Kathi (00:00) 

Okay, this is Kathi and Lisa Woodruff and we’re talking about the financial binder. Five, four, three, two, one. Well, hey friends, welcome to Clutter -Free Academy where our goal is to help you take small doable steps to live every day with less clutter and more life. And guys, today, okay, it’s the subject that has… 

 

Roger and I don’t fight much. In fact, we rarely fight. But if we were going to fight, it would be over finances. It just would be. And I’ve got somebody here who is going to make things a whole lot easier for us. You guys, it’s Lisa Woodruff. She is the founder of Organize 365. I love that name. She’s a professional organizer. 

  

Lisa Woodruff (00:37) 

Ha 

  

Kathi (00:55) 

and she’s here to solve all of our problems. Lisa, welcome to the podcast. 

  

Lisa Woodruff (01:00) 

Kathi, thank you for the introduction. I’m not solving all of the problems, but I will be a friend on the journey. Let’s put it that way. 

  

Kathi (01:03) 

Wait Lisa promises were made no I get it. You know if if you could make this part of our lives 7 % easier that would feel like solving all of our problems. Okay, so here’s my here’s my question Are you just one of those born organized people who was color coding your things in the crib and now we can’t learn anything from you 

  

Lisa Woodruff (01:18) 

Mm 

  

Okay, I can do that. 

  

Well, I was a born organized person, I can’t lie. And my mother did take me shopping with a button box and she would put me on the floor at like Talbot’s or whatever. And I would sort buttons by color for like an hour so she could shop. 

  

Kathi (01:37) 

Okay. 

  

Yeah. 

  

I love that so much. Okay. 

  

Lisa Woodruff (01:47) 

However, it doesn’t matter if you’re born organized or not born organized, eventually in your lifetime, you are going to become roadkill because life is going to move too fast and you can’t keep up. And you need different organization about every 10 to 20 years. So childhood organization doesn’t work for 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, et cetera. And organization is a learnable skill. So I’m a teacher by trade and I took my born organized -ness and my ability to teach and my roadkill. 

  

Kathi (02:08) 

Right. 

  

Lisa Woodruff (02:17) 

decade and I put them all together in my 40s and organized 365 like okay here’s here’s where you know raw talent meets real life and then how can we all actually do this. 

  

Kathi (02:27) 

Okay, because here’s the thing, guys, I’m gonna, full disclosure, Lisa and I met before, and the reason I met with Lisa before is because I don’t let born organized people come on here that think that they are better than us wonderful, talented, creative, but cluttery folk, right? Because we all have different gifts and different skills, and I think you’re absolutely right. Those of us who loved our color coordinated peachies, 

  

Lisa Woodruff (02:33) 

You 

  

Bye! 

  

Yeah. 

  

Right. 

  

Kathi (02:56) 

in the fourth grade, we need an entirely different set of skills. And you know, I’ve just discovered this about myself. The person, the Kathi who sets up the system and the Kathi who has to use the system. Okay, she’s throwing, right, you’re throwing your hands. Okay, you’ve known this much sooner than I have. Explain how you understand this pain. 

  

Lisa Woodruff (02:58) 

Right. 

  

Amen. Two different Kathis. 

  

Mm 

  

Well, I’ve been recently diagnosed with ADHD. First of all, I don’t know how you’re a woman without it because there are so many things we have to do. But also, mean, setting it up as a project, that’s fun. Using it is work, like that’s not fun. 

  

Kathi (03:28) 

sister, right? Yes. 

  

That’s fun! 

  

Yes, it’s so true, right? And you want me to stop for three whole minutes to put something away? Have we met? Right. It’s so boring. The day to day is so boring. okay. So you were a naturally organized person. So when you and I were talking, was, I, you have a bunch of different binders. First of all, why a binder and not an app? That’s part of my question. 

  

Lisa Woodruff (03:43) 

Yes. 

  

Mm 

  

Okay, so we have why a binder and not an app and why a binder and not a file. So why a binder and not a file is step one. And that’s because, you know, I used to like try to teach people how to do file cabinets. I wasn’t very good at it, but like everybody did it. So that’s what I did until the California fires and the Houston earth, the Houston hurricanes came through and I’ve got customers, you know, messaging me from inside of their attics with hatchets so they can break through the roof. I’m like, 

  

Kathi (04:14) 

Yeah. 

  

Right. 

  

Yes, yeah. 

  

Lisa Woodruff (04:40) 

I live in Ohio. Like I have no sense for what these people are talking about. And yet they’re like, I have my Sunday basket with me, but what about my filing cabinet? I’m like, it’s just going to be gone. Like all that information is going to be gone. So it must be a binder. 

  

Kathi (04:42) 

Correct. 

  

And Sunday Basket is like your day -to -day organization stuff, right? Okay. 

  

Lisa Woodruff (04:56) 

Yeah, it’s your weekly organizing. So the binder is portable and that is crucial for two reasons. One, if you live in any of the coastal areas, you will evacuate at some point. But two, whenever you need this information, you don’t need it in a file cabinet. You need it at the lawyers, at the hospital, at the wherever. Like your information needs to be portable. So that’s why it’s a binder. And why not an app? Well, you know, everything Organize 365 does is analog because I’m a kindergarten teacher. Like every single human can use my products. 

  

Kathi (05:01) 

Mm -hmm. 

  

Yeah. Yeah. 

  

It’s so true. Yeah. 

  

Mm -hmm. Right. 

  

Lisa Woodruff (05:26) 

You can digitize it and make it your own productive thing if you want, but here’s the thing. An app is not necessarily shareable and it doesn’t necessarily stay up to date. So maybe your family is super high tech and you’re all on like Google Drive and you have a password protected and so you have all of your financial information in there and you share it with your siblings and your parents and like your Uber or whatever. I don’t even know who this family is. But as soon as you forget to update the app, it’s pointless. And if you don’t have the password, it’s pointless. 

  

Kathi (05:33) 

Mm -hmm. Yeah. 

  

Yes. 

  

Lisa Woodruff (05:54) 

So apps are personal organization. Binders are global organization. So you’re going to organize in a binder in analog. And we’re going to talk about the financial binder today. The financial binder is like 30 % in your file cabinet, 50 % on your computer, and 20 % in your brain. So even if your family gets to your file cabinet, they only get 30 % of the information. And even if they get online, they’re not going to go to every place that you have stored your information. 

  

Kathi (06:00) 

and trisome. 

  

Okay. 

  

Hmm. 

  

Lisa Woodruff (06:20) 

So it is a way for you to keep your information updated if you update it annually. And then when you actually need it, which is when someone is gonna be your power of attorney or your power of healthcare or your settle your estate, that is like, you’ve just saved them a year’s worth of work. And when I had to settle my dad’s estate, I didn’t find almost everything that I needed because I just didn’t even know how I would find it. So that’s why not an app. 

  

Kathi (06:20) 

Yeah. 

  

Right, absolutely. You know, and if you didn’t have a good answer for why not an app, and I knew you did, I was going to give you my good answer is that it would completely intimidate my mom, who this is, in our family, that’s the most pressing need, right? So, you know, my husband and I are both pretty techie, but it’s interesting. We’re in between two kind of non -techie 

  

Lisa Woodruff (06:46) 

you 

  

Right, right. 

  

Kathi (07:09) 

Our kids are more analog or at least the kid who is responsible enough to do things with our estate. You have to know your kids, right? You know, the one who’s actually gonna do something. And my mom, it would have been really intimidating for her to have to get online. Now she’s able to look things up in small portions as we go through this binder, but she’s not having to input it there, which has been… 

  

Lisa Woodruff (07:33) 

Mm -hmm. 

  

Kathi (07:40) 

which has been a godsend, I’m not gonna lie. Okay, so a couple of questions, Lisa. We’re not rich, do we really need to do this? 

  

Lisa Woodruff (07:48) 

Okay. So first of all, we’re talking about, we like started mid sentence. So this is the organized 365 financial binder. And it was created after I had to settle my dad’s estate. I had to be the power of attorney. And then I was the executor of the estate. And I went to Amazon to Google, like, give me Mad Libs for settling an estate. Doesn’t exist. They’re like four books and that’s it. There’s no like, let me just plug everything into this system. And your financial picture is, has a lot of parts to it. 

  

Kathi (07:52) 

yes, that’s true. Yeah. 

  

Right? 

  

Yeah. 

  

I love it. 

  

Yeah. 

  

Lisa Woodruff (08:18) 

So what you normally hear about is have a will. You should have a will. Have a trust. If you have any assets, you should have a trust. Have a 401k and make sure you have a beneficiary. Agreed. These things are the easiest things to do as the executor. Literally within one week of my dad’s passing, we’d already cashed out the 401k. My sister and I had the money. We transferred the cars into our name. We’d transfer the house into my name. Like that all happened within 10 days. However, the administration of your life 

  

Kathi (08:18) 

Yeah. 

  

Okay. 

  

Hmm 

  

Wow. 

  

Lisa Woodruff (08:47) 

needs to be accounted for. A final tax return needs to be done. All of the assets needs to be distributed. You have to get out of the Verizon contract, which is the hardest thing to do. You have to settle every single credit card. You have to shut down the banks. have to like, and none of this is done by your CPA, your tax lawyer. My dad had all the lawyers within a month. They were all gone. And I was just left doing the housework for my dad, just like I do the housework for me. And that’s what people don’t realize. It usually falls to a woman. 

  

Kathi (08:57) 

right? Yeah. 

  

you 

  

It does. 

  

Lisa Woodruff (09:17) 

And it’s all the administration. Like I’m getting my PhD now and the only literature that we have about this is widowed women who have so much hard time being the administrator of their spouse’s estate. Because you’re also grieved. It’s not like you’re like, yeah, I’m gonna add this to my checklist. No, you’re all of sudden sometimes unexpectedly planning a funeral for someone you love. And now you realize that you were named in their will as the executor. And you’re like, I don’t even know what that is. 

  

Kathi (09:30) 

And yes. 

  

Yeah, and it’s interesting because, my mom’s done all this stuff and I’m the executor of her will and I really don’t understand it all because all of this happened with her parents when I was, yeah, I was in the middle of diapers, you know, yeah, I didn’t, I didn’t think it through. But as I’ve seen friends go through it and they talk about this, this huge burden and you’re right, like, you know, who’s the executor of ours is one of our daughters. 

  

Lisa Woodruff (09:59) 

too young. Yep. 

  

Kathi (10:14) 

Because we know she’ll show up and we know she’ll do the right things and not that the boys wouldn’t but yeah, well anyway, that’s a different discussion. We love our boys, but I think that when we say the word estate, we think vast riches and wealth and most of us. Yeah, I would not think of those things as the estate, right? Okay, so. 

  

Lisa Woodruff (10:32) 

And I mean your water bill, your garbage bill, your Verizon bill. Right, that’s your estate. 

  

Kathi (10:45) 

My next question is, you know what? We’re gonna take a quick break. We’re gonna go pay some bills. We’re gonna come back. And then I wanna talk about how do you actually get started with, like what’s in here? You’ve told us a little bit, but like what’s actually in here? And I need some easy steps to get started because if you say, Kathi, I need you to copy your entire financial history or your mom’s entire financial history into this. 

  

It’s a very short interview. So we’re gonna take a podcast break. We’re gonna come back and then we’re gonna get started with that question. 

  

 BREAK 11:19 

  

Kathi (11:34) 

Guys, I am back with Lisa Woodruff, who is the founder of Organize 365, and she is the creator of the PaperSolution Financial Binder. And when we were first talking financial binder, I’m like, why do I need a binder for my bank account? But really, what your end goal with this binder is what? That somebody can do what with it? 

  

Lisa Woodruff (12:00) 

that if anything were to happen to me, that someone could step in and be power of attorney and ultimately settle my estate. Like we’re all gonna live to be forever, know, a million years old. Don’t worry about it. Nothing is happening to you. However, once you’ve settled in a state, you’re like, my gosh, like if you’ve ever settled in a state, the first thing you do is you go home and you clean out your storage room because you’re like, I am not leaving this problem for someone else. And my husband and I are gonna settle at least five estates. You know, we have siblings and we’re both the oldest. We both have parents. 

  

Kathi (12:09) 

Absolutely. Right. 

  

Hmm, yeah. 

  

Right. 

  

Lisa Woodruff (12:27) 

They were divorced, so they have, you know, like we are listed on everybody’s. So that is the ultimate, but you know, that’s so far down the road. Then you can like kick this can and be like, I’m not going to do this. So what is in the binder? Number one, you do have some things that you just need. You would put in a file cabinet. So instead of a file cabinet, you’re going to put it your financial binder, like your latest 401k statement. I always keep my social security statement. 

  

Kathi (12:29) 

yeah. 

  

Mm -hmm. 

  

Lisa Woodruff (12:53) 

Like I’m not hope, I don’t know if I’ll ever get this money, but I’m keeping the letters that they send like every couple of years. birth certificate, I put my passport in there, put our marriage certificate in there, my kids adoption certificates are in there, so any of those kind of important papers. I do have in there like our credit report when we get a credit report. If we sign up for a new credit card, I put the credit card in there, so like I just have like that introductory thing that you’re probably never gonna need it. 

  

Kathi (12:55) 

Right. Yes. 

  

Mm -hmm. 

  

interesting, yeah. 

  

Lisa Woodruff (13:19) 

but you want to put it in file cabinet, you might as well put it in here. You’re really making a scavenger hunt for yourself and others. So if you need it. So like if you pay off a car, that goes in there, like all of our car information is in there. All of my insurance information is in there, life insurance, but also fire, auto, all of that insurance. Anything related to our security system is in there, ADT. Again, life insurance will pay out within a week. Like anything that has a beneficiary attached to it, you will get the money like, 

  

Kathi (13:22) 

Yeah. 

  

Yeah. Yes. 

  

Hmm. 

  

Yeah. 

  

Lisa Woodruff (13:47) 

It’s almost instantaneous. It’s amazing how fast it happens. And the more organized you are, the better. So my husband has a couple of different retirement accounts. I have a couple of retirement accounts. Whenever they give you the annual statement, I just replace it in there and shred the old one. It’s just kind of like you would in your file cabinet. So that’s number one. Just anything you would file, it goes in there and you just keep the most recent one. 

  

Kathi (13:56) 

Right? 

  

smart. Right. 

  

Okay, I love that. Go ahead. 

  

Lisa Woodruff (14:13) 

So then the second thing is, you I had my father pass, I had a couple of employees who also had settled estates we started compiling all the things that we had to find that we didn’t know we had to find. Like my dad had been in the military. I didn’t know he had a military ID number. I mean, that was before I was even born. Like, so that kind of thing. So you would just write down your military ID number. It’s like a Mad Libs. You know that where you would fill in and you make the funny story. 

  

Kathi (14:25) 

All right. 

  

Right? 

  

Hmm. Yes. 

  

Lisa Woodruff (14:37) 

So there’s like a line for all kinds of stuff that you may or may not have, but if you have it and it’s your binder, then you just fill that information out. Stuff that you wouldn’t even have on the computer or in your file cabinet is just like you knew that you were in the military, even if your grandchildren don’t know that you were. So that’s kind of like being able to fill things out. And then you can also like put post -it notes in there. Like we do have banking information, we have bank information sheets, and we just ask you where you bank, what kind of a bank account it is. 

  

Kathi (14:52) 

Right. 

  

Lisa Woodruff (15:05) 

what the password is, if you have a safety deposit box, where is it located? What’s the number? You know, I mean, you just forget about these things. You don’t need to put down your bank balances. You could even just put, like for me, I could just put down US Bank, 11 accounts, because we do, we have 11 accounts. Like once you get into US Bank, they’re going to give you everything you need. But maybe my family doesn’t know I also have Huntington Bank, and that’s where I keep some of our money for a future business we’re going to purchase, land that we’re going to purchase to build our future. 

  

Kathi (15:10) 

right, yes. 

  

Hmm? 

  

Yeah. 

  

Lisa Woodruff (15:34) 

building and so it’s not in our main bank account. You may not realize we have two banks. So here’s a great story and why I really started making this financial binder. Quite a few of the people that I organized in Cincinnati were widows. So they would call me in to help them, especially with the paper. They were very overwhelmed. They’d gotten, you know, the life insurance and that it was this detritus that was holding them up and they weren’t used to doing all the bills. And so we would go through their file of cabinets and this one woman’s husband had 

  

80 binders, 80. He had kept every single paper transaction of every single financial thing he had ever done because it was his hobby. And they were like mutual funds. They weren’t even things where you had to like know the transaction because the value, wasn’t a stock, although he did have stock also. And so she had a bank, Fifth Third, and we went to the bank and we found four bank accounts, which she knew all these bank accounts. And I’m going through her mail every single month. I’m going down there and going through and you can sort paper without looking at like what the dollar amount of values are. It’s weird trick. 

  

Kathi (16:11) 

my word. 

  

right? Yeah. 

  

Mm 

  

Lisa Woodruff (16:34) 

professional organizers can do. And I’m looking at these bank accounts, I’m like, I swear there’s a fifth bank account, you know, and I’m kind of dyslexic, so I’m not really looking at the numbers, but I’m like, I think we’re always getting five. And she’s like, do you want to go to the bank? I’m like, I do. And like the estate was almost settled, like we’re a year after. We’re there at the bank and they’re like, Mrs. Woodruff, there are only four accounts here. We’ve gone through this, like we’re ready to settle the estate. Everything’s been closed. Everything’s been transacted. I was like, I just think there’s a fifth account. 

  

And they’re like, do you want us to look for it again? I said, I do. And I’m like a people pleaser. So I’m like, wow, I’m really out on a limb here. Now I’m telling my client we’re at the bank. I’m telling the banker. Kathi, there was another $100 ,000 bank account. This man had set up an LLC and she was like, my gosh, I remember this now. He had put it aside for our dream home we were going to build someday. Cause he died of a massive heart attack, like on the way home from a, he was in his 60s, but he wasn’t really old. 

  

Kathi (17:08) 

bright. Yes. 

  

What? 

  

right. 

  

Lisa Woodruff (17:31) 

She’s like, I forgot about it. He had created an LLC. So that’s why it didn’t show up when they ran all the social security numbers and we didn’t run across and he didn’t put that LLC paperwork in any of the 80 binders that I went through. And so I have more than one story like this where you just are living your life at breakneck speed and you’re like, just like trying to keep it. I’ll do that later. I’ll do that later. I’ll do that later. And you in your head know and you remember in your head there’s a fifth bank account. 

  

Kathi (17:36) 

Yes, because it’s a totally different entity. 

  

Yeah. 

  

Yeah. 

  

Yeah. 

  

Right! 

  

Lisa Woodruff (18:00) 

But there’s literally no trail of it anywhere in this house. $100 ,000, Kathi, $100 ,000. 

  

Kathi (18:07) 

And who knows what would have ever, know, where that would show up if there would ever be another statement. Yes. my goodness. And here’s what I’ve come to learn is that we don’t know our parents as well as we think we do. And right? They’ve had these lives that we’ve been privy to, you know, just a section of. And so we… 

  

Lisa Woodruff (18:14) 

It never, it wouldn’t, it wasn’t going to show up ever. Yep. 

  

True. Yeah. 

  

Yes. 

  

Kathi (18:37) 

We don’t even know the questions to ask sometimes. And that’s why I like that the binder is very comprehensive because it asks questions. Yeah, like my mom and dad were never part of the military. And so it feels good that you can say, I don’t have to worry about any of that stuff. Yes, exactly. But you know, I just recently had a client, not a clutter client, a writing client who was getting rid of a bunch of 

  

Lisa Woodruff (18:52) 

Not that one. 

  

Kathi (19:06) 

books and binders and things from her mom. And she goes, you know, we settled the estate, you know, this was a decade ago. And she decided she just needed to go through this one binder just to make sure, just to make sure she wasn’t missing any little piece of information. And I can’t remember what the paperwork was, but the paperwork that was in there that they had never seen before entitled them to financial 

  

compensation that her son, so the deceased grandson, was able to put a new roof on his house. And if you’ve ever put a new roof on your house, you know how crazy expensive that is. And for my client to pay off some huge debts. it’s like, I think, wouldn’t grandma be devastated if that money had not gone to that, right? 

  

Lisa Woodruff (19:45) 

See. 

  

if you lost that. And you know, you talk about clutter and we see clutter everywhere and paper is small and tiny and overwhelming. And so we can really cram a lot of paper in a banker’s box. Like we could cram it in there and shove it in the bottom of closet and we’ll take another one and shove it somewhere else. And then we got the laundry basket over here and we’re like, I don’t really have that much paper cause it’s like all over your house. And the other thing I noticed as an in -home professional organizer, which I am not anyway. 

  

Kathi (20:05) 

Right, something that she had worked so hard for. 

  

Yes. Yes. 

  

right? 

  

Mm 

  

Lisa Woodruff (20:33) 

anymore. I do it online now. But I still do this in home and we have a certification for this is paper organizing retreats. Because when I would organize paper, I promise you, you start organizing paper 30 minutes in you’re like, where is the wine and I’m out of here. Like, it’s just too much and you don’t know what to do with it and you’re afraid you shouldn’t get rid of it. So you just stop again. But people there’s somebody that loaded their RV full of paper and drove it here from Canada. People will drive 18 hours with their paper. We have a weekend paper organizing retreat. 

  

Kathi (20:33) 

Okay. Okay. 

  

Right. 

  

Yeah. 

  

Lisa Woodruff (21:02) 

And we have shredding on site because we have professional organizers here, which I know you don’t like that, but you do in this case. And they will, now 50 % of the people coming have lost a spouse or have lost a parent. And they’re just going through all of that paperwork and they just want us to say, shred, keep, shred, keep, you know, and then they’re like, okay, now I’ll go settle the estate because it’s so much work and it’s so rude. Like your life doesn’t stop when you have to settle somebody else’s estate. Like it just keeps spinning. 

  

Kathi (21:06) 

Yeah. Yeah. 

  

Right. 

  

Yes. 

  

Right? don’t get six months off of work in order to do that. And I think that we are so scared to throw away that one magical piece of paper. it’s so hard to know if this piece of paper is going to be what you need, the key to everything. so I love that the, there are a couple of things I love about the binder. 

  

Lisa Woodruff (21:30) 

No, it’s so hard. 

  

Yes. 

  

Yes. 

  

Kathi (21:54) 

One, it asks all the right questions. And two, I don’t even know how else to put this, Lisa. It’s a landing place. It’s like a safe landing place, right? And like, what I love what you said is when I get my social security statement, I can throw away the last one because I know that I have the most recent one and then the rest of it can go away. Like I know that when I pay off 

  

Lisa Woodruff (22:02) 

Yes. Hug it. Yeah. 

  

Mm -hmm. Yes. 

  

Kathi (22:24) 

my car note that I know where I am going to put it. And as somebody who lived through the Caldor fire and was out of her house, you know what? I’m very grateful. Our town lost over a thousand structures, almost 800 homes, and we lost two acres of property, but it never came to our house, but it burned on all four sides. And so 

  

Lisa Woodruff (22:26) 

Yes. 

  

I’m sorry. 

  

I’m sorry. 

  

Kathi (22:53) 

We left, we know, you know, for three weeks we were out of our house. We couldn’t get back in. And for three days we didn’t, we assumed that our house was gone. And you know, and I, we did have one binder that we picked up and took with us, but it wasn’t as comprehensive. And yes, it was like your brain after you leave the house says, where’s that? Where’s that thing? And 

  

Lisa Woodruff (22:54) 

So you know. Yeah. 

  

can’t even imagine. 

  

Kathi (23:22) 

You know, the other thing I love that what you said is about Post -it notes to be able to say, here’s where you can find the key to the box that you need. Here’s, you know, some, you know, there are some weird things that, you know, everybody’s life is weird, right? We all have that one little thing. Like my mom’s weird thing is, Kathi, don’t donate all the milk glass when I die. 

  

Lisa Woodruff (23:28) 

Stick it in there. Yes. 

  

Kathi (23:49) 

You know that stuff’s valuable. It’s like okay mom I promised her I won’t do that and I know as we go through the binder there will be a note about the milk glass because that’s really important her like question You know the things that are unique to each of us like my mom’s a quilter What do you want me to do with the quilt to have a place to put all those answers? That isn’t between your two temples is so so important Lisa. Yeah 

  

Lisa Woodruff (24:08) 

Hmm. Yes. 

  

and that will give her so much peace because she’ll know she communicated it to you and it will give you so much peace because you’ll know what you can donate and what you really, you know, can’t donate immediately. And also one thing before we go, go ahead and put your passwords in there. Like no one, I promise you, everybody’s like, I can’t put my passwords in here. Trust me, if they come into your house and they go buy the 80 inch TV and they go for your financial binder, which is unlabeled, that is an unusual burglar, no one’s coming in your house to get your passwords to whatever. 

  

Kathi (24:17) 

Yes, that’s what I want. Right. 

  

Right. Yes, please. Yes. 

  

Yes. 

  

Lisa Woodruff (24:45) 

put your passwords in there. Just put them in there. Even if you just put a post in another good, use US bank, my banker is Tony and here’s my password or whatever. And also go to the bank and just drop off the power of attorney so that they know like, you’re not gonna need it today. But when you do need it, you’ll be so grateful that you did the work ahead of time. And if you don’t do the work ahead of time because you’re pushing off, because you just wanna test your limits, just know that this resource is here. 

  

Kathi (24:46) 

Yes. 

  

Right. 

  

Lisa Woodruff (25:11) 

and it will be a lifeline. And along with that, you get the organized 365 community of people who are also doing these same binders. They’re all living the same experience you’re living, which makes you feel like you’re not going through it alone. 

  

Kathi (25:22) 

You know, I’m going to also highlight something else that you just said there. Talk to Tony. Because, you know, what we’ve told our daughter is, you know, God forbid something happens to us, our neighbor, which where we live, she’s 30 minutes away, Susie. Yeah, yeah, we live in the forest, but go talk to Susie because she knows about mountain living. She knows about 

  

Lisa Woodruff (25:29) 

Yeah. 

  

Sheesh. 

  

Kathi (25:50) 

She’s an author. I’m an author. Like she’s the key to so much information so you don’t have to figure it out on your own. And I love that you said that, you know, talk to Tony at the bank, leave a little roadmap of the people who are going to be helpful because our children will be sad when we pass and to have people there who can help take care of them, to help take care of your brothers and sisters and all of that is so critical. If you could give. 

  

Lisa Woodruff (25:57) 

Right. 

  

Kathi (26:18) 

Just one piece of advice before they get the binder like what they could do right now because I know like you said when you settle in the state you want to go clean out your storage unit, right? What they’re gonna listen to this and say I want to go do something right now and guys we’re gonna give you the link and we’ve got we’ve got a a code for you know, we’re gonna we’re gonna set you up well Because guys whether you’re buying this for yourself or for your parents This is gonna save somebody 

  

weeks worth of work. So what’s the one piece of advice you could give Lisa for somebody to do right now? 

  

Lisa Woodruff (26:50) 

so much time. 

  

Okay, super simple. I want you to go get your favorite container or basket that’s in your house. And I want you to set it aside and I want you to put a post -it note on it that says financial binder. And then as you come across anything that would go in a financial binder, I want it to go in this basket. As you think, that’s right, I wanna write this down, write down a note card, put it in the basket so that when you do get the financial binder, you already have some of your ideas, some of your papers. 

  

Kathi (27:01) 

Mm -hmm. 

  

yes. 

  

Mmm 

  

Lisa Woodruff (27:21) 

And you could keep on your decluttering journey and going through with all your friends, all the things you do with Kathi and all the different groups that you’re in. But anything financial at a minimum has to start going in this basket and start separating it out from all the other places it is so that even if you don’t have the financial binder yet, you have the beginning. 

  

Kathi (27:39) 

I love it so much. This is so great. Okay, guys, check the show notes. You’ll see how to get this. Guys, you know, I’m doing this because I’m using it. I only recommend things to you that I’m actually doing and I am doing this because, you know, we have probably three estates that are going to need to be settled in the next 20 to 30 years. And I don’t want to put that burden on somebody else. 

  

Lisa Woodruff (27:59) 

Mm 

  

Kathi (28:06) 

They’re already going to have to go through my closet. That’s enough for any human being. right. Lisa, thank you so much for being with us today. 

  

Lisa Woodruff (28:14) 

Thank you. 

  

Kathi (28:15) 

And guys, I’m gonna make sure that you have the link to Lisa’s website so you can go check out her other resources because if you’re feeling overwhelmed by any portion of your life, there’s gonna be a way to organize it on Lisa’s website. I’ve checked it out guys, you’re gonna wanna go check it out. And friends, Lisa was here, but friends, we’re so grateful you’ve been here. Thank you for listening to Clutter Free Academy, I’m Kathi Lipp. Now go live the clutter free life you were always intended to live. 

  

Lisa Woodruff (28:31) 

Thanks.