What's on your (PHOTO) Friday Menu?

Mornin' All!

We're meeting with MIL's financial guy this morning, so hopefully they'll be able to transfer her account over to him today (she has it set up as "Transfer on Death", so as long as we have everything we need (e.g, the death certificate), we should be able to do this. I hope). We still don't have access to her bank account, so it'll be great to use the $$ from her brokerage account if something else comes up. We have probably forked over close to $10K since she died. Thankfully, we happened to have that. Otherwise, I'm not sure what people do when there are so many costs upfront. That's probably why you see people setting up GoFundMe pages when someone dies. I've told my mother that it'd be a good idea if she made me the co-owner of her bank account so I'll have access to at least some of her $$ when she passes to go toward the bills. Even with a TOD (transfer on death), you still have to wait for the death certificate (which can take a couple of weeks) before anyone will even talk to you, and then they sometimes want to keep the account locked for even a couple more weeks after that to make sure everything's cleared - and that deposits that'll need to be reversed (like social security payments that were made before social security found out they'd died) are sucked back out of the account). Meanwhile, you have to pay cremation or burial costs, rent or house payments for a month or two (and the utilities), fee to transfer the car title, paying off their credit cards so you can close the accounts, etc. Luckily, DH is an only child - because in families with more than one kid, some or most of this would have to be done before the inheritance is distributed, which also takes a good month or two - so then there's the risk the kid who's paying the upfront costs could end up eating them. Just telling you this in case you haven't been through this before...

nothing else really on tap for the next few days except my cookbook group meeting tomorrow. I'm going to make blackberry/lavender/white chocolate scones for it. Hopefully most of them will be eaten at the meeting - I really don't need those hanging around my house (because they probably won't be "hanging around" for long!)

QOTD: at first I thought exercise, but then, I exercised even before losing weight, but it was almost all water-based exercise (water aerobics and swimming laps). Since then, I've added biking and walking. And I do much more in the way of NEAT exercise now, like taking stairs instead of elevators, and parking far away from stores. Also, at home - before surgery, I really limited how often I went up and down stairs. I'd either ask DH to take something up or down the stairs, or I'd pile things at the base or top of the stairs so I only had to take one trip up/down them a day. Now I'm going up and down stairs probably half a dozen times a day (and sometimes more!)

coffee with half & half

protein waffle with plain skyr and cranberry sauce

cheese sticks or Ratio yogurt and a piece of Danish rye bread

baby carrots of 10 multigrain tortilla chips with hummus

??? (not sure on dinner - maybe the last of the hot & sour soup)

Have a great day, everyone!

I hope the meeting goes well. That does seem like a lot of money, especially when it's unexpected.

Luckily, my parents added me to their account long before they passed so I had access to their money for all the after death expenses. It was a lifesaver, and especially when they were too sick to take care of their finances while still alive. I highly recommend this over pay on death, if they are willing.

Why do you not set yourself up as POA? That way you can take care of everything. That is how I do so much for my Mom. If she has a POA they can access her accounts.

POA (which I do have) is fine if they're still alive but incapacitated. But not when they die. POA ends as soon as the person dies. So once they die, you can't access their accounts unless you're a co-owner. Or unless you wait a month or two for all of the stuff that needs to happen before you can have access to it.

we'll need to wait longer on access to her brokerage account, unfortunately (we just got back from meeting with her advisor). The stocks and bonds all have to be revalued to the date of her death. Then the financial guy will call DH when they're done with the revaluation, so DH can go in to see him again so they can set up an account for him (under his name). Then they'll transfer everything from MIL's account to DH's account. So I can see this taking a couple more weeks - at least. ARRGH. At least most of the stuff we needed to pay for has been paid - except for February's rent and utilities (we had to keep the apt for 60 days, which we would have done anyway because it takes a long time to go through all their stuff and deal with it. we probably could have done it in a month if we had to, but we would have had to be over there every day. It's nice to take a day off now and then - or just go for a couple hours on some days when we just aren't into it)

Good morning all. Yesterday was very warm, so I got to do a couple hours of outdoors puttering about. I'm hoping today we get to mattress shop. They have this "sleep lab" at a big furniture store that's supposed to help. I'm skeptical. They used to have some sort of bed that had lots of sensors that would tell you what you needed. Now it's a "mattress" standing up. I'm not sure how standing can give them useful information. Most likely the change was for hygienic reasons, and the current setup is quasi scientific malarkey.

QOTD: All of my permanent changes have been food related. I've done some other things that have lasted for various lengths of time, but nothing permanent.

My photo is of my brother and I at last weekend's Red Sox extravaganza. I'm the good-looking one.

Great pic, and baseball!!!

I wouldn't have guessed you two as brothers.

Their mannerisms and personalities are identical. You'd never miss it if you met them together!

I'm still the good-looking one. At least, I have better hair.