The Post Caregiver Tasks You Don't Think About

In this episode, I want to share the caregiver task you don’t think about.   When your loved one passes, you think your journey is done, but wait, you have a laundry list of things to do.  You are grieving, planning their funeral and/or celebration of life and you have these dreaded tasks to do too. 

So today I want to share everything I did in hopes you can learn from me and maybe even do some things prior.   My disclaimer is that I am not a lawyers or accountant.  It’s just a girl sharing my experiences.   You want to check with your attorney, bank and any other professional sources when making decisions.

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Well, hello my friend, and thank you for listening to another episode of the Caregiver Cup podcast. I hope you are doing well, and if you're doing well, I am just celebrating with you. If you're having a hard time right now, know that I am sending you huge, huge virtual hugs. I record an episode each week to help you and other caregivers find tips and motivation to make your caregiver life a little bit easier and most importantly to understand that I get it and and to tell you you are not alone. In this week's episode, I want to share the caregiver task that you don't think about. I can't even say it, but the caregiver task you don't think about. When your loved one is passing or passes away, you think your caregiver journey is done. And I see so many caregivers saying, My journey is done, but wait a minute. You have this laundry list of things to do. In addition to grieving and planning their funeral or celebration of life, you also have these dreaded tasks to do as a caregiver. So this podcast is going to be about those tasks that you have to do after your loved one passes. But if you have a loved one that is terminally ill right now, a loved one in hospice or an elderly parent, I know you can benefit before they pass. And I know this episode will help you maybe give you some ideas so that you can go ahead and prepare better. Or better yet, you can avoid some of the caregiver burnout and stress that you get after the actual passing of your loved one. As I was cleaning my mom's apartment last week, I totally broke down in tears. The tears were flowing down my eyes. I was sitting on my mom's floor of her apartment because we just moved out most of her stuff out of her apartment. And I kept thinking, I will never walk up the sidewalk anymore. I will never see her sitting in her lazy boy anymore. I will never see her waving from her patio balcony and wishing me a goodbye. I miss her smells. I miss her voice. It felt so final sitting in that empty apartment. In addition, I was exhausted and overwhelmed from doing all of the logistics, you know, cleaning out the apartment and cleaning the apartment, and then all of this estate legal junk. After mom had passed on October 1st, my siblings and I spent days planning for my mom's celebration of life. I was really busy into that. Her celebration of life was on October 6th, followed by a private grade side at the mausoleum service on October 7th. So I was busy that entire week. Then we moved into cleaning her apartment and sorting through all of her possessions. We only had 30 days to get her belongings and clean out her apartment. And we actually beat that time, which is makes me feel better. People say, how much does a person have in an apartment, right? And I've I've gotten feedback from family members and just people saying, Well, it can't be as hard as moving somebody out of a house. Well, I did that with my dad, but now he was moving my mom out of her apartment. She was so darn organized and utilized every single space in there. You would have never known she had that many things. But we finally finished it all up. Now that the weight is done with the apartment, I can focus more on all of the estate stuff. The other weight, like I talked about, was all of that estate stuff. I'm grateful that I managed her bills as a caregiver because I knew where everything was filed. Most of the accounts, I knew her logins and passwords. So I began creating this estate list the Monday after her services. And I put it out on paper saying I gotta do this, this, and this, and this. And so as I thought of more things, I could write them all down. So today I want to share everything I did in hopes that you can gain a little and learn a little bit from me, maybe even something that you could do prior. My little disclaimer here is this girl on the internet is not a lawyer. I'm not an accountant. I am not, you don't take it word for word. You definitely want to go ahead. If you do have questions or you do want to go ahead and set things up, please check with your attorney, your bank, or other professional sources. I'm sharing this based on my experiences. What I did was created, like I said, a list of everything that I had to cancel. Everything that I had to cancel, like your utilities and all that kind of stuff, and anything that I had a call on and anything that I officially had to submit that I knew about. Then what I did is I created paper file folders. Because for me, if I see the file folder in front of me, or if I find a bill or I find something that I can stick in there, then I have documentation. The funeral home when we actually did the planning, had filed the death certificates, and I had those the day after the services. So I had all of the death certificates. Then I began searching for the will, which I knew where it was, but I found the official copy. And so I found that. I found her bank statements, her life insurance, and all the other documents that I needed to put in those file folders. Now that I had that list, I started prioritizing what I thought was most important and started from the top down. Her first one being her residence, her apartment. With my dad, we had their formal property. With my mom, we had an apartment. So I looked through the formal lease and it had a disclaimer in there regarding death, which I was so relieved I see. So the lease says it was voided, um, it would be voided, and we would have a 30-day window from her date of death to move out. So then I contacted the apartment manager and talked through that with them and gave them the date of her death, and they gave me the formal move out date, and then I had to sign a form stating I would be liable and I would have the place insured for 30 days. And so I had to formally go ahead and sign that, and then they gave me the final little checklist or the the things that I had to do to go ahead and move out of the apartment. Kind of like you had I had to take down, you had to move out all the furniture, and then you had to clean this and that the certain way. Um, you had to go ahead and remove all the nails and stuff like that, just a basic stuff, and then sign it and turn it in when we were done. So then the second thing that I had to do or that I thought I should do right away was change her address. And I went on to the United States Postal Service and went online and filled out the form, but I also went in and checked to verify that they had the information in the post office because I wanted to ensure that we stopped the mail and no mail would come into our mail slot in the apartment and that that would all get directed to me. It seems simple to do these tasks, but they take they take a bit of time. So the third thing I did is the renter's insurance because I had to officially make sure that I had insurance in and I was liable for those 30 days. You would think it would be just easy. I could have, I, and this is just Kathy talking, I could have just lied and just kept the renter's insurance and not did anything, and then at the end of the 30 days just cancel it. But I went in and said, you know, the story of my mom's death. They required a death certificate. They incr they required proof of that I was the estate owner or administrator. So I had to send a copy of the death certificate. I had to send a copy of the will, and then I had to switch the policy over to my name for one month. And so I had to do that, and then I had to change the address so that my mom would know that that everything would be sent to my home address, and we had to cancel my mom's insurance and switch it over to my. So the next one is was another doozy. My dad had an annuity. It was a life insurance annuity for my mom. And so when my dad passed away, we went ahead and hired a lawyer to go ahead and um rewrite her will, and we updated her annuity with new beneficiaries. And so that would be my siblings and I. So what I did with the annuity then is I called to begin the process. Again, the call was, I think, a 16-minute wait on hold. And so I multitasked until I got a human being, and then I had to pretty much give out my life history, my siblings' life history to go ahead and start the process. And what I mean is they needed our social security numbers, our dates of birth, our address, our phone number, and much, much more. And so I had to go ahead and give them all of that information so that they could go ahead and get started. And one of the things that um they have to send us back is the W9 form to fill out, their forms to fill out, and then everything has to get notarized. Here I am in week two, still waiting for the information. So this week is a follow-up call and seeing where it's at. Um, so it's just a it's putsy long processes. You want to know the one that tipped me over the edge? It is the stocks. My mom had a small amount of stocks. She's a Coca-Cola girl. So she, my dad bought her stocks way back in the 80s. And this was the hardest. I probably made six calls already, many disconnects on the calls, and I finally received the transfer packet in the mail. And the first gal that I talked to said, Yeah, you just have to fill out these forms, get them back to us, and everything will be that easy. Well, first of all, the forms were sent. I had 10 days to complete the form from the day I received it, and I had to fill out a W9, I had to fill out a transfer form with a notary and a medallion signature, which I had no idea what that was at the bank. I had to give them proof of estate, a death certificate, the original stock certificates, and it all had to be certified overnight in the mail. And I was so confused when I got the form. The girl said it was going to be really easy. There was an FAQ that I could refer to online to fill out the forms, but I had no idea. I it was so complex. Oh, there was an affidavit that I had to fill out. I don't know. There was so much. I finally got it sent in on Saturday. And I hope, I hope, I hope I filled everything out all right. I hope I did. And then from there then, um, the from there then they'll transfer the stock over to my name. And I put a note in there saying once it's transferred into my name, I'd like a check written out to the estate. So hopefully I did right by it. If I hindsight, I wish I would have had I wish I would have gone to the bank earlier because the bank was a huge help for me in this process. Um, I probably should have just took all the forms to the bank and said, hey, can I make an appointment? Can you help me fill it out? Because I had no idea what I was filling out. And so they looked at it after and and they they kind of glimpsed over it and they said, it looks like it's all right. But I probably, if I if hindsight, I should have done that. Another hindsight with stocks is I wish I would have known when my mom started hospice. We could have looked at the stocks and started to, she could have begun and cashed them out in advance, and we wouldn't have had that and put that into her bank account. Now, obviously, everybody's stock amounts are different. My mom's were very minimal, and so we could have easily done that. I wish we would I would have looked at that more and and at least been able to go ahead and and work with mom on that and saying, mom, why don't we go ahead and cash these in now? And then you can tell us what you want to do with these, that amount. Okay. Number eight. The first and maybe the most obvious things that you you think about are the utilities. You would think calling for the lights and the heating utilities would be easy. It involved going through this automated robot system, waiting 15 minutes on the the this the elevator music line, and then waiting another 10 minutes on we're right here to serve you, blah blah blah blah blah. Then having to to give all your loved ones information to them, they made me end this is this is the most frustrating part, is I called them on the week of the October a week of October 10. And so I called them that that following week. What they made me do is they made me end my mom's service on that day. They sent me a bill for 20-some bucks. I had to pay that, and then they made me put the remaining month underneath my name and create a new account. And they're going to bill me for the until the end of the month. Isn't this crazy? Why won't they just end it on it? They just made it so com uh frustrating. And I was just, I I let my ego get in the way, but I was just totally frustrated. I'm not sure you could do anything in advance about this, but I just wanted to let you know that yeah, there's going to be frustrations that you're going to have. I have to, I have it on my follow-up because part of me thinks, are they going to go ahead and truly cancel it? Can you trust the person that you dealt with? You know, all those things go through your mind. Well, same with going to like her cable and her streaming service. I had to cancel their services, which took time because you get transferred and you got to give them all the information, you got to share proof and all that kind of stuff. And then you have to return, like for her cable, she and her Wi-Fi, you have to return those monitors or those routers to them. I sent my husband and I was thinking, well, can you just do this for me? He texted me and he was kind of angry because he was 12th in line returning the routers. And I'm like, oh, I'm so sorry. I am so, so sorry. But again, it's it's time consuming. It's it's a lot of work, but you're gonna know that you're gonna have to do those things. And the sooner you do it, the faster than that you can go ahead and shut service off because you're still gonna have to pay a portion of the month. Because if you're calling in the middle of the month or calling at a time, you may have to pick up those extra charges and so on, and you have to make sure that they send the mail to you or you change it to an automatic payment or you get the bill online. Another one is the cell phone. Now, one thing that was helpful for me. Me is when my dad passed away as well in 2018. I moved my mom over underneath my plan. So that was easier too. It was cheaper for her. I knew where everything was. So it was much easier for me to cancel mom's cell phone number and talk to them and go through their process to go ahead and cancel her service. Another piece, though, that she had a newer phone that she was on a payment plan for. And so I had to understand what the policy was and if I could return the phone for reimbursement or if I could sell it, whatever I had to do. I was lucky enough that they're going to go ahead and I can send in the phone and they're going to give me reimbursement, hopefully, for it, because it's pretty brand new as well. So yeah, you don't think about all those if that they have some sort of phone or whatever, you're going to have to cancel that, cancel the number so nobody uses the number. I saved all of mom's photos on her phone, and my husband wiped out the phone, that kind of thing. So you have to kind of go through all of that too. And then I also called the health insurance company because she has a supplemental plan. And so going through that automated process was, you know, a chore, but you just go ahead and put yourself on automat automation. And they required the date of death, a copy of the death certificate. And then I asked the question about, you know, what when's the payment cycle? What will we have to do? And so they're going to go ahead and uh give me a reimbursement back. But definitely you want to ask those questions. When is our payment cycle? And if you've already paid for something and she's already passed away or he's already passed away, you can get that amount back. Because I know for elderly people, that supplemental plan is pretty darn expensive. So um, and then another thing, my mom also had a cancer supplemental plan, and I wanted to get the reimbursement for the hospice care. Well, first I had to cancel the policy, so we do she doesn't have to pay that minimal amount every month. They needed proof, so I had to go ahead and send in the proof, and and that's filed, and so I'm waiting for confirmation of the cancellation, haven't received that yet. Um, and then to go ahead and get reimbursement for hospice care, I had to request medical records. I'm waiting and waiting and waiting. And so that's on my follow-up to get to so that I could do it. I I ended up filling out a claim online, but I am not able to go ahead and mail in any medical records until we get those medical records. Yeah. Okay, now I'm down to like credit cards and stuff like that. So I'm grateful that one of my mom's credit cards would had a zero balance and the other one had a minimal balance. And so I paid that off right away. I paid it off. But it was a huge hassle with the credit card companies. Uh, you would be put on hold, you know, and and transferred, transferred, transferred. But it's hard to cancel a plane uh uh credit card. Uh the the one card company um that she had a major MasterCard with, they could put her account on hold to protect her identity, but they needed the complete proof to cancel her thing. I think it it all comes down to protecting identity and fraud and stuff like that. And same with her other one. And so once I go ahead and get confirmation, I'm I'll be relieved and just have to keep following up with those two. But those took took a long time as well. And now the next few are are are her funeral expenses, and she has her, I don't know if it's a plot or her burial place is a mausoleum. Well, when we went to the funeral home, and um my parents paid for every all of their, I don't know what it's called. It's a plate on the front of their their um graveside drawer. They paid for that. All of the etching was done already with the ex with the exception of my mom's date of death. That's the only thing that has to be etched in there. Well, when we went to the funeral home, they had said we owed $3,000 that was still due. And I'm like, no, we don't know anything except for the service to put my mom's cremation in there and to etch my mom's date on the stone. That's all we have and whatever maintenance, whatever they needed to do. And so that's been kind of a little hiccup. I sent in all of the paperwork, I talked to them, and um, I'm just waiting for that piece to go ahead and be ironed out because it's funny how if your loved one already has something in place, my hope for you is that you have everything, all the paperwork in your hands, so that you have proof of that or scan it somewhere so that you have proof of it, so that you can go back and don't have to do those unexpected uh charges and being able to do that. In addition, the funeral expenses will be coming soon. Um, we already had signed an estimate that the day that we were doing the uh funeral planning, but on that funeral planning will be the mausoleum charge, and so I'm I'm waiting for that to be lowered or whatever it would be. Another thing that you need to go ahead and and do is the social security piece. Now, my my I didn't know that the funeral home can start that process for you. So the gentleman at the funeral home filed it for us. But he had said, if you don't hear anything in 30 days and you don't get that final payment in 30 days, come back to us and we will go ahead and see where it is in the process. Or I remember with my dad too, we had to go to the Social Security office to go ahead and and make sure that the date of death was already there and the Social Security money that my mom was getting once a month would be then stopped and you would get that final payment. So so I have that on my list of things on the 30th. If I don't hear anything, or not on the 30th, in 30 days, I don't hear that, I have to follow up as well. So that's 15 things, and then the 16 things are any remaining bills that you don't know about that all of a sudden you may get. And so you just want to watch that. But um what I'm lucky with is that about a year ago, we talked, I had a discussion with my mom because my mom could no longer drive. And we were she was still using her car, we were using her car. Um, but a year ago, we went ahead and changed the car name over to my name, because knowing that the fact that it would be harder to do if something happened when she passed, because I remember with my dad having to then go to the DMV with her death certificate, his death certificate, his, you know, executor the will or the the trust papers, whatever you have, and get that all changed over before you could officially sell it. Well, and then earlier this year, my my mom decided that she wanted to sell the car so that she didn't have to pay for the garage spot anymore in her apartment. So I'm thankful all of that is done. But if you have any property or any vehicles, those would be added to your list, knowing that you're going to go ahead and have to change over the title, or you're going to go ahead and have to work with an attorney to go ahead and get the your property changed over to um whoever the beneficiary beneficiary is or the executor of the estate is, so that you can then decide are you going to keep the property, are you going to send the property? Um, because I know my mom, we live in Wisconsin, the state of Wisconsin requires if you own property, that you're you have to go to probate court and we had to hire an attorney to go ahead and do that, um, so that everything would be going ahead and it was nice because being a married in Wisconsin, marital law says it goes right to the spouse, unless there's some other documentation. And so that went that way. It was really important for me too. If I look back at the file folders, and I still looking back at the file folders, that I had all of the documentation asking for what's your name? If I call you back, what number should I call you back at? That's the key one, too. So you don't have to go through the chain. If they have a direct line, can I call them back at their direct line? What is the case number or the confirmation number or whatever it would be? If you need to fax in something, what's the fax number? If you need to send in something, what's the mail mailing address? I took photos of the certified sticker on the uh on the documentation that I would actually send out. So I had proof of all of that. Oops, I my husband must be coming home, so you're gonna hear the dogs barking in a little bit. Um I am not far from being done. My first week, I made all the calls. My second week, I worked on all of the forms and the information that I needed. Now, my third week, like I said, is going to involve follow-up calls and checking on progress. And it's going to be a continuous check on progress. It is part of the estate's manager's job to do this. So if you are the one that's going to be doing that, know that that's going to be on your horizon. And my hope for you is that you can keep this in mind. Is there anything you can do in advance? Is there any discussions you can have with your loved ones? Here's my two cents uh worth that I feel you can do in advance based on my second estate experience, and watching my husband also going through the trust estate with his dad. Here's just a few bullet points that I wrote down here. Ensure your loved one has a legal document or a legal document assigning a power of attorney or a personal administrator, meaning they have a will, they have a trust, they have something legal. Because if you don't, then you have to follow whatever state laws you're in. Also, banking, consider what will happen when your loved one passes. Can you or the estate manager access the money? Because you want to make sure that's cleared up and just walking into the bank with your loved one will help. Has your loved one had any discussion on their final wishes with you? I know it's not something you want to discuss, but do they have the medical real medical power of attorney at the hospital? Do they want a DNR? Do not resuscitate. Do you have that with you or do they have that with you? Are they wearing a bracelet, whatever it would be? Who would make their decisions for them if they can't, if they're not able to medically make those decisions? What are their end-of-life plans? What are their wishes? What are their wants? When we were going through my mom's apartment, you know, what did she mention to us, or what did she write down that? Who wanted what? Are there any special requests? Fun request, uh, burial request, celebration of life request, you know, whatever it would be. Like I mentioned before, too, another one is property and vehicles. Can you do anything to make that process easier? I wish I would have looked at my dad's fishing boat, his altering vehicle, his truck, and more, and recommended a visit to the DMV to put mom on there, to put mom as in and transfer everything over to mom. My dad knew that he had pancreatic cancer and only had a certain amount of time to live. So I never thought about that. Could you pay off anything and close any accounts, like a simple, you know, store charge card or you know, any other accounts so that you don't even have to deal with those anymore? Could anything be transferred in advance? Like I was talking about those stock funds. Could we do that in advance? Do you know where everything is and where everything is filed and where everything is stored? That's a big one for a lot of people as well. Even do they have any extra accounts that you don't know about? If you are close to starting this, remember there are many, many helpful people out there to ask questions to. My husband used an attorney for his dad all along. I found my local credit union bank the best help and also learned to ask lots of questions. Lots of questions. And um sometimes I probably was annoying, but I asked tons of questions. Lastly, my final comments are about being the executor of the estate when you have others waiting, meaning paying the final bills and paying their the inheritance to other. Remember, communication is key. With my siblings, I created a text chain and I give them updates on my progress. And so I let them know what's going on or what's being delayed. And also allow yourself time to work on this. I did it a couple of calls each day. I couldn't do 16 things in one day. I'd burn myself out. I would be so frustrated waiting on hold and getting those robo-automated calls. Oh my gosh. And the big piece of advice too is expect delays, long processes, follow-ups. It's not something that comes easy. Remember that as they file, we're probably the 10th, the 20th, the 100th on the list. They when we get them in. And if you don't know questions to or answers to questions, consult professionals. If you don't have, if you don't know the legal processes or an accountant, you can talk to them about the taxes, the accountant about the taxes, the legal about the W9 forms, the inheritance taxes, all that kind of stuff. And most importantly, at this time of your life, you've been caregiving for a long, long time. And now you are grieving. And so you have to go ahead and most importantly find time for yourself in this process. You will be grieving the loss of your loved one, working through their belongings and now being an executor of an estate. So I hope this helped you today and gave you some insights into it. Um, like I said, I'm not the attorney, I'm not the legal person or the accountant, but I'm learning as I go. And as we learn and share as caregivers, I think it's really important for us to share the pre caregiving, the caregiving stays, and now the post caregiving. So you have a good rest of the day, and we'll talk to you soon. Bye for now.