PenPenWrites

I’ve over-shared my concerns about leaving clean closets for our kids. When we’re no longer around to tell them what’s a sentimental treasure and what’s just junk, we want the curating job to have been done. By us.

Now there’s a new twist on clean closets: financial cupboards. While this form of storage doesn’t have the heavy lift of pulling out boxes from under our beds, it still has things that need to be cleared and cleaned up.

In one of her columns, Michele Singletary offered clean-up advice. What you need to take care of depends on what generation you are. For us Boomers (those of us 62 years old and upwards), she doesn’t have clean-out suggestions so much as a to-do list: Create a Letter of Instruction. It should include:

• Usernames and passwords to your mobile phone or computer.
• The location of your original will or trust documents.
• An inventory of your important papers, including financial accounts, insurance policies (life and home), retirement and pension information, or veterans’ records.

And by the way:

• If you’re going to keep the letter on your computer, be sure to print a copy or save it to a flash drive in case your computer can’t be accessed.
• Update your beneficiary designations. There should be “Payable on Death” (POD) and “Transfer on Death” (TOD) names on every account that match your current family structure. That’s one way to avoid probate.

This clean-up isn’t too formidable, is it? You’ll feel all tidied up when all the pieces are in place, and then you can forget all about it. Except to tell your spouse or kids where the Letter is.

art: Hilary Precis