I suggest three things for the “hit by bus:” a document, calendar, and flow chart.
If you get hit by a bus, you might be knocked out for 2 weeks or 2 months, or longer—so it’s helpful to have frameworks in place for your husband to handle things in your absence during different periods of time. Here’s the three elements:
- A document with all your usernames and passwords. (I include links in mine to each website.)
- A calendar for when things need to happen (this is so he knows which monthly bills are due and when, plus which one-off or occasional bills you have like property taxes, or quarterly tax estimates, and seasonal things such as “make HVAC appointment for next month”)
- A flowchart for how cash flow works in your household. This is all inflows (like paychecks, RMDs, dividends, rental income, etc.) and all outflows (regular bills, credit cards, tuition, mortgage or car payments, etc.).
For myself, as a solo parent, I have a google document that’s shared with my sibling that walks through monthly and annual money inflows and outflows. For example, if I’m conked out for more than a week or two, they would need to know:
- Utilities: what utilities, which companies, account #s, and how they’re paid
- Property taxes: when they’re due, how to file and pay
- Credit cards: what bills are paid by auto pay on there, and how to log in and pay
- Bank accounts: where they are and how my personal cash flow works.
- Log ins and passwords for the relevant accounts
Give yourself permission to dash off a very rough draft, a work in progress version of your “knocked out for 2 weeks to…longer” document. Talk about it with your husband; it is far better to be done, than perfect! Make these living documents that you revise and add on to going forward.
While a POA is important (and I have that for significant issues, crossing fingers), it’s more likely that there may be a short or midrange situation where your husband will need to simply jump in.
If you also handle the investing, it’s helpful to sit down and talk about that as well and jointly write an Investment Policy Statement that addresses how either one of you would handle your finances in different scenarios. For example, things to include would be the details of what’s in different accounts (and why, if that’s unclear to your husband), when to rebalance (along with how and why), and who to contact if one were to need further assistance.