to help if you have any questions. But it just gets both parties better prepared when they suddenly have to do it. And it's easier to do they've got somebody to ask a question then, if they're sitting there after that person is ill and can't or past that happens. What are some of the things that we forget? Again, I think that varies. I did mention to people, my husband passed away a few years ago, and I had a set of keys, he had a set of keys, they were very similar, we have the same keys. And I realized, well, I didn't need to, you know two sets of keys. And then I also realized, well, I have a resource right here. And so I put that extra set of keys, took them apart, tape them to a three by five card and wrote on it what it was to say, because how many times do we have a stack of keys and we don't know what they're two. So this works well. And that goes in the book as well. And just ideas like that, that people haven't thought about a section on your pet. If you have a cat or a dog or guinea pig, or whatever it is, make a little section in there about how you take care of them. But equally important is think about what would happen to that pet. If you can't take care of it any longer and make a plan. People don't do that.

Steve Fast 14:08
So it's very good example of the type of thing that people might not consider doing. Because they might be thinking about their own affairs, they might even be thinking about organizing the things that you do want to always kind of organize and give you peace of mind like your will or some of those other you know, a funeral plans and all that. But you might not think well, how often does my cat get the medicine? Or how often do I feed her today? What kind of food does it not get sick eating and things like that? Who's going to

Sonia Reese 14:35
take care of when I can't? Where does fluffy go? Yeah, that's an end. Make a plan. Just like you've made a plan for yourself. Make a plan for fluffy and make sure that you know you've got a party that's agreed to either take the cat or something's going to happen to the dog whatever.

Steve Fast 14:51
Another thing I'd like to talk about with this is and this goes back to something we talked about a little bit earlier, is how to approach this in a way A way that you don't lose ambition to do it. Do you suggest approaching this with bite sized chunks with something that you prioritize your categories? What would you suggest to people that are kind of procrastinators?

Sonia Reese 15:15
Well, I can't give them the motivation, they're gonna have to decide how important this really is in their lives. I can give them stories, which I do about situations where it might happen to them, and they, they should be better prepared the fairness to their family fairness to anybody that's going to pick up these items. But it is easy to postpone. And I've done this so many times, and I've had people see me on the street, and they Oh, I loved your session. So how are you doing? How's your book doing? Well, I started, I just haven't gotten done. And so we have a little conversation about when I see you the next time, how many more sections where you have done, and kind of keep them encouraged with that. But the motivation has to come from within I can't tell you why. You know, what's going to happen to you if you don't do it? I can tell you stories. But you have to decide how serious that is.

Steve Fast 16:11
Are there certain stories that really resonate with people that makes the light bulb go off in their head? Oh, yeah,

Sonia Reese 16:15
yeah. Now there's, there's a number of stories where a sibling has passed. And suddenly, it was very unexpected. And suddenly everybody's stepping in, they don't know where things are, and don't know how to get the money out to even pay for the funeral. That's, that's sometimes a very first crisis that people have is, oh, my gosh, I've got a $15,000 funeral bill. And I don't know if they have any money. And I don't know where it is, and I couldn't get my hands on it anyway. So those are moments of crisis. One lady I know started crying in one of my classes. And she began to tell me that her father had managed all the affairs for himself and her mother, and refused to tell the children anything about where his money was, how much he had, he was very private and very confident that he could do everything. And then he had a stroke. And he had been taking care of their mother who had Alzheimer's. So now they had mother with Alzheimer's, and dad with a stroke, no knowledge of where he had money, how much no access to it. And it was it was a family crisis.

Steve Fast 17:24
Do you find that that's the case where people don't they choose not to share information,

Sonia Reese 17:29
I'm surprised that it does come up all the time. And it seems like there's a point in time where we should have begun to talk about it. And we don't, because we just aren't convinced we're fine. We're just fine. We don't need to share this with anybody else. Or maybe we're not comfortable sharing it. Because as I say, you share this information about how much money you have. And that good for nothing, daughter of yours is going to come in and say I've got to have some money, I've got to have some right now. Because she now knows how much you have. And I tell him you have to decide to be strong. And just because she knows doesn't mean that she gets it, that she gets the money. You'll have to figure out how not to do that. If you cave, you won't have any money and she won't either. So now's the time to get strong and develop your own patterns of what you you're going to share. But it's okay to share. I think it's important. I've said, you're going to tell people, sometimes kids think that mom and dad have more money than they do. And then you kind of go over and they go, Oh my gosh, I thought they had more. You kind of go nope, this is what I've got. And you have to help me keep it together. You have to help me spend it wisely. Otherwise, I'm going to be living in your basement.

Steve Fast 18:51
Well, that's another thing too is that as you get things organized, it might help you realize right what your what you have resource wise and what you can plan for and communicate with others as well communicate with your partner, communicate with your children communicate with your lawyer, you might not even have a good handle yourself until you really sit down and start to get these things together.

Sonia Reese 19:12
Exactly. And that's the whole point is looking at it yourself knowing where you stand. You may think you know, but you might not. Because almost everybody has some kind of asset that they're managing. They've either got a car, or they've got an apartment that they're taking care of. And once you have any assets, you ought to begin to do have a record of what it is and how you manage it. So don't think that just because you're 22 years old, you don't need to do this. You do.

Steve Fast 19:44
Another important part about this. Once you get this all together to communicate with others with loved ones that it's there. Well

Sonia Reese 19:49
yes, choose who you're going to communicate with, if you have no spouse and children, but maybe you want to share it with your siblings or or your parents See, and say, here's how I'm managing. And mom and dad, I think you'll be proud of me. Here's what I've done. And I put my things together. And this is also time to say to them, and I'm ready to help you organize yours, because this would be a loving thing to do for me as well, and kind of make it a generational thing that both generations should do this.

Steve Fast 20:23
Thanks for coming in today. So

Sonia Reese 20:24
welcome.

Steve Fast 20:27
Sonia Reese teaches tips to organize your records now at a variety of locations including Heartland Community College, this has been random acts of knowledge. Thanks for joining us. And for more topics like this and even topics that aren't like this, visit our website heartland.edu/random For subscribe via iTunes, Spotify or wherever you find podcasts.