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Money Tip: Keep a one page account summary

October 18th, 2009 · 13 Comments

Recently, I was involved in settling an estate left behind by a family member who had passed away suddenly. Though the estate was fairly modest, it still involved rifling through a lot of personal papers and account statements to figure out where the bank accounts and such are held. It would have been immensely helpful if a one page summary of accounts had been kept. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy: just a list (including relevant details such as location) of bank accounts, investment accounts, real estate holdings, insurance policies, pension accounts and any other valuables. In fact, if you are in the habit of updating your net worth statement, you could simply add extra information such as account numbers and where its held and add information on insurance policies. Of course, you should also let your loved ones know where you’ve kept your personal finance information.

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13 responses so far ↓

  • 1 brad // Oct 19, 2009 at 7:08 am

    If you use Quicken, it has an Emergency Records Organizer that does a good job of helping you create this summary. I like it because having it as part of Quicken (which I use daily to keep my accounts up to date) reminds me to keep the emergency records documents up to date as well. Otherwise it’s too easy to simply create this one sheet of paper with all your accounts and then let it sit in a file folder for decades, never updating it as you cancel old accounts or start new ones.

  • 2 Ben // Oct 19, 2009 at 8:04 am

    Good tip. I’ve recently been starting to take care of all the “insurance” type stuff, and making a list of accounts is something I’ve been meaning to do – I’ll be doing this week. It only takes 30 minutes, and could save loved ones a lot of headaches.

  • 3 Tweets that mention Money Tip: Keep a one page account summary | Canadian Capitalist -- Topsy.com // Oct 19, 2009 at 9:42 am

    [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Sandy Kemsley and Ray, Canadian Capitalist. Canadian Capitalist said: New Blog Post: Money Tip: Keep a one page account summary http://bit.ly/FAY7J [...]

  • 4 M K // Oct 19, 2009 at 12:24 pm

    good idea. I was involved for a number of years doing power-of-attorney type activities, and I always did this as a matter of course, knowing (and expecting) that it would be needed by the lawyers in short order once the person passed away.
    As a result, my POA records were always much better organized than those for my own accounts….go figure.
    Good tip—-I need to do it for myself (and my wife) as well.

  • 5 pete // Oct 19, 2009 at 1:46 pm

    had that very conversation with my dad about a year ago.

    A bit awkward at first, but we both realized I’ll be the one to deal with this stuff. To see it all on one 8.5 x 11 piece of handwritten paper made me feel a bit better.

  • 6 Canadian Capitalist // Oct 19, 2009 at 2:52 pm

    @brad: Interesting tidbit about Quicken. I use Money and to my knowledge it doesn’t have anything on emergency records. I’m planning on simply updating account information when I draw up our net worth statement.

    @Ben: Yep, it probably takes a bit longer the first time around but updating the records should be a breeze.

    @M K: It’s natural to procrastinate things such as this but also saves so much trouble for loved ones at a very stressful time when at least the financials are clear.

    @pete: Actually, our relative tried to have conversations about his estate but the beneficiaries weren’t paying much attention! Still, a summary document would have been very handy.

  • 7 The Rat // Oct 19, 2009 at 10:40 pm

    Great tip that is often overlooked

  • 8 uberVU - social comments // Oct 20, 2009 at 12:42 am

    Social comments and analytics for this post…

    This post was mentioned on Twitter by CCapitalist: New Blog Post: Money Tip: Keep a one page account summary http://bit.ly/FAY7J...

  • 9 Phil S // Oct 20, 2009 at 9:01 pm

    I guess I’m still walking with the dinosaurs when I say that I just have my own Excel spreadsheet files for tracking all of my bank accounts. And the first page of my Excel sheet is a summary page showing current status of everything. Of course I have 3 files, one for my CDN account, US account and one for my corporate account.

  • 10 A Lap Of The Blogs : WhereDoesAllMyMoneyGo.com // Oct 22, 2009 at 9:15 pm

    [...] The Canadian Capitalist recently had to help settle a loved one’s estate and shares some valuable advice from his experience. [...]

  • 11 CanadianInvestor // Oct 23, 2009 at 4:08 am

    This should be no.1 on the estate planning checklist. Trying to find stuff can consume a ridiculous amount of time in an executor’s job.

  • 12 Prime – 0.25% for MDJ Readers and Weekend Links | Million Dollar Journey // Oct 23, 2009 at 6:30 am

    [...] Money Tip: Keep a one page account summary @ Canadian Capitalist [...]

  • 13 Thicken My Wallet » Blog Archive » Tips on organizing your estate // Nov 30, 2009 at 5:03 am

    [...] Capitalist recently wrote about the issues of settling an estate where the details of the deceased was not easily findable.  This post expands on the topic by [...]

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