Get It Together

Organize Your Records So Your Family Won't Have To

Melanie Cullen

• Publisher: NOLO
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN:
  9781413332025
• eBook ISBN:
  9781413332032
• Edition: 11
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Personal Finance

Everything you need to get organized

Do your loved ones know where to find your insurance policies, passwords, title to your car, real estate deeds, health care directive, or even your will?
If you’re like a lot of people, you keep important information—from automated bill-pay details to passwords to the location of important documents—in your head or stashed in the odd desk drawer. Unfortunately, this disorganization will cause hassles for those who someday take care of you or your estate.

Get It Together is a guide and a workbook to help you gather your records and prepare important documents. With it, you create an organizer for you and a road map for your survivors. It provides a complete framework to help you and others keep track of:

• secured places and passwords
• employment and business records
• bank, brokerage, and retirement accounts
• personal property and real estate records
• dependent children, pets, and livestock
• insurance policies
• tax records
• estate planning documents
• funeral arrangements
• letters to loved ones

The workbook is comprehensive, yet straightforward. In the first half, you’ll find the pages to create your personal planner. In the second half, you’ll find step-by-step instructions and helpful resources to guide your completion of each section. Examples of these sections are: How Durable Powers of Attorney for Finances Work; Types of Memorial Services; Choosing Your Executor or Successor Trustee; Avoiding Probate for Bank and Brokerage Accounts; and Leaving Your Vehicles to Others.

You will also find direction for:

• safely storing your completed planner
• maintaining your planner over time, and
• talking with loved ones about accessing your planner when the time comes.

Your purchase includes downloadable forms. You can create your planner using the hardcopy pages from the book, or you can use Get It Together’s electronic files instead. After downloading and saving the electronic files to your computer, you will complete, print, and assemble the sections to create your personal planner. Later, when you want to update a section, you can simply modify the file on your computer.

This workbook provides a complete system for structuring and organizing your information and documents into a records binder.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• Your Get It Together Companion
• Completing Your Personal Planner
• Part 1: The Planner
• Part 2: The Guide
• Appendix A: Using the eForms
• Appendix B: Lawyers and Other Experts
• Book Registration