June 30, 2025 • 19 mins
We spoke about this last year; let's review it again. Here is a replay from last year. What is a Legacy File? A Legacy File is a way to show our family that we love them after we are gone. In this episode, I walk you through what belongs in your Legacy File.
Here is a link to my Legacy File Checklist.
Get in touch with Paul
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Paul, Welcome to Catholic moneytalk, where we talk about all
things money and finance, and wetry to do it through a lens of
being Catholic, where ourultimate goal is to one day be
in Heaven with the Lord. I amyour host. Paul Scarfone, thank
you for being here today. Sotoday I'd like to talk about
(00:22):
what I call your legacy file.
But before we do that, let'sstart with a prayer in the name
of the Father and of the Son andof the Holy Spirit. Amen,
Heavenly Father, we thank youfor this day, we ask You for all
the grace and wisdom that weneed to face the challenges or
the circumstances that we findourselves in we know that you
love us and that you have agreat plan for us. Allow us to
(00:43):
yield to your Holy Spirit. ComeHoly Spirit, we ask all this in
Jesus name, amen, in the name ofthe Father and of the Son and of
the Holy Spirit. Amen. So alegacy file. What is that a
legacy file is where you willkeep all of your end of life and
other important documents andinstructions. It's a way of
(01:08):
loving your family and providingthem a tool that will help them
and give them peace, not onlywhile they're grieving your
loss, but as they try to wrap upyour affairs, that just a couple
of months ago, this was broughtback to my mind as an important
thing. Two months ago, back inFebruary, my grandmother passed
(01:30):
away, and my mom and my aunt areher only remaining children, and
my grandma was was 102 yearsold. And the last couple of
months, it's been a little bitof a scramble trying to pull
particular documents together,things like her will and some
trust documents, along withother instructions and things.
And I've been working with mymom and my aunt through this
(01:53):
time, and it really reinforcedsomething I try to have in place
for Taryn and I, but I also workto have this in place with my
clients, my coaching clients,and so we need to do this. We
need to create in a file all theimportant End of Life documents
that, God forbid somethinghappens to you or your spouse or
(02:15):
both of you. It's a place thathas instructions and maybe
answers to questions, and itwill provide at least a starting
point to many different areasand things, situations that are
important to the people ourfamily, that are wrapping up our
affairs at the end of our life.
(02:38):
So some of these things could befinancial. Some will be related
to insurance, maybe investments.
It'll have documents like willsor estate plans, instructions to
the guardians of if you haveminor children. It would also
include instructions for yourburial and funeral and any other
important documents, like leads,titles, maybe some certificates,
(02:58):
things that you have that areimportant and that other people,
if you were gone, would needthem and need to know where they
are. And you can also havethings in there, like your
monthly budget, a list of yourbank accounts. These are only
going to help whoever's lookingafter those things when you're
(03:18):
gone, so that they can haveaccess to it all. So the legacy
file is important to have, and Ihave a tool that I'm going to
share with you. I'll put thelink in the podcast description
for this episode, but it's alink to the legacy file
checklist, and it's going to bea good practice. Print it out.
Put it together. If you'remarried, put it together with
(03:40):
your spouse and designate wherein the house you're going to
keep this file. But then you'realso going to want to create a
copy of this file and put it ina different place, like maybe a
safe deposit box or something.
And we're going to go throughsome of these items in this
checklist, and I'm going toelaborate a little bit more
deeply on them, so that you havea sense of what should be in
(04:01):
there. And for everyone, this isgoing to look just slightly
different, because everyone'ssituation is slightly different.
Everything that they have isslightly different. But this
file, this legacy file that weput together, there's going to
be things in it that change,right? Could be passwords, bank
accounts, things that we haveonline access to, and we're
(04:23):
probably going to want to changeour passwords occasionally, and
so this is going to be a filethat we will need to update at
different times. I recommendit's updated at least once a
year. I do our file around taxtime, and it's helpful when
you're pulling out a lot ofthese things and information,
and looking at it in thatmoment, it wouldn't be bad at
(04:45):
that time of tax time to pullthis file out and make sure
everything's current. But thenif you change something pretty
significant, maybe it's a bankaccount, or maybe you rolled a
401, K over somewhere, or youchanged insurance policy in
those moments, I. Pull out thefile, replace that piece
promptly, or add it in therepromptly, right when the change
happens. But outside of that, ifthere aren't any significant
(05:08):
changes, just create an annual,you know, calendar entry, and
just review it once a year tomake sure everything is most up
to date. All right, so here'sthe checklist, and again, I will
put a link, a PDF link, to thischecklist in the episode
description, so you can click onit and download it for yourself.
(05:29):
So the first thing in thislegacy file that you want is a
summary sheet. Think of italmost as like a table of
contents, but the summary sheet,it's going to describe what's in
the file and what each documentis used for, what's the purpose
of each one. So that's the firstthing that you want to have.
Type it up neatly, right? Justlike a table of contents, it can
(05:54):
be simple as saying, Will forPaul, will for Taryn, Power of
Attorney for Paul, Power ofAttorney for Taryn Paul's life
insurance policy, right? 2023,budget, and so on and so forth.
It's just going to provide asort of like a to do list or
checklist for that person who'staking care of these things when
we're gone. It'll listeverything. So that was the
(06:16):
first thing, the summary sheet.
The next section in the file,have your financial accounts. So
this is going to include all thefinancial institutions, the
account numbers you know, andthat's whether it's loans,
checking, savings CDs, minoraccounts, custodial accounts,
investment accounts, collegeaccounts, retirement accounts,
(06:38):
for one case, whatever you'vegot. And what I would like to
see, you know, in mine, you havethe institution, you have the
title, the account, and you canhave the username and password
to access these things. Youcould even put the URL, like the
website. And then I also like toput the balance. And the balance
(07:00):
is just helpful for reference.
It just gives an idea of thesignificance of that account,
right? If it's a big account orsmaller account. And again, this
is something that you're goingto update once a year, right? So
it's not you don't have toconstantly be in there if you
close an account or something,you know, again, a significant
(07:21):
change updated immediately, butdoing it at least annually just
keeps this fresh. The nextsection, have your will and your
estate documents. So this wouldinclude all your estate plans,
be sure to include the name ofyour executor, the trustees and
guardians. In the event that ifyou and your spouse die and you
have minor children, they needto have guardians designated. So
(07:43):
have all those names in there.
And I'd also include in thissection things like power of
attorneys and healthcaredirectives like that's all very,
very important. And I would putthat under the will and estate
documents section. The nextsection you're going to have is
insurance policies. So thatwould be all the insurances you
(08:03):
can think of, right, health,life, auto, disability, and the
list could go on, but have thepolicy names the insurance
company, names the name of thepolicy holder, right, the name
of the insured, and then who thebeneficiaries are. You know,
like life insurance. And it'salso helpful if you have a
contact at the insurancecompany, or you have a specific
(08:24):
agent you use, provide theirphone number details for someone
to get in touch with your agent,right if they needed to, so that
that was insurance site,Insurance Policies section, the
next section, put a copy of yourbudget in there. Now my
recommendation is, you know, wedo a monthly budget. I talk to
(08:44):
people about having a monthlybudget, but there's typically an
overall annual budget that we'reworking towards, right? And
because some things we payaren't monthly, some are
quarterly, some are annually, sothere's an annual aspect to it.
So it's not bad to have anannual summary of your budget,
and then also just a monthlyline item budget that will
(09:05):
provide what the income andexpenses are, so that if
something happens to you againthe day to day, you know, like,
the overhead of the householdcan easily be continued while
everything's getting sorted out.
And I would include how thosetransactions happen. So how does
the income come in? Is it adirect deposit? Do you look for
(09:25):
a check in the mail or on theexpenses? How do you pay them?
Is it an auto debit? Do youmanually go in and do a bill pay
through your bank? Do you pay itmanually on the website? Right
of the you know if it's utilitycompany or something, or you're
paying taxes, are theyquarterly? Are you paying this
(09:45):
monthly? Is it an annualpayment? And if it's an annual
payment, like, when do you paythat? Right? So having that
summary with your budget is sovery helpful. And again, if some
like for Taryn and I, ifsomething happens. Happened to
meand Terrence here, she could go
into this part of the file. Sheknows our monthly budget,
(10:06):
because she's part of it, right?
We meet and we talk about thesethings. She knows the bills that
we pay, but I'm the one thatactually pays the bills, right?
I'm the one that enters theinformation into the bill pay
and hits pay and send and allthat type of stuff. So she needs
to be able to understand, okay,what comes out automatically?
(10:26):
What does Paul have to write acheck for? Is this a monthly
expense, a quarterly expense, anannual one like these are
important things for her to beable to know. So having all that
in that budget section of thelegacy file is important. The
next section you want is taxreturns. Why do we need tax
returns? Well, tax returns areimportant in case, even after
(10:50):
you're dead, the IRS decided toaudit you, right? You'd want to
be able to have those documentsfor your family. Now, every year
I print out a paper copy of mytax return. It's probably one of
the few things I keep a papercopy of, but I also have an
online storage place where Ikeep copies of all those, and my
(11:14):
account has a copy of those,right? So with the tax return
section of the file, if you havepaper copy, it's great to put it
in there. If you don't haveinstructions of how to get the
tax returns, or maybe who yourCPA is, or where you you know
where someone could get a copyof your tax returns. And if
you're self employed, you need acopy of your business returns in
(11:38):
there as well. Okay. And again,if you've got storage, like a
Dropbox, Microsoft, one, GoogleDocs, something like that, have
instructions on how to get intothose files, all right? The next
section I'm going to label justas important documents. Right?
All of these things we've talkedabout are pretty important, but
(12:00):
this would be things like titlesto things we own, like vehicles.
It would also include deedsright to your property or other
properties you might own, birthcertificates, marriage
certificates, maybe othersacramental certificates,
baptism certificates, right,things like that. You can also
have social security cards,maybe a copy of your passport,
(12:23):
or anything else that kind offalls into this category. I
would also include in this file,like copies of a mortgage note
or letters of like a loansatisfaction or if you had debt
forgiveness, like copies ofthose documents are really
important. If things were to popup, you have that proof, so I
(12:45):
would definitely get thosecopies in there. So important
documents and anything else thatin your particular situation
that's important. Maybe, if youhave adopted children, maybe
it's a copy of your adoptionpapers, right? Those types of
things are very important, soput them in that section of the
folder. The next section youneed is your burial and funeral
(13:06):
instructions. So what kind offuneral or burial Do you want to
have? I want to have a Catholicfuneral mass. Maybe you have a
specific reading or a song thatyou want sung at your funeral.
Maybe there's a specific priestor Deacon that you want to, you
know, celebrate, or cosa youknow, be a co celebrant, and you
(13:27):
want them to say your mass. Ifyou have instructions on where
you're getting buried, youshould have that in there as
well. And you know, if you havea deed to a seminary plot, maybe
that's in that importantdocument section we just spoke
about. But listed in here say, Ihave a deed. It is at this, you
know, cemetery. Here's theinformation for the the plot
(13:48):
that we have. If you have a, ifyou've, you know, pre planned
your funeral. Maybe you have afuneral home already picked out.
You could have a copy of thoseinstructions in here as well.
So that was burial and funeralinstructions.
Next section,let's talk about email, social
accounts and other onlineaccounts. We need to have a
(14:09):
section in the legacy file withall the usernames, passwords,
pins, security questions andanswers for all of your email,
social and online accounts. Sothis This might include accounts
like, you know, Amazon orNetflix, right things, and
accounts that your family mayneed to access in order to
cancel or change when you'regone. So this is an important,
(14:31):
important file list them allthere, right? And again, this is
something when you change, youknow, if you change things,
passwords throughout the year,you'll you'll update this
annually so that you can have,you know, a pretty fresh set of
passwords in here, and then thesecond to last section I call
just letters or anything else.
(14:54):
Wow, that's pretty broad andvague, but some people have
letters. Dollars that they mightwant to leave for their spouse,
their kids, their grandkids.
This is a great place to putthem. Maybe it's an honoring or
a love note or a thank you noteto a friend or a family member.
Place it in here, and you canjust tell them how much you love
(15:16):
them, how much you're you knowgoing to be praying for them,
how proud you are of them, anyof those things that you'd want
them to be reminded of. It's notbad to write it in a beautiful
little note, and there's a greatplace to keep it. So you should
have all of these things in yourlegacy file. This is just a way
to show your family members thatyou love them. And the last part
of all these instructions is,and this is on the checklist,
(15:42):
have a duplicate file. So inthis last section, provide
instructions to the location ofyour duplicate file. Maybe you
provide a friend a copy, or yourexecutor has a copy. You know,
if you keep a copy in your safedeposit box, maybe you have a
bank safe deposit box, providethe bank name, the location,
(16:02):
instructions to access that box,right? All of this, all it does
is it defends against the riskof your legacy file being lost
or destroyed in some event, likea fire flood in your house,
right? So once you have allthose items, your legacy file,
it's complete, all you have todo is update it, and if there's
(16:22):
any significant changes, do itimmediately. If not, do it at
least once a year. Again, Irecommend around tax time,
that's when I do ours. Give it aquick update, making sure you
have the latest and greatestinformation in there. And the
last thing I'd like to mentionand relate it to all of this is
to tell people about the file.
(16:45):
Now, not everyone, but let yourexecutor know. Let your kids
know about the file and where itis. My plan when I have adult
children is to walk them throughthis file very specifically. I
already speak to my older kidsabout what would happen in the
event that both Tara and Ipassed away, and we don't do
(17:06):
that to worry them or frightenthem, but rather to let them
know from our own lips whatwould happen in that event. It
gives them the ability to ask usquestions as to why we picked
the guardians that we did, andwhat the financial future would
look like. It provides a senseof peace that if the
unimaginable thing happened,we have a plan.
(17:31):
I also remind my executortrustee, the kids potential
guardians each year, so thatthey also remember what they
agreed to do and to serve us.
You know how to serve us in theevents of our deaths, and it's
really the best way to let ourfamily know that we love them so
much we have a plan for one ofthe worst situations that could
(17:54):
occur. And when we talk aboutthis, we pray before we speak
about this, so that the evil oneand his fear stays far, far
away, and we invite the Lord andHis Holy Spirit to bring peace
and hope to our hearts as welovingly discuss these items. So
that's what I have for you.
Today. I'll be dropping a linkin the podcast description. It's
(18:17):
a direct link to the PDF filefor the legacy file checklist
that I just walked you through.
Click it. You can print it out.
Use this document to assembleyour file, and remember this is
a way to show your love and careto your family. I hope this has
(18:38):
been helpful. Thank you forjoining me today. God bless
Thank you for listening toCatholic money talk. I hope you
join us again next time, pleaseclick Subscribe in your podcast
app to get notified of newepisodes. God bless you and have
a great day. You.
Paul, Welcome to Catholic moneytalk, where we talk about all
things money and finance, and wetry to do it through a lens of
being Catholic, where ourultimate goal is to one day be
in Heaven with the Lord. I amyour host. Paul Scarfone, thank
you for being here today. Sotoday I'd like to talk about
(00:22):
what I call your legacy file.
But before we do that, let'sstart with a prayer in the name
of the Father and of the Son andof the Holy Spirit. Amen,
Heavenly Father, we thank youfor this day, we ask You for all
the grace and wisdom that weneed to face the challenges or
the circumstances that we findourselves in we know that you
love us and that you have agreat plan for us. Allow us to
(00:43):
yield to your Holy Spirit. ComeHoly Spirit, we ask all this in
Jesus name, amen, in the name ofthe Father and of the Son and of
the Holy Spirit. Amen. So alegacy file. What is that a
legacy file is where you willkeep all of your end of life and
other important documents andinstructions. It's a way of
(01:08):
loving your family and providingthem a tool that will help them
and give them peace, not onlywhile they're grieving your
loss, but as they try to wrap upyour affairs, that just a couple
of months ago, this was broughtback to my mind as an important
thing. Two months ago, back inFebruary, my grandmother passed
(01:30):
away, and my mom and my aunt areher only remaining children, and
my grandma was was 102 yearsold. And the last couple of
months, it's been a little bitof a scramble trying to pull
particular documents together,things like her will and some
trust documents, along withother instructions and things.
And I've been working with mymom and my aunt through this
(01:53):
time, and it really reinforcedsomething I try to have in place
for Taryn and I, but I also workto have this in place with my
clients, my coaching clients,and so we need to do this. We
need to create in a file all theimportant End of Life documents
that, God forbid somethinghappens to you or your spouse or
(02:15):
both of you. It's a place thathas instructions and maybe
answers to questions, and itwill provide at least a starting
point to many different areasand things, situations that are
important to the people ourfamily, that are wrapping up our
affairs at the end of our life.
(02:38):
So some of these things could befinancial. Some will be related
to insurance, maybe investments.
It'll have documents like willsor estate plans, instructions to
the guardians of if you haveminor children. It would also
include instructions for yourburial and funeral and any other
important documents, like leads,titles, maybe some certificates,
(02:58):
things that you have that areimportant and that other people,
if you were gone, would needthem and need to know where they
are. And you can also havethings in there, like your
monthly budget, a list of yourbank accounts. These are only
going to help whoever's lookingafter those things when you're
(03:18):
gone, so that they can haveaccess to it all. So the legacy
file is important to have, and Ihave a tool that I'm going to
share with you. I'll put thelink in the podcast description
for this episode, but it's alink to the legacy file
checklist, and it's going to bea good practice. Print it out.
Put it together. If you'remarried, put it together with
(03:40):
your spouse and designate wherein the house you're going to
keep this file. But then you'realso going to want to create a
copy of this file and put it ina different place, like maybe a
safe deposit box or something.
And we're going to go throughsome of these items in this
checklist, and I'm going toelaborate a little bit more
deeply on them, so that you havea sense of what should be in
(04:01):
there. And for everyone, this isgoing to look just slightly
different, because everyone'ssituation is slightly different.
Everything that they have isslightly different. But this
file, this legacy file that weput together, there's going to
be things in it that change,right? Could be passwords, bank
accounts, things that we haveonline access to, and we're
(04:23):
probably going to want to changeour passwords occasionally, and
so this is going to be a filethat we will need to update at
different times. I recommendit's updated at least once a
year. I do our file around taxtime, and it's helpful when
you're pulling out a lot ofthese things and information,
and looking at it in thatmoment, it wouldn't be bad at
(04:45):
that time of tax time to pullthis file out and make sure
everything's current. But thenif you change something pretty
significant, maybe it's a bankaccount, or maybe you rolled a
401, K over somewhere, or youchanged insurance policy in
those moments, I. Pull out thefile, replace that piece
promptly, or add it in therepromptly, right when the change
happens. But outside of that, ifthere aren't any significant
(05:08):
changes, just create an annual,you know, calendar entry, and
just review it once a year tomake sure everything is most up
to date. All right, so here'sthe checklist, and again, I will
put a link, a PDF link, to thischecklist in the episode
description, so you can click onit and download it for yourself.
(05:29):
So the first thing in thislegacy file that you want is a
summary sheet. Think of italmost as like a table of
contents, but the summary sheet,it's going to describe what's in
the file and what each documentis used for, what's the purpose
of each one. So that's the firstthing that you want to have.
Type it up neatly, right? Justlike a table of contents, it can
(05:54):
be simple as saying, Will forPaul, will for Taryn, Power of
Attorney for Paul, Power ofAttorney for Taryn Paul's life
insurance policy, right? 2023,budget, and so on and so forth.
It's just going to provide asort of like a to do list or
checklist for that person who'staking care of these things when
we're gone. It'll listeverything. So that was the
(06:16):
first thing, the summary sheet.
The next section in the file,have your financial accounts. So
this is going to include all thefinancial institutions, the
account numbers you know, andthat's whether it's loans,
checking, savings CDs, minoraccounts, custodial accounts,
investment accounts, collegeaccounts, retirement accounts,
(06:38):
for one case, whatever you'vegot. And what I would like to
see, you know, in mine, you havethe institution, you have the
title, the account, and you canhave the username and password
to access these things. Youcould even put the URL, like the
website. And then I also like toput the balance. And the balance
(07:00):
is just helpful for reference.
It just gives an idea of thesignificance of that account,
right? If it's a big account orsmaller account. And again, this
is something that you're goingto update once a year, right? So
it's not you don't have toconstantly be in there if you
close an account or something,you know, again, a significant
(07:21):
change updated immediately, butdoing it at least annually just
keeps this fresh. The nextsection, have your will and your
estate documents. So this wouldinclude all your estate plans,
be sure to include the name ofyour executor, the trustees and
guardians. In the event that ifyou and your spouse die and you
have minor children, they needto have guardians designated. So
(07:43):
have all those names in there.
And I'd also include in thissection things like power of
attorneys and healthcaredirectives like that's all very,
very important. And I would putthat under the will and estate
documents section. The nextsection you're going to have is
insurance policies. So thatwould be all the insurances you
(08:03):
can think of, right, health,life, auto, disability, and the
list could go on, but have thepolicy names the insurance
company, names the name of thepolicy holder, right, the name
of the insured, and then who thebeneficiaries are. You know,
like life insurance. And it'salso helpful if you have a
contact at the insurancecompany, or you have a specific
(08:24):
agent you use, provide theirphone number details for someone
to get in touch with your agent,right if they needed to, so that
that was insurance site,Insurance Policies section, the
next section, put a copy of yourbudget in there. Now my
recommendation is, you know, wedo a monthly budget. I talk to
(08:44):
people about having a monthlybudget, but there's typically an
overall annual budget that we'reworking towards, right? And
because some things we payaren't monthly, some are
quarterly, some are annually, sothere's an annual aspect to it.
So it's not bad to have anannual summary of your budget,
and then also just a monthlyline item budget that will
(09:05):
provide what the income andexpenses are, so that if
something happens to you againthe day to day, you know, like,
the overhead of the householdcan easily be continued while
everything's getting sorted out.
And I would include how thosetransactions happen. So how does
the income come in? Is it adirect deposit? Do you look for
(09:25):
a check in the mail or on theexpenses? How do you pay them?
Is it an auto debit? Do youmanually go in and do a bill pay
through your bank? Do you pay itmanually on the website? Right
of the you know if it's utilitycompany or something, or you're
paying taxes, are theyquarterly? Are you paying this
(09:45):
monthly? Is it an annualpayment? And if it's an annual
payment, like, when do you paythat? Right? So having that
summary with your budget is sovery helpful. And again, if some
like for Taryn and I, ifsomething happens. Happened to
meand Terrence here, she could go
into this part of the file. Sheknows our monthly budget,
(10:06):
because she's part of it, right?
We meet and we talk about thesethings. She knows the bills that
we pay, but I'm the one thatactually pays the bills, right?
I'm the one that enters theinformation into the bill pay
and hits pay and send and allthat type of stuff. So she needs
to be able to understand, okay,what comes out automatically?
(10:26):
What does Paul have to write acheck for? Is this a monthly
expense, a quarterly expense, anannual one like these are
important things for her to beable to know. So having all that
in that budget section of thelegacy file is important. The
next section you want is taxreturns. Why do we need tax
returns? Well, tax returns areimportant in case, even after
(10:50):
you're dead, the IRS decided toaudit you, right? You'd want to
be able to have those documentsfor your family. Now, every year
I print out a paper copy of mytax return. It's probably one of
the few things I keep a papercopy of, but I also have an
online storage place where Ikeep copies of all those, and my
(11:14):
account has a copy of those,right? So with the tax return
section of the file, if you havepaper copy, it's great to put it
in there. If you don't haveinstructions of how to get the
tax returns, or maybe who yourCPA is, or where you you know
where someone could get a copyof your tax returns. And if
you're self employed, you need acopy of your business returns in
(11:38):
there as well. Okay. And again,if you've got storage, like a
Dropbox, Microsoft, one, GoogleDocs, something like that, have
instructions on how to get intothose files, all right? The next
section I'm going to label justas important documents. Right?
All of these things we've talkedabout are pretty important, but
(12:00):
this would be things like titlesto things we own, like vehicles.
It would also include deedsright to your property or other
properties you might own, birthcertificates, marriage
certificates, maybe othersacramental certificates,
baptism certificates, right,things like that. You can also
have social security cards,maybe a copy of your passport,
(12:23):
or anything else that kind offalls into this category. I
would also include in this file,like copies of a mortgage note
or letters of like a loansatisfaction or if you had debt
forgiveness, like copies ofthose documents are really
important. If things were to popup, you have that proof, so I
(12:45):
would definitely get thosecopies in there. So important
documents and anything else thatin your particular situation
that's important. Maybe, if youhave adopted children, maybe
it's a copy of your adoptionpapers, right? Those types of
things are very important, soput them in that section of the
folder. The next section youneed is your burial and funeral
(13:06):
instructions. So what kind offuneral or burial Do you want to
have? I want to have a Catholicfuneral mass. Maybe you have a
specific reading or a song thatyou want sung at your funeral.
Maybe there's a specific priestor Deacon that you want to, you
know, celebrate, or cosa youknow, be a co celebrant, and you
(13:27):
want them to say your mass. Ifyou have instructions on where
you're getting buried, youshould have that in there as
well. And you know, if you havea deed to a seminary plot, maybe
that's in that importantdocument section we just spoke
about. But listed in here say, Ihave a deed. It is at this, you
know, cemetery. Here's theinformation for the the plot
(13:48):
that we have. If you have a, ifyou've, you know, pre planned
your funeral. Maybe you have afuneral home already picked out.
You could have a copy of thoseinstructions in here as well.
So that was burial and funeralinstructions.
Next section,let's talk about email, social
accounts and other onlineaccounts. We need to have a
(14:09):
section in the legacy file withall the usernames, passwords,
pins, security questions andanswers for all of your email,
social and online accounts. Sothis This might include accounts
like, you know, Amazon orNetflix, right things, and
accounts that your family mayneed to access in order to
cancel or change when you'regone. So this is an important,
(14:31):
important file list them allthere, right? And again, this is
something when you change, youknow, if you change things,
passwords throughout the year,you'll you'll update this
annually so that you can have,you know, a pretty fresh set of
passwords in here, and then thesecond to last section I call
just letters or anything else.
(14:54):
Wow, that's pretty broad andvague, but some people have
letters. Dollars that they mightwant to leave for their spouse,
their kids, their grandkids.
This is a great place to putthem. Maybe it's an honoring or
a love note or a thank you noteto a friend or a family member.
Place it in here, and you canjust tell them how much you love
(15:16):
them, how much you're you knowgoing to be praying for them,
how proud you are of them, anyof those things that you'd want
them to be reminded of. It's notbad to write it in a beautiful
little note, and there's a greatplace to keep it. So you should
have all of these things in yourlegacy file. This is just a way
to show your family members thatyou love them. And the last part
of all these instructions is,and this is on the checklist,
(15:42):
have a duplicate file. So inthis last section, provide
instructions to the location ofyour duplicate file. Maybe you
provide a friend a copy, or yourexecutor has a copy. You know,
if you keep a copy in your safedeposit box, maybe you have a
bank safe deposit box, providethe bank name, the location,
(16:02):
instructions to access that box,right? All of this, all it does
is it defends against the riskof your legacy file being lost
or destroyed in some event, likea fire flood in your house,
right? So once you have allthose items, your legacy file,
it's complete, all you have todo is update it, and if there's
(16:22):
any significant changes, do itimmediately. If not, do it at
least once a year. Again, Irecommend around tax time,
that's when I do ours. Give it aquick update, making sure you
have the latest and greatestinformation in there. And the
last thing I'd like to mentionand relate it to all of this is
to tell people about the file.
(16:45):
Now, not everyone, but let yourexecutor know. Let your kids
know about the file and where itis. My plan when I have adult
children is to walk them throughthis file very specifically. I
already speak to my older kidsabout what would happen in the
event that both Tara and Ipassed away, and we don't do
(17:06):
that to worry them or frightenthem, but rather to let them
know from our own lips whatwould happen in that event. It
gives them the ability to ask usquestions as to why we picked
the guardians that we did, andwhat the financial future would
look like. It provides a senseof peace that if the
unimaginable thing happened,we have a plan.
(17:31):
I also remind my executortrustee, the kids potential
guardians each year, so thatthey also remember what they
agreed to do and to serve us.
You know how to serve us in theevents of our deaths, and it's
really the best way to let ourfamily know that we love them so
much we have a plan for one ofthe worst situations that could
(17:54):
occur. And when we talk aboutthis, we pray before we speak
about this, so that the evil oneand his fear stays far, far
away, and we invite the Lord andHis Holy Spirit to bring peace
and hope to our hearts as welovingly discuss these items. So
that's what I have for you.
Today. I'll be dropping a linkin the podcast description. It's
(18:17):
a direct link to the PDF filefor the legacy file checklist
that I just walked you through.
Click it. You can print it out.
Use this document to assembleyour file, and remember this is
a way to show your love and careto your family. I hope this has
(18:38):
been helpful. Thank you forjoining me today. God bless
Thank you for listening toCatholic money talk. I hope you
join us again next time, pleaseclick Subscribe in your podcast
app to get notified of newepisodes. God bless you and have
a great day. You.
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