Organizing the "stuff" in our lives is a daily challenge. Many of us procrastinate with such projects as sorting through old clothing, arranging household goods, and filing bills and statements.

LifeFolio is an easy-to-use management system that will help you and your family inventory personal data and important documents, together with the names of your key contacts, all in one convenient place. LifeFolio provides you with a checklist of the documents that are most important at various life stages. Additionally, LifeFolio can be the basis from which you organize all of your important financial and personal documents into a straightforward filing system.

Whether you're changing jobs, caring for an aging parent, coping with the death of a loved one, or looking forward to your retirement, insufficient planning can cause you to waste precious time locating key documents. Consider these situations in which the location of important documents is essential:

Loan Applications
Lenders typically require documentation of your assets and liabilities from bank, brokerage, and retirement plan statements to title papers and loan agreements.

Financial Planning
To help shape your portfolio, retirement plan, and estate plan, your investment professional may want to review documents describing your current holdings.

Family Illness
A serious illness may require you to access a family member's important documents, such as a living will (health care proxy) or power of attorney designation.

Death of a Loved One
All too often, only the deceased knows the location of documents related to the financial assets within their estate. If you are the executor/executrix, you'll need many current and historical documents to pay expenses and settle the estate.

Unemployment
Continuation of health care, retirement plans, and other insurance benefits are usually top-of-mind upon losing a job. Will that information be readily available to you following your departure?

Retirement
When it's time to start taking distributions from your retirement plans, you need to have access to the documents describing your benefits and important contacts.

Credit Report Problems
When applying for a loan, credit report errors may be found. Locating documentation to correct the error can be time-consuming if you are not organized.

Use the valuable tools in the sidebar to begin constructing your LifeFolio today. Your organization efforts may be one of the easiest, most important gifts you can give yourself and your family. For more information about LifeFolio, give us a call at 800-MAINSTAY (624-6782).