Better than chocolate

With its focus on candy, over-priced floral obligations, and damsels always on the receiving end, Valentine’s Day sparks about as much joy around LBYM headquarters as Halloween does. I don’t have anything against love—just as long as it doesn’t turn my kitchen table into a valentine assembly line the night before. Thankfully, the local elementary school has scaled back its celebration, turning the manufactured holiday into a more general kindness week in which kids write notes to one another sharing what they value in the other person.

Which produced some gems including this set about my seven-year-old:

Guess which one charmed me the most? Ahh, young Cora. I bet you there’s a girl who likes her routine 😆. Seriously, how much better are these than candy hearts? Perhaps we adults, too, can get a little creative with how we mark the day.

This year, Daylight Saving Time resumes on March 10. Somehow, through the concerted efforts of many—fire departments? homeowner insurance companies? Duracell?—this day is synonymous with not only being an hour late to church, but also with changing the batteries in your smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. I don’t know when or how the publicity campaign started, but it is genius. After a lifetime of reminders absorbed from newspapers and TV broadcasts, I can no more turn the dial of my watch forward or back without at least wondering about the remaining life in those 9-volt batteries.

If we can save lives through changing our clocks, surely we can get some additional mileage out of Valentine’s Day. While dark chocolate is delightful, what says, I care, more than using the occasion to … update your financial dossier? What in the world is a financial dossier, you ask. If your Net Worth roll-up is your financial house, your financial dossier is all the plumbing and mechanical systems behind the walls … you know, the details.

If you’re updating your Net Worth regularly, you’re likely looking up information on the Internet, logging into sites for your banks, your lenders, mortgage and otherwise, and your retirement accounts. Maybe you’re tracking the value of your home through Zillow or Redfin. Your financial dossier contains all the information that allows you to do so. This is the document that seriously makes every other aspect of your financial life easier to manage, for you and, more importantly, for whoever steps in for you in the event that you can no longer fulfill your duties.

Romantic, yes?

Your dossier contains the names of your financial institutions, your account numbers, interest rates, customer service numbers, and other pertinent information. Mine also contains frequent flier and other loyalty program account numbers, insurance policies, beneficiary information, work log-ins, my kids’ school district identification numbers, usernames for just about every website I’ve ever visited, and, perhaps surprisingly, passwords. Well, maybe not passwords per se. More like clear references to those passwords—information only a select, trusted few would understand like “the acronym for what I always say when Uncle Bill starts ranting at the Thanksgiving table + !”

Your dossier can be something as simple as a notebook (stored in a fireproof box … you know, in case you didn’t change the smoke detector batteries) or, for ease of updating, an electronic spreadsheet. Make it your own! Give it a name! The important thing is you have one.

And yes, the dossier is helpful when updating Net Worth, but the usefulness of having all your financial information in one place extends far beyond that:

— At tax time, you can go down the list and track whether you’ve received every form you need (student loan interest? mortgage loan interest? 1099-DIV?)

— Absolutely essential for that time you bought a house, but had just quit your job and had to get a mortgage and close the deal lickety-split before you could no longer produce a “last pay stub”

— When you’re finally putting together your will and estate plan and need to figure out exactly what all you’re bequeathing and bestowing

— Umm, every time you have to log in anywhere

If I get hit by a bus tomorrow, the hubs knows what and where everything is. If that isn’t love, I don’t know what is.