When The Lights Go Out, Will Your Family Know What You Kept In Store For Them?

Would you get extra time from God when you are asked to leave everything you have and go to him? Can you convince him to give you a few more minutes, if not days?

Most of our lives revolve around work, family, and worry for the future. Be it changing lifestyles, peer pressure or the zeal to have more, people have forgotten to live in the present--we live in the future, carrying the weight of stress and worry. The most common worry we all live with is, what will happen tomorrow?

All of us save and invest to ensure a better tomorrow for the family, be it for children’s education or a bigger house or any other eventuality which needs financial power. You may have have looked at various schemes, and advisors tell you about more ways to get you more returns, but have you taken enough steps to ensure your savings reach your family when you are not here? Have you shared the details of all such investments with your loved ones? Do they even know what you own and where you have kept the documents?

When the time comes to leave the world and board the flight to heaven, you might not have the time to tell your family what you did and how it could help them. There may be desires and wishes you would want to express, but it could be too late. We all come with an expiry date, which is not known to us. A responsible, family-oriented person saves for tomorrow, but ignores the fact that his family might be alone to handle the complexities of the financial world.

Don’t go under-prepared; be organized. Ensure your family gets all you leave for them. Work towards a plan to ensure that your family gets to know what you own. If you have some things to share with your loved ones, have a mechanism to express when you want to.

Five mantras towards financial peace:

1. Documents: Keep your documents safe and organized; you never know when the need may arise.

2. Nominations: Have nominations in all your assets--having a nominee simplifies the process.

3. Let your spouse know whom to bank on when you are no longer there.

4. Give your spouse a basic idea of your investments.

5. Make your spouse a part of important financial decisions.

Making your spouse/family aware of financial decisions make them realise how a transaction is done, and the parameters required for it. Earning and saving is important, but be sure they are not left alone when you are not there to take care of them.

There should be a trusted hand to guide them and help them get all the assets transferred to the right hands. I write this as a co-founder of FinPeace, India’s 1st Beyond Life Service provider to help people and their families after the sudden death of the bread-winner, and empower women to be independent.

Written By Sushant Kumar, Co-Founder of finpeace.in

image not our own