Emergency Contacts.

Did you ever think about this?  Emergency contacts.  Who do you want contacted in the event that something happens to you?  Do you automatically choose your spouse?  If you’re not married, do you pick a friend?  A sibling?  It’s odd how your emergency contacts change as you age for most people.  Between 16 and 30 or so…there’s usually a parent on there.  After that it becomes the spouse.  And then eventually it becomes a child.  It’s so odd.

What do people do when they are not married, have no kids…and their parents die?  Do you really want a friend called if you have an emergency?  I can’t imagine my job calling one of my friends and saying “Is this the emergency contact for Lynn?  There’s been an accident.”  None of my friends would know what to do – other than call my husband.  Of course, I guess that’s the point.

But does the person who is your emergency contact know what to do in the event that they are called upon?  Do they know who to call or what to do?  Do they know that someone needs to go let your dog out or feed your cat?  Do they have a key to your house and are your emergency numbers and passwords written down somewhere in case you are not able to give them that?

It’s scary to think that something could happen to you and your financial world would crash around you because people don’t know where your information is.  It’s scary to think that that someone put their friend Joe as their emergency contact but Joe doesn’t have their mother’s phone number and doesn’t know that they just got a ferret that needs to be fed.

I thought recently about what would happen if I were to be in an accident or die suddenly.  No one knows any of my passwords.  I pay all my bills online – how would the bills get paid without me?  I keep in touch with most people via email and Facebook…how they be notified if something happened to me?  This led to my being distressed that if something happened to someone I know online…how would I ever find out?  They would just stop posting/emailing/whatever…and I’d never know.

I think maybe I need to write down a list of my passwords and how to find my information and who I’d want contacted in case anything happens to me.  I think I need to make sure my husband knows what to do to make sure everything is taken care of and that it’s not a complete unbearable burden on him.  I think I should make sure he does the same thing for me too.  It seems morbid but I would imagine it would save your family and loved ones a lot of trouble and worry.

I'm also glad that I am out of debt so that no one has to take on any debt if something happens to me.  Of course...there's no windfall of cash they will inherit...but at least no one gets my debts either.

I don't have a will.  I never thought about it because I don't really need one.  I don't have anything for anyone to inherit.  At least not anything that's worth a damn.  But sometimes I think I should leave a will of words.  A will that says all the things I want to say to people in the event that I never see them again.  Maybe I should put that on my To Do list as well.

Stressful things to think about on a random day at work.