Episode overview:

Estate planning is complex. Administering an estate after someone passes can take over 500 hours, especially if the person who passed did not have things organized.

In this episode, host Wendy Green gets into the complexities of estate planning and administering the estate with guest Adam Zuckerman. Adam is the founder of BuriedInWork. Together, they uncover the critical, often overlooked aspects of preparing for end-of-life matters in the digital age. Adam shares his personal journey of navigating his late father's estate, emphasizes the importance of comprehensive organization, and offers actionable advice for ensuring your loved ones aren't left in a lurch when someone passes.

Episode highlights:

Critical Steps Post-Death: Wendy and Adam outline the 56 steps to manage an estate after death, including notifying authorities, securing the deceased’s property, and caring for dependents and pets.

Digital Age Dilemmas: Managing digital accounts, passwords, and transitioning from mail to digital notifications adds complexity to estate management. Adam recommends having systems in place for organizing both physical and digital accounts.

Prepare Beyond Basics: Estate planning goes beyond just having a will or trust. Ensure you have all necessary documents like advanced directives, living wills, and organized digital legacies.

Key Takeaways:

• Visit buriedinwork.com for free resources like the "Ask Three Questions" guide and an estate summary worksheet.
• Start organizing your estate now by documenting assets, updating beneficiaries, and informing family members of your plans.
• Utilize the "Clear Kit" to ensure all essential information is compiled and easily accessible to your heirs.
• Collaborate with professionals such as attorneys, CPAs, and doctors to ensure your estate planning is thorough and comprehensive.
• Actively engage your family or heirs in the planning process to ensure they understand your wishes and know where to find important documents.

Call to Action:

• Share the Podcast: Help spread the invaluable information found in this episode by sharing Boomer Banter with your friends and family.
• Join the Community: Visit the heyBoomer.biz webpage and click on Connect With Us to become a part of the Boomer Banter community and stay updated on future episodes and events.
• Discount Offer: Take advantage of the 10% discount on the "Clear Kit" and games by using going to the BuriedInWork website and using the code "boomerbanter" at checkout.
• Support our sponsor: Check out all that CareLink360 has to offer to help you stay connected with loved ones who do not live close by. They also provide added security and many other resources to help your loved one. Use the code "boomer" on checkout for 5% off purchase

Mentioned in this episode:

CareLink 360

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Hello and welcome to Boomer Banter, the podcast where we have real talk about aging. Well, my name is Wendy Green, and I am your host for Boomer Banter. And with many years of aging, well experience and plenty more to come, I am here to tackle all of the uncomfortable, unexpected, and hopefully life affirming questions you've been pondering to help you make the journey a little less rocky and a lot more fun. So if you want to age well, you are in the right place. You feel prepared for your heirs to manage your estate right after you pass. Everything's in order. Or maybe you haven't even started to prepare. It just feels too overwhelming.

Well, there is a lot to think about when preparing all of your paperwork, all of your documents and your online stuff. And it's not just about having a will, although that is important. And it's not just about appointing a power of attorney or a healthcare advocate, as I mentioned earlier. What about all of your online presence, all of your bank accounts and credit card accounts and Facebook and LinkedIn and YouTube and on and on and on. And have you thought about who's going to take care of your pet if you die before they do? What about your car? Or what about burial plans or cremation plans? And so many things to think about. And then once you've thought about these, do your heirs know what your thoughts are? Have you sat down and talked to them? And do they know where to find everything? That is what this episode is about. Administering an estate is so much more complicated in the digital age. My guest today is Adam Zuckerman.

He's the founder of Buried and Work, a leading e commerce platform specializing in estate planning and organization, end of life tasks, and estate transitions. Adam has a deeply personal motivation stemming from his experience managing his father's estate, and he is dedicated to simplifying these complex processes for individuals and families nationwide. As an Eisenhower fellow attorney and MBA, Adam brings a wealth of expertise to his role, combining legal knowledge with entrepreneurial vision to drive innovation in the field of estate planning. So let's welcome Adam Zuckerman to Boomer banter.

Wendy, it's great to be here today. Thank you.

Well, I'm glad you're joining us. You know, there's a lot to talk about here, so I want to just dive right in. Okay.

Yep. Let's do it.

Let's start with the things to think about before someone dies. Like the stuff we can plan. So start filling me in on what are some of the key documents that I need to gather.

Yeah, it's interesting. So when most people think about comprehensive estate planning, they really just think about a will or a trust. Those are the documents that people go to over and over and over. Do I need a will? Do I need a trust? How do I put one in place? But the reality is that comprehensive estate planning takes so much more than that. It's not just about the transition of your assets after you pass away, but it's preparing your family members, your loved one, your heirs, to be able to step in in the event that you're incapacitated and can't advocate for yourself, in the event that you have to transition to assisted living, nursing home, something else in that regard. And for each step along the way through end of life care to transitioning in your estate, there are different documents that come into play. So, to answer the question specifically, we think that you should have an end of life plan. You should have advanced directives in place.

You should have a living will. You should have notes for family members and let them know where the most important things in your life are. We actually have a system called the clear kit that helps you do that because you don't want to send your family on that scavenger hunt. And that scavenger hunt, quite frankly, is a horrible process for a lot of people. On average, it takes 570 hours to administer an estate in the United States. And that's because people have to find the documents, find the information that should be readily available, and we can go into that process if you'd like.

Well, we will. We will. So when I was looking at some of the stuff, I downloaded a free thing from your site about my estate, you know, planning for yours. And one of the things that was about your beneficiaries and your pay on death and things like that, how do we know what we need to do there?

That's the problem. So there's the known knowns. I should be getting my estate organized. There's the known unknowns. Oh, I'm sure that I should have a legal document that lets people advocate for me in the event that I can't advocate for myself. And then there's the unknown unknowns. What's out there that I just haven't thought of? And that's really why you want to leverage professionals that are in the space that can really walk you through that process or get you educated. And an example that I like to give is, I was speaking with an individual from Virginia.

He was married, he had two kids, he had a will. And when he got divorced, he ended up updating his will. So in the event that something happened to him, 50% of his assets would go to each child. Makes sense. And he asked me, do I need the estate preparation package, which has now evolved into the clear kit? And what can I learn from buried in work? Because I want to make sure that my estate is actually organized. So he's being very proactive. And I asked him if he had updated his payable and death beneficiaries on his bank accounts. He went, no, I don't need to.

I updated my will. If something happens to me, it goes to my kids, 50 50, nice and easy. But what he didn't realize is that your payable on death beneficiaries on your bank accounts, on your insurance policies, on your retirement accounts, those get processed before your will does because those are contractual relationships. So his ex wife was actually going to receive everything still that was in those accounts and those policies and the event something were to happen to him, he was fortunately able to update the will to honor his wishes and his documents, to honor his wishes and what he wanted. But that's the type of example that I think is really important, that people understand, is that most people would have no concept or idea to even think about, oh, I need to go and update these type of accounts, because it's just not something that we deal with on our daily routines. And that's what we need to help people do, is go through the steps of update this, check that, do this, do that, and depending where you are in your life, whether you're 1819 years old, 25, 50, that your estate plan is built today for tomorrow, but can evolve with you over time for whenever it is needed.

Right, right. And I also want people to know that there are things that they can do now before they access other professional services. So they can go to their bank now and say, I need to put a payroll on debt on there, and I have two children, do I put just the one who's the executor or do I put them both?

Well, that's the question. So in that instance, you don't want to choose just the executor, because that means that all the money will go to the executor personally. And that skips the entire process. What you want to do, rather, is figure out first, before you start going to your banks to updating things, is having a general understanding of what is in your estate itself. So, first step, you have to take an inventory. This is what I have. This is what I want to have happen. The second thing that you need to do is educate the people that are going to be impacted saying, hey, I have started this process and in the event something were to happen to me, this is where in the house you should go, or this is who you should contact because they have the information that's going to be your guideline, your directions.

And then after you have that in place, then you can start the process. And the reason why I say you should notify people before you even do the work of reaching out to banks and organizing everything is because if you do all this work and you don't tell anybody that you've done it, it's not as effective. It takes a lot of time and a lot of effort and foresight to actually put a comprehensive plan in place. Doesn't mean that it's difficult, but there are certain steps that you have to follow. But it's really easy to let people know that you've started. So first thing is let people know. Start your inventory, and then you can start working through that process. But going to your banks, going to your financial companies, that's exactly the right type of thing that you want to do.

We actually have a free product. It's called ask three questions. You can find it on our resources page on the website, and it gives you the three most important questions that you should ask about every single one of your accounts that you have, whether it's financial or insurance or benefits. Because if you answer those questions, you're going to have an understanding of what happens to those accounts and your heirs are going to have the information that they need to transition it per your wishes, whatever that is.

And we're going to share your website here. Towards the end, I also mentioned how complex this can be in the digital age. So it's not just I need to leave you where my passwords are, and I personally have a password manager. My mother said all her passwords written down, which change, which makes me crazy sometimes, because then I don't know what they are. But then there's the two factor authentication, or what's the name of your favorite pet when you were growing up? Or those kinds of things. Where do we keep track of all of that?

And that's up to you. You're unique, just like everybody else. Some people, like my mom, may keep it on a yellow pad or a note on her phone, which, like you, it drives me crazy because if a password changes, I don't have access to it. At least that's the way it used to be. It's a lot more organized now. But the thing is that you're right. With the digital shift in people's lives, we don't only have to think about how passwords are managed and stored. We don't have to only think about what happens to our images on our phones.

The accounts that we have with Facebook, with LinkedIn, with Bill pay, it also has to be accessible. And we have a system. It's the clear kit that we talked about briefly or mentioned briefly. And it helps you organize all of this information because it is such a critical part of not only organizing your life, but also transitioning everything. It used to be that in the event something were to happen to you, the lawyer would oftentimes joke a little bit, banter, so to speak, of, well, don't worry about it. You're going to figure out what bills they need to pay and what accounts they have by checking the mail. Because if you didn't pay a bill for two months, for three months, they'd send you a letter and it would say, you have an overdue notice. This account is delinquent.

You go, oh, I didn't know about this credit card. I should go and talk, right? But that's changed because a lot of people have opted out of paper based notifications because it's more efficient to get it on your phone or your email. It's better for the environment because we're not sending paper and going through the mail. But that means that if you don't actually have access to the accounts, you can completely miss those accounts. And some of those accounts might be very important. Now, one of the steps that you should do is say, this is where I spend my money every single month, every year. Here are the important bills that need to be paid. For example, if you're married and something happens to your spouse or your partner in the house, the bills still have to be paid for your mortgage, for your utilities, for your rent.

What happens if the person who passes away is the one who is responsible for that? You have to be able to be informed and knowledgeable to know not only how to pay the bills, but where they're paid and when paid. It doesn't really matter if Netflix gets missed. You'll notice when you can't watch your streaming show anymore. But there are really important things that are super time sensitive, and it goes even beyond just your housing and your utilities. There was one person that we helped. She was utilizing one of our checklists, and it says, make sure that all of your accounts are up to speed. And, I'm paraphrasing, are current and paid and that, you know, when they need to be paid to. But the husband and the relationship was in the hospital.

He wasn't paying bills because he was not in a place where he could do so. And they started going through the checklist, and they called up their life insurance policy, and it turns out that in two days time, their $403,000 life insurance policy was gonna lapse and they were gonna lose all of it.

And they were not gonna be notified.

Oh, they didn't know. They called up the insurance company. They got an extension by a day or two. They overnighted a check. It got there just in time with the extension. A week later, the individual passed away and they made the claim and they got the $403,000 check. They literally lost over $400,000 that they didn't check to make sure that something was paid. And that's the impact that we're talking about.

This can have life changing implications. And you may think, oh, no, it's really easy. So and so has access to my email, or they know where my phone is, they'll be able to get in. But that scavenger hunt is critical. Time and effort that can be spent elsewhere. And we want to make it easy for people to not have to go on that scavenger hunt.

Yeah. And that just leads us directly into, now you're the person that has to manage this estate. First. I set it up. I try to make it as easy as I can, and everything's all checks, boxes checked. But now here you are, you have to manage my estate. So the first thing is, what is the first thing you're gonna do when I pass? And I say, you say, okay, now I gotta manage this estate.

Yeah. So we actually have a checklist, and it's currently the what to do after someone dies checklist. We're gonna combine that pretty soon with the what to do before someone dies checklist and create a new checklist, the end of life checklist. But the what to do after someone dies checklist literally has 56 steps of things that you need to do with information for each. And that's just scratching the tip of the iceberg. Now, there's some really important things that have to happen. Inform the appropriate authorities of the passing, for example, and then explaining why and who does that. And as you move through the specific steps, some may take a little bit more time than others.

Some aren't as time sensitive. You learn about all the nuances of what you need to do. So obtaining the verification and the pronouncement of death, identifying if medical research or organ donation program arrangements exist. You have to arrange for the transfer of the body. You have to keep track of all the property, the income, the debts, expenses and correspondence. You need to secure the decedent's residence and their personal property. You have to notify family and friends. You may want to create an obituary.

You have to determine if there's the last rule and testament. You have to arrange for care of dependents, arranging for care of their pets. The list goes on and on and on. And these are only the things that you have to do in the first week or so, some of which unbelievably time sensitive. And as things move forward, it's going to be this decision tree of tasks that you need to do. And if you've never gone through it before, there's going to be a very steep learning curve. But you don't need to have that. And for us, and there's lots of organizations that can help you if you don't come to us, find another one.

Get a free checklist like the one that we have. It's free and it will walk you through, help you get organized and just save stress in a time of mourning, of grief, of confusion when it doesn't need to be as bad as it often is for so many people.

Yeah, I mean, I looked at that checklist and I was like, oh, my gosh. So other things that you didn't mention cancel upcoming appointments?

Yeah, right.

And how are you going to know what those are if you can't get online into their computer and into their phone and see what their calendar says? Cancel prescriptions. What about the car then? Do they still have a driver's license? And what are you going to do about the car?

It's filing for benefits. How is your insurance impacted? Do they have stored reproductive materials? Because a lot of people use IVF these days. Do they have multiple email accounts that need to be maintained? Do you have to notify accounts to be shifted? Do you have to check unclaimed property? Do you have to evaluate if probate or state administration is necessary? Or if you can go through a simplified estate process? There's so many different things and you can go as deep as you want to do. But the problem is that a lot of people just wait and they think that, oh, it's okay, somebody has the key to my safe or they know my files are in the desk. But that scavenger hunt isn't something you want to have. Now here's an analogy. If I invited you over for dinner tonight and I said, you should come over. We're going to cook when you get here.

We're going to make a great dinner. I've got the ingredients, the recipe. You walk in the door, the oven's preheated, we can get to work. We're going to crack a bottle of wine, maybe, and we cook. And it's easy, it's fun, it's relaxed. But if I invite you over and the door is locked, I'm not home yet. You have a tight schedule. You have to break into the house.

You have to find the ingredients. You don't realize that the dinner that we're cooking is actually, half of the ingredients are in a closet behind a shoebox for some reason. It's going to be a lot harder for us to make that meal. Right?

Yeah.

And that's literally what people are doing unintentionally. And by doing that, not only are they causing all this stress, but they're also setting themselves up. And in the event that they change their mind later and they say, hey, I want to get organized now. They're doing that at a time when they're probably rather, or it would probably be a better experience for them spending time with their family member. Not having to go over their estate in times of stress is not. When you want to do this, you want to do this like insurance before you need to, and then update it along the way.

Yeah. So there was an incident that happened in your life. You didn't start out thinking, I'm gonna grow up and create a business for people to organize their end of life. Talk to us about your dad and what was the incident that happened?

Yeah, my dad was a great person throughout my life. I was very fortunate that he instilled values of helping other people, giving back, always finding the pleasure in life, even in different and difficult situations. One of the card games that we created, it's called one more story. I was in the hospital with him, a few other people, family members, right before he came home for hospice care. And we realized that things werent going the way that we hoped. He had been in the hospital for quite some time, in and out over the previous seven years, six and a half years, because he had leukemia. And I actually donated bone marrow to him the first time he had it. Then it came back.

They put him in remission. He was at my house. He was doing some woodworking with me in the basement. He walked up the stairs. He said, adam, im tired. And unlike you or me, when we say it, we take a nap. He goes to the doctor because leukemia is a blood cancer, you get tired. So he goes to the doctor, they run some tests, they tell him to check in on a Thursday, and he dies twelve days later.

So we're in the hospital before he passes away, and we're just telling stories. Dad, tell us one more story about when you were a kid. Tell us one more story about this. What do you think about that? And we turn that into a card game. One more story with 126 cards that are designed with clinical social workers and game designers so they're easy to understand. And literally, the feel of the cards is a linen feel, so people with dexterity can hold them easily. And during that conversation, a nurse walks in and my dad turns the nurse, and he knows her by name now because he's friendly with everybody on the floor. He's been back there quite some time.

And he goes, hey, nurse, whatever her name was, why is a giraffe's neck so long? And she looks at him like he's crazy. She goes, I don't know, Andy, why? So it can reach his head. Stupid dad joke. This is a guy who used to be senior executive service in the government at the IR's. He was acting director of federal, state and local government gold audit, Michigan. Right. And he's literally about to pass away in a matter of weeks or days at the time. And he's making jokes, trying to cheer up other people.

No, I'm not. And that's my dad. So I didn't expect to be doing this. You're right. I helped my mom transition everything. And I was probably a little bit more organized than I should. Literally every single step that I did, I called this company for this reason, this date, this time, this was the conversation. This is how long it lasted.

This is what the next steps are. So in the event I made a mistake, we could see what it was. In the event that my sisters and my mom wanted to know what was going on, because my mom was still around transitioning, we would all have a very good understanding. And when I showed my moms financial planner what I had put together, she said at the end of the conversation, that was the most comprehensive transition shes ever seen. And I had to give it away to other people. And on the one hand, I was going, ah, a devil on the shoulder. Its not that organized. She just doesnt want you to move your moms money to someone else shoulder.

And im going, yeah, its kind of organized. Lets talk to some people. So I showed it to some of my friends who are my age, were sandwich generation taking care of both parents, not taking care of, but involved in our parents lives, in our kids lives, our own lives. 15% of sandwich generation now is responsible for multiple generations, which is interesting. And overwhelmingly everybody that I spoke to said, this is something you should give away to other people. You have to figure it out. So I made a website buried in work.com dot. We originally were looking at the name good grief, but, you know, goes back to my dad's personality.

We like puns. So Barry didn't work. Hahaha. And in the first week, we had over 10,000 visits to the website. And it was unexpected and people started coming to us saying, I came to your website, thank you for the resource. You told me how to organize my estate and what information I need to collect, but can you actually help me do it? And we realized that this was a significant need. So with 10,000 Americans turning 65 every single day in the country, with more than twice as many people going to be 65 by the end of the decade as they are today, and with women outliving male husbands by 5.8 years on average in the country, there's a lot of challenge that's about to pop up for a lot of people, millions of Americans. And we wanted to set out to just make it easier.

And that's what buried in work is doing now. So we've got checklists and guides and articles. 20 directories are on the website now that we're improving and releasing 30,000 directories for what? Yeah, so the directories for service providers and other things. So if you want to find a cemetery near you, or a estate planning attorney or a grief counselor or a hospice.

So state by state, you have these things?

Yeah. Searchable? Searchable, yeah. We've got a directory for every single podcast. It's the most comprehensive directory now for end of life and estate planning podcasts.

And Boomer banter is on there.

Of course Boomer banter is on there. We have our games that we mentioned. We've got the clear kit, we've got templates, and we keep rolling out new resources. Somebody called us up and said, I'm in the hospital. My mom hit her head and the person next to me in the waiting room is complaining to the person that she's with that she's having trouble contacting Amazon because they don't know how to get into somebody's account and they need to get into the account, but the person is in the hospital. So we reached out to nearly 100 big companies in the United States and now we have just instructions on what to do if you need to contact them when someone's incapacitated or passes away. And we just keep rolling out these resources like that because the reality is that people need help during this time of need, that you shouldn't have to figure out how to plan a funeral on your own, that you shouldn't have to go and research what happens at a christian or hindu or jewish or non secular or an LGBTQ event celebrating someone's life. We can gather it all for you.

We're going to help you along the way. We're going to give you a lot of free resources if you're doing it yourself, if you want help, we're there for you. And if we can't help you, we want to send you to somebody that can.

Yeah. I mean, as you go through the checklist, Adam, I don't know that I mentioned this to you, but my mom used to put together end of life conversations where she lives, and she would have all these. The lawyers and the accountants and the hospice people, they'd come in and talk, but it used to be a lot simpler, and now there are so many loose pieces, and it can become overwhelming and you think you've got it. Like you thought you had a lot organized before your dad passed because he'd been sick, and you suddenly find out there's so much more.

Yeah.

And then you got to keep updating it.

Yeah, that's exactly right. The perception that you're organized for you is very different than the perception of the people that are going to have to utilize the information that you have. And I can't tell you how many times I've had a conversation with somebody's parent. We actually have a service. Start the conversation with your parents, where we'll go through our free estate preparation worksheet with you. We'll go through the end of life worksheet with you so you can start filling it out. And the conversation is pretty interesting where people go, oh, no, we're already good. My son knows where the key to my safe is or the combination of my safe, and they think that's literally, that's all they need is, oh, they know where my watch is.

They can figure everything else out. It's not going to take them a lot of time. And it is so difficult to see people go through this process when it's very easily avoidable with just a little bit of time and effort. So that's what we're trying to do.

So you mentioned somewhere in that list of things, funeral plans, and you don't want to have to do them in the last minute. So I saw two things. There's pre need funeral insurance and final expense insurance. What's the difference and how do we decide what we need?

Yeah, so I don't want to go into the details of every single type of insurance that you can get. Depending on who you speak to, they can be characterized differently. Some insurance is life insurance that will pay out, and there's different types of that. You can come to the web page and we can explain to you there what you need. Sometimes you prepay for a funeral itself. Uh, sometimes your life insurance can pay for your funeral. And that's why there's a lot of, of different variables. But effectively, if you're really curious, you want to be looking at for life insurance, your term life, your whole life, your universal life, your variable life.

If you really want, we can talk about those, but I think it's easier to send people to the webpage to handle all that. But when you think about pre need insurance, that's an industry term to prepay for your funeral expenses. So it's just an easier thing to do. And the intended byproduct of that is if you are pre planning your funeral, then you're giving the instructions to your loved ones and it saves them a lot of time and stress.

And you can do that whether you're going to be buried or cremated.

Yeah, absolutely. Or turn into a coral reef or sent into space or turn into a tree, or if you want a green burial, there's options for everybody. No.

So you, so did you find that when you had to administer your dad's estate that it did take you that 500 plus hours to do it?

A little bit less? I was able to move pretty quickly, but there's obviously times that you have to have that check mark. So once you notify and file the will with the state or the jurisdiction that you're in, there is a notice period that creditors have the ability to write in. So you can't actually do anything. You have to wait. It's a process per state, by state by state. Luckily, we were a little bit more organized than most. I knew most of his passwords, I knew most of his accounts, but there were some things that definitely took a little bit longer than I thought. And there's some things that we still got to figure out.

Just because the time lapse hasn't required us to do something like transitioning a car, for example. In Maryland where we live, you don't have to update the title of the registration on a vehicle until the title expires or is about to expire. If you want to transfer it, you don't have to do it right away. So there's a lot of weird stuff like that.

Yeah. So talk to me about this clear kit. Now, I ordered one right now I have everything in a notebook.

Yep.

And everything. I have everything that I have in a notebook. But as I've looked at your list, there's a whole lot more that I need to put in there. But talk to me about what I'm going to get when I get my clear kit.

All right, so the clear kit stands. It's an acronym. It's a comprehensive legacy in a state administration repository kit. So comprehensive, there's a lot of information, legacy, what happens to you after you pass, and a state administration repository kit. So it's not going to create your will, it's not going to create your trust. We'll link you to resources to help you get those if you need it. But this is the place where you gather all of your information. So when the individuals in your household need to step in, where your family members, your loved ones, your heirs, executor, administrator need to step in, they have all the information that they need in one easy to find place.

Now, it is designed to have specific groupings of information kept within that grouping. So there's three binders that comes with it. The first one is your personal information, your heritage and your pets information. So that goes into your adult profile about you, your citizenship, your family genealogy, your marriage and civilization, partnerships, history, your career in education, if you were in the military clubs and organizations, child profiles, grandchild profiles, non minor dependents, even pets. We literally worked with veterinarians to make sure that the pet profiles were thorough and asked the questions that needed to be asked. Every single one of these questions that we asked have been gone over and reviewed and updated by experts in that specific fields, jurisdiction. And the reason why is we wanted it to be extra comprehensive, knowing that nobody's going to fill everything out because not everything applies to everybody, but we want to give people the opportunity to have all the information that they actually need. So that's the first binder, the personal information, heritage and pets binder.

Okay.

The second binder is your assets, liabilities, tax binder. This also includes some insurance questions. So this is the one that you would love to have your mom sit down with you about. This is technology, phones and devices. It's your passwords and two factor administration. Your email accounts, your online accounts, your phones, computers and devices, effectively your digital legacy, your real estate assets, your financial assets, your physical and other assets, your income sources, your liabilities, your expenses, your credit cards, business interests, non medical insurance, and then also your tax history because your taxes actually have to be filed and impact what happens after you die. It's really interesting. So we get all that information in binder to the first two binders.

Those can stay at your house. You don't want to take those with you. They're really high end, manufactured. Zipper clothes, clothes, faux leather. They feel great buried in work. Stamp on it. They're personalized per order. This is not something that sits in a box.

And when somebody places an order, it goes out. We actually build these. There's a team of people that builds these for you at the end of the month, every month. And then they go out to you if you order it like this is a really custom bespoke product. We actually met with a company. They provide more than a third of the caskets in America. It was the most thorough system that they've seen. The third binder, which is your final affairs medical and legal binder.

This has your key contacts of who needs to be contacted in the event something happens to you. Your medical providers, your medical history, your life and health insurance synopsis of your religious and spirituality footing, your final resting place instructions, your end of life and advanced directives, a summary of your organ, tissue and body donation wishes. A summary of your last will and testament. Your ethical will, your digital legacy if you have trusts, if you have a financial power of attorney, a medical power of attorney, other revoked directives because you don't want two people thinking that they have the power and you want to be able to be very explicit. Oh, this person had a directive where they could advocate for me, but now they don't for whatever reason. Legacy messaging and then my favorite section of all these. Before I forget, it's like your catch all for anything else. But it comes in a big box that has extra space in it, deliberately so you can store stuff.

It comes with files on a USB drive so you can store digital files. You can also get replacement files in the event that you want to update this. This is not like a book where if you buy it and you want to change something, you have to go and buy the book again. It frustrates me when people sell products like that. It comes with a critical document storage notebook, which is silicone with fiberglass, so it's fire and water resistant. If your house burns down, it'll give you a few extra minutes to grab things. It won't last, but give you a few extra minutes so you can store your will and your id cards and a few really important things in it. There might actually be some changes to that coming up soon, which is neat and also comes with a key kit.

So here's the keys. I forget that we're on video sometimes, so each of the keys come in a bag. They're key tags with a form that helps you identify what it is. So people will know. The blue key goes to this car. You should go and find it. So this is the binder itself I should be showing people. So really high end, high quality.

Every page is literally customized. You've got tabs that are very easy to understand. The forms are of course on the podcast.

They won't be able to see that.

But you can go to the website, there's some pictures.

Right, right. And you can see it on YouTube. But I wonder, do people ever come to you sometimes and say, this is overkill, this is just way too much and I can't even. I don't even know where to get started. I mean, how do you answer that question?

Yeah, the answer is you're right. It's a lot of information. And are you trying to tell me that you can fit all the history of your life and what matters in the 20 page pages? The reality is literally, it is a transition of your lifes legacy and it requires a lot of information and you do not have to fill out all of it. And thats why it comes with a booklet that says getting started. And we say these are the most important sections for you to focus on. Knock them out, go through them as you see fit. You dont have to focus on every single section. If you want to skip the family genealogy section, skip it.

That's okay. But we want to give you the opportunity that in the event that you wanted to sit down and be really thorough and leave this legacy, because after you pass away, a lot of the questions and things in these books are going to be referred back to by your family members. They're interest. You can do that. But for the people that say, is it too complicated? Yes, this is a comprehensive package. And if you want things really easy, that's okay. Get the estate summary worksheet. It's for free.

It's three pages. And your family members can figure everything outside on their own.

That's right. They can go on their own scavenger hunt. So you talked about let them know you're getting started. Then what you sit down with them and go through this. All three books that you have there?

Yeah. So that's up to you. There are some people where they want their family members, their heirs to be unbelievably involved in the process. Right. There are other people that go, you know what? I don't want you to know anything at all, other than the fact that this is there and this is where you find it, or this is who you go to when you need it. And both of those approaches are correct. They're fine. You're like everybody else.

You get to determine what you want to do. For me, my wife and I, the people that are impacted about this, they know that it exists. They know what's in it. The. The people that are guardians for, or would become guardians for, or dog or a cat or if you want to say guardian in a quote or dare to look out, they know about that. We've got provisions to take care of them. And it becomes more important if you actually have minor children or non minor dependents. But it's really a unique situation.

When it comes to collaboration, though, one thing that I do oftentimes encourage people that we work with to do is if they are at the point in their estate, because not all estates require this. Where you have an estate planning attorney and you have a CPA or a tax prep person, you have doctors that are involved, is you want them all to know that the book exists and what the others are doing because it allows them to give you a better service. And what I mean by that, if your financial planner is helping you with your assets and your retirement plans, there may be tax implications in estate planning that your attorney might be helpful in as they draft documents for you to reach your objectives. And sometimes those objectives may actually conflict. So what these books do is it really helps them understand what the other service providers are doing, writing you a better service. And in the event that there is something that causes a problem, it can be flagged before it's actually an issue.

Wow. Another thing I hadn't thought of. So leave us with three things, Adam, that you think would be helpful to people. To get started, I'm going to show your website here. It's buried in work just like it sounds.com. all of these resources are on there, but go ahead and leave us with three takeaways that we can use to get started.

First one is come to the webpage buried in work.com dot. Lots of free resources. Just get started. I highly recommend getting an estate summary worksheet for free, and that can lead you into the clear kit, which a lot of people are getting not only for themselves, but for themselves, their kids. And it's actually neat. You see people buying them in groups and then they start going through the packages together. So find a friend, get it together. Second thing is try and figure out a all of the things that you don't know.

And that's a kind of a weird thing to say. But I'll give you another example there. If you're married and your spouse has credit cards in their name and they're the primary and all the credit cards, and you have a secondary card in your name, if they pass away, guess what? You lose all of your credit cards. Make sure that you're financially secure. Take out at least one credit card in your name. So in the event something were to happen, you have access to credit and can still get things on credit. It because it's important. If that's how you live your life, there's a lot of unknown unknowns.

Make sure that you're aware of that and think about the resources that can help you. And then the third thing is, share this podcast. We've talked about a lot of really interesting things. Your friends probably need to know about it. Your family members probably need to know about it. If you have questions, go back to wendy. She'll point you in the right direction. If you have questions, you can always reach out to me.

I mean, heck, my personal email address is adam@buriedinwork.com. If I don't get back to you, you're going to hear back from somebody on the team as well. We want to make things easier for people. Now, that could be our games. Nothing left unsaid. One more story. You can find them in retail now. It's actually being sold by John Hopkins Hospital in their gift shop, which is pretty neat.

Well, and I'm also excited to announce that you have offered any boomer banter listeners a 10% discount on the clear kit and the games, that you can use those to spark conversations and to learn about each other. And all you have to do is use the code "boomerbanter". It doesn't matter if you capitalize it or don't capitalize it, but you use the code "boomerbanter" at checkout, you're going to get 10% off of the clear kit or the game. So thank you, Adam, for offering that to the Boomer Banter listeners.

Yeah, of course. I mean, you're doing such wonderful things to help people in challenging times. And if that gets somebody to make somebody else's life a little bit easier. We're happy to do it.

I appreciate it and I love your enthusiasm. Is contagious. All that you're doing constantly, every time I talk to you, there's something new.

Yeah.

I also want to encourage you to join the Boomer Banter community. You can go to our webpage at HeyBoomer.biz and click on Connect with us. Next week we are going to welcome doctor Mary Claire White. She was scheduled to talk with us back in August when I had to suddenly cancel because of my mother's husband's fall and his son's put. But fortunately, we were able to find another time for her to be with us. And so Doctor White will talk to us about the value of several health screens and their importance to our aging. Well, thank you so much, Adam, for all that you are doing and for being a guest on Boomer Banter and for listing us on your website too. Each episode of Boomer Banter is an invitation to listen, learn, and apply the wisdom gained to your own life.

We are a supportive community. Please join us as we age well together. The Boomer Banter podcast is produced by me, Wendy Green, and the music comes from Purple Planet. Music.