Life Changing

Yep I think this thing is that good... and that important.
If something happened RIGHT NOW to you or your spouse, something unexpected, something potentially life altering would you be prepared? And I don't mean emotionally... I mean literally... would you know what you needed to know to take over the running of your house? To make the medical decisions that they would want you to make? Could you take over the finances? Do you know where all the "important" papers are or even which ones are "important"? Do you even know what kind of life insurance policy your spouse has? Do you? Because I have to admit that I don't.

If you lost your wallet how easy would it be for you to get all your cards cancelled? What about that Ann Taylor's charge card you haven't used in 3 years?

If you had to evacuate your house RIGHT NOW (and sure that seems preposterous... but it happens people) what would you take with you and could you get at it all? Do you know where you would go? Do your kids know? I'm not even trying to be dramatic people I'm being completely serious. These are the things that we all put off and then one day something happens and you find yourself in a whole heap of trouble.

For Christmas my best friend gave us Life.doc a binder that comes with all the things you need to get EVERYTHING organized into one easy-to-use and completely portable system. The binder is filled with pocketed dividers for 8 sections. The sections come with pre-printed forms that you can actually fill out on your computer (CD-ROM included) and print out or fill in by hand.

The sections are:

Emergency Plan (meet up locations, contact names, whose got the keys, etc.)
Family Basics (phone #s, DOB, work & school names & #s, etc.)
In Sickness & In Health (primary doctors, specialists, blood type, organ donor, allergies, medications, etc.)
Insurance (health, liability, disability, pet, mortgage, etc.)
Dollars & Sense (banks, CPA, financial advisor, loans, investment accounts, credit cards, safety deposit box, mortgage, pension, etc.)
Legal Ease (lawyers, locations of: car title, house title, wills, birth certificates, custody agreement, divorce settlement, etc
Caregiver Information (childcare information including emergency authorization forms, elder care, house sitting, etc.)
Home Sweet Home (electrician, alarm company, dog walker, etc)


I cannot stress enough how thorough these pre-printed forms are. There is a spot for ALL your vital information. From where you want to meet up in an emergency to the name of your electrician. There is even a spot for you to sketch out the location of your water main! Even if you are organized and think you could find all this stuff... could someone else? I mean really think about it... you aren't just doing this for yourself you are doing this to ease the burden on someone else. This is exactly the kind of thing we are all putting off until it would be really useful... you know until you have kids, or a *real* house, or *real* money. The thing is... this is all about being ready for what you have RIGHT NOW. Guess what? You can get another one in 5 years if you need to rewrite it. And you know who needs this just as much as you do? Your parents! Do you know where all their stuff is should you need to access it? Yeah. Me either.

I also wanted to add a little note to make it clear that although these forms call for pretty much every piece of information you have... the forms are written in such a way as to make the process as stress-free as possible. They ask you a question and you fill in the blank. Period.
Oh and you can get it at Target! (and The Container Store and at the link above)