azucena
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Post by azucena on May 14, 2017 7:53:48 GMT -5
There is a social security death benefit of $255. As a VET he has the right to be buried in a military cemetery if you think he would have liked that as a Marine. He will be entitled to military honors even in a civilian cemetery. The funeral home will help answer many of the VA and other questions you have. In planing for expenses be aware that: "If someone receives their monthly Social Security payment and later passes away in that month, Social Security forces their family to pay back the funds. Any funds earned for the month in which they passed away, as well as any monies received for later months, must be returned. For example, if a person passes away in February, their family must return the benefit paid in March. This is known as the Social Security Clawback After Death." Yes I know about social security dB and payment clawback but thank you. In some paperwork I found it looks like he was getting a pension of 550/m from his job with UoI extension after the divorce. Not sure if the annuity has any value after death. It did also look like maybe it had a $5k group DB but it was hard to tell if that was for retirees or current employees. It went on the list of numbers to call on tues. After that he got his realtors license and sold farms for a few years right before retirement. He made $50k his best year. Oh, and I spent one night going through his recent calls and texts a d calling his friends that might not hear through the rumor mill. Didn't even think it through and called the first one directly from his phone. Dumb and insensitive. "Luckily" it was a teacher I had in high school and he had already heard and was understanding. He had some kind things to say about their friendship and how he spoke of us kids. Calling most of them wasn't too hard because I didn't have a clue who I was talking to. It was definitely shocking for a few of them but better than him just disappearing.
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azucena
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Post by azucena on May 14, 2017 7:56:53 GMT -5
I knew that a military plot was an option but he already has a plot at our home church with his mother, father, and brother so that's what he wanted.
He was drafted into Vietnam and like I said never ever talked about it. So while he was proud of his service as are we and it shaped him greatly and not in a good way, he was never hard core military. He only started using the VA and going to the VFW a few years ago.
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azucena
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Post by azucena on May 14, 2017 7:58:06 GMT -5
Definitely keep the guidance coming though because I'm just making this up as I go. I'm sure I'll have more questions after mtg with the lawyer.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 14, 2017 11:22:35 GMT -5
Found his social security work history and it was enlightening. For my childhood he was a dairy farmer with 5 kids and a stay at home wife, and he made between $10k and $22k/yr over a period of about 20 yrs. I knew we were pretty poor but those numbers are astonishing. My mom started working a minimum wage job about 20 yrs ago when youngest was in school. You are about my daughter's age. She is 39 so I assume your father was in his 70s. Your father probably earned a better living than you realized. The buying value of $10,000 in 1970 is $64,000 today. It's not a tremendous amount of money to raise a family of 5, but it's probably not as astonishing as it feels to you. source
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azucena
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Post by azucena on May 14, 2017 16:28:46 GMT -5
Found his social security work history and it was enlightening. For my childhood he was a dairy farmer with 5 kids and a stay at home wife, and he made between $10k and $22k/yr over a period of about 20 yrs. I knew we were pretty poor but those numbers are astonishing. My mom started working a minimum wage job about 20 yrs ago when youngest was in school. You are about my daughter's age. She is 39 so I assume your father was in his 70s. Your father probably earned a better living than you realized. The buying value of $10,000 in 1970 is $64,000 today. It's not a tremendous amount of money to raise a family of 5, but it's probably not as astonishing as it feels to you. sourceValid point that hadn't occurred to me in the midst of this particular chaos. The $20k was during the late 90s and early 2000s when I was in hs and college. I think part of my astonishment is the juxtaposition with my own current earnings creeping into the mid 6 figures which I've mentioned on here is weird for me to process. Just managed a 2 hour nap and woke up to a clean minivan - the only 2 things I told my husband and kids that I wanted for mothers day
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TheOtherMe
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Post by TheOtherMe on May 14, 2017 19:38:27 GMT -5
When my mom passed away, her IRA was inherited by my dad. Her SS and small pension just stopped.
When he dies (he is 93), if there is anything left in the IRA, my sister and I will inherit it. There is also $5000 of life insurance from his former employer. The first thing dad wanted to do was for me to call and get the beneficiary on that changed. He also thought mom had a life insurance policy with them, but she didn't according to them.
Couldn't do any of that stuff until death certificate arrived. Funeral home stopped SS and pension. Pension was one month in arrears and bank sent it back. They ended up sending a check, which bank did accept.
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busymom
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Post by busymom on May 14, 2017 21:38:00 GMT -5
I called in to stop Social Security & Mom's pension. I didn't want the hassle of having to return money if it was sent out in error the month after she passed. Just a gentle suggestion: get LOTS of copies of the death certificate. I couldn't even stop some of Mom's utilities without sending in a copy. The paperwork needed to work on an estate is beyond ridiculous! All you have to do right now is breathe, azucena. Just take one day at a time. Since your brother was named executor, you can assist, but he'll have to take the lead, including hiring an attorney to assist in the process. I'm glad the family is cooperating nicely!
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azucena
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Post by azucena on May 15, 2017 16:26:19 GMT -5
Home after visitation and funeral. The hardest part was seeing my 8 yo dd cry and cry and ask to leave the service. She hates to cry in front of people. I had her sit through it because I think it's important for closure but I didn't make her go to cemetery.
Meeting with lawyer tomorrow. Any tips on trying to find all of the accounts and debts? How do we know when all the bills have been received?
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bean29
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Post by bean29 on May 15, 2017 16:42:31 GMT -5
Azucena I am sorry for your loss
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suesinfl
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Post by suesinfl on May 15, 2017 17:36:32 GMT -5
When my MIL passed away, I found some of her credit cards in her wallet, so that was easy. Just had to call and then send them a copy of her death certificate. The other thing I did was have all of her mail forwarded to my address and then rinse and repeat. She didn't have much money in her checking account and I was a co-signer, so after filling the papers with the court system,
I was allowed to close out the account.
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TheOtherMe
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Post by TheOtherMe on May 15, 2017 18:12:06 GMT -5
When dad goes, he has no credit cards. Pays for everything with cash or check. My sister and I are joint tenants with him on checking account, so we were told we can access money if we need more for funeral. He has prepaid the funeral.
We know his bills as he writes 3 checks a month. It just takes time.
Let the executor do the legwork.
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dee27
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Post by dee27 on May 15, 2017 19:35:59 GMT -5
For MIL, DH as her executor had to post a notice to creditors in her local newspaper. All claims had to be forwarded to DH. I believe the time limit for accepting claims is state specific.
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busymom
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Post by busymom on May 15, 2017 19:45:23 GMT -5
For MIL, DH as her executor had to post a notice to creditors in her local newspaper. All claims had to be forwarded to DH. I believe the time limit for accepting claims is state specific. Mom's attorney posted the official notice for us, per my request. There is a limited time for claims against the estate. Of course, I assume you (or your brother, as executor) will have your Dad's mail forwarded so any unpaid bills will be taken care of. Just so you know, in my Mom's case, I believe the last of the medical bills came later than anything else (except, of course, the utilities we kept on in Mom's house until it was sold). So sorry to hear the funeral was so hard on your DD. It's tough on kids to lose grandparents.
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azucena
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Post by azucena on May 16, 2017 5:46:47 GMT -5
Thanks for the estate advice. My brother who is the executor is 30 and a bachelor. He is in total shock and I worry about him heading home by himself about 4 hours away in a few days.
I have no doubt he will figure the paperwork out, but he doubts himself. So as big sis I'm helping get him started and then have told him that i will check out until after my move.
Forwarding the mail will happen today.
Slept from 8 until 5 so ready to tackle the day. Back to work tomorrow. The sales guy that I travel with flew into stl from SC and then drove an hour for a quick hello at the visitation. I also received 4 plants from the office, but had told them no need to come as I knew they were thinking of me.
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azucena
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Post by azucena on May 23, 2017 8:46:55 GMT -5
Not sleeping well. I would take something but drugs like that seem to take forever to get out of my system.
Got together with my aunts to write out funeral thank yous. Should have just done them myself because they stressed over what to say, how to address envelopes and even tried to make sure their handwriting looked the same. You know for thank yous that were going to different households. Cripes. I did 20 in the time the 7 of them did 25. On the way home, DD1 said mom you did a good job not losing your temper. LOL.
Sellers responded to our inspection list and have agreed to fix everything...whoa, that was unexpected. Like I mentioned in another thread it's a sellers market and our agent warned that most sellers are just saying no to everything because they can. Biggest fix is about $2k for replacing the electrical panel. Other requests were minor.
Our buyer sent a request to come measure for a deck - we said sure. Then, he updated the request to come inside and measure for paint. Um, the dimensions of each room are listed in the contract. And I'm in the middle of packing and the house is trashed because we've been gone so much. And I'm crabby and tired so nope.
We've begun receiving his mail on a daily basis as of 10 days ago - that's irritating. Have I mentioned I'm crabby.
DH sold our fridge but the guy can't come pick it up during the week so DH said we'd move it to our new garage and he can pick it up the weekend after the move. Um, no, he can have it Sun and we'll make do with our mini fridge until we move on Tues. It's no wonder I'm crabby.
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azucena
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Post by azucena on Jun 3, 2017 6:59:08 GMT -5
Waiting for my household to wake up so I can pack today. Last night DH asks what we have planned this weekend. Um, packing, packing, and more packing. We get keys on tues, movers come weds. He says the same thing he said last weekend...we still have to live here. Yeah, for 4 or 5 days! Like what does he think is going to happen between now and then?! Realistically we are in good shape; I'm beyond organized so I did slow down at his request last weekend. But no more. I'm picturing kids picking out 5 outfits and packing everything else.
We are also down to our last 4 days of food which I'm very proud of and helped us save about $500 in groceries over the last 2 months. Will take about $150 at aldi to get us restocked next week.
The next conversation will be when he wakes up and I send him to the grocery store for boxes and he says how many 5-6? Um yeah if that's all you're taking of your stuff but the rest of us need 25 to 30. Gotta love him and shake my head at the same time.
Only snafu yesterday was that our third buyer backed out on buying our fridge. 10 yrs old asking $200. At this point I gave up and said it's not worth my time anymore and told the realtor to tell the buyer merry Christmas. The new house will come with the fridge which we know fits in the cabinets so wrote it in the offer. Will be interesting to see if I like the freezer drawer setup. I have a decent sized chest freezer that I put most things.
Will also be interesting learning to cook with gas. Any tips? I've only used it a handful of times. I'll figure it out but worry that it will set my budding 8.5 dd chef back a while which is unfortunate because she cooks dinner once a week.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Jun 3, 2017 9:02:12 GMT -5
You're going to find cooking with a gas cooktop so much easier than electric. That being said, gas ovens can be tricky because they don't cook evenly. The best is dual fuel and if I find out my new neighbors, any of them, use natural gas for anything, then I can get on for cheap.
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busymom
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Post by busymom on Jun 3, 2017 9:36:33 GMT -5
We had a gas stove when I was growing up. Mom never let me cook with long sleeves on, as she was worried I'd set the flame too high, & set myself on fire. Just tell your DD to use a low flame while she's learning. The oven must've been a good one, because Mom's baked very evenly, much better than the electric one I have now. I think your DH is related to mine, azucena. He's always been a "last minute Hattie" when it comes to moving, then he'd wonder why it took so long to pack things up. I already warned him if he doesn't clean out the garage before our next move, I'm leaving all of his stuff in there by the curb. (Yes, even the tools.) I know, I'm a "mean mom".
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dee27
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Post by dee27 on Jun 3, 2017 11:08:04 GMT -5
I love my gas cooktop because you have instant heat and food cooks more quickly. My stove is dual with an electric/convection oven and gas burners, but natural gas is common in our area, so it was easy to have another line installed for the stove.
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azucena
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Post by azucena on Jun 3, 2017 16:40:54 GMT -5
Hmm I didn't know/think about a difference in oven cooking. Not sure what type it has, will find out next week. Will also have to learn about gas fireplaces I'm moving up in the world. Lots of packing completed today with lots or help from the family. Resting now until I start dinner...chili thawed from the freezer...and it hit 94 today. DH isn't too happy about soup but I promised mac and cheese for chili mac to make it better.
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azucena
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Post by azucena on Jun 19, 2017 11:59:17 GMT -5
So father's day sucked as you might imagine. But I was having one of those days when I just couldn't get the tears to come to actually let it out. But of course I couldn't stop crying at work this morning when I read one too many father's day fb posts. Ugh! Guess I know what to make the tears start when I get home tonight.
Doesn't help that his truck is parked at my house until all the legal paperwork can be completed. Just texted a friend to see if we could park it at her house and she said yes. Duh - why didn't I think of that before.
90% unpacked. The rest is garage and DH's stuff so I'm not too concerned. Missing the stand that goes to the electronic keyboard but it will turn up somewhere.
Picked up a $500 king bedroom set off craigslist yesterday. That goes a long way to filling the master bedroom I still could use a comfortable chair for reading.
Need to hang curtains to help the kids sleep.
Can't find a wide enough shower curtain to fit the jetted tub. There aren't very many to choose from on amazon, target, walmart, or bed, bath, and beyond. Probably just going to buy 2 that are 72 inches wide and overlap them. Unless someone can point me in the right direction.
Need to redo the master closet. I'm pretty sure the prior owners took down whatever they had up and put in a cheap replacement but I can't prove it. The top level is hung way too high so it's not useable. The second level is pulling out of the wall with about half of my clothes hung up - and I'm not a clothes hound.
Also need to find a decent set of 4 bar stools for at the kitchen island. Keep checking on fb and craigslist because I don't want to buy them new. Hoping to save some money.
Living room furniture can wait. As can the mudroom area - my cousin does custom woodwork so I might at least get him to price out what I want.
Too many $100+ trips to walmart to pick up odds and ends, but giving myself some breathing room to spend a bit before I tighten things down again I July.
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