It’s Cyber Monday, let’s talk about death!
You might have gathered that I’m not particularly in the sell sell sell mode this shopping season. My inbox is flooded with deals that, unless you know what these companies actually pay to produce and ship things, look good on the surface. One thing stood out though among 800 emails I’ve received since Thursday, and that was Titan Casket.
TL;DR – Paul’s being morbid and none of these are tagged links – make a plan so you don’t screw with your kids.
I missed their Black Friday sale but they’ve… yeah, they’ve got a Cyber Monday deal because of course… the BF code was FUNERALRULE I’d guess that’s the CM code as well. Evidently that’s not in reference to funerals ruling, but a Federal Trade Commission requirement that funeral homes accept non-house-brand caskets.
If you’re not familiar with Titan Casket, they’re evidently what Taylor Swift popped out of in the Anti-Hero music video (at about 2:15-4:31) – yikes that’s a lot of music video coffin screen time. Lordy, that’s a product placement that worked out for them and evidently was unexpected.
Anyhow, Titan Casket helps you plan for the future, which is going to end the same way for most of us with a used body laying there and set of sad and confused loved ones attempting to plan a funeral and get you buried without much sleep and making bad financial choices.
So yeah, make a plan. In 2003 I was hit with the loss of my mother and subsequently by a funeral home and a series of choices and unexpected and unexplained fees and markups as nearly $2600 was tacked on for a coffin that was twice expected, a concrete vault which suddenly we had to have, and a host of random things that were not explained, or were explained to someone who had been awake for four days at this point.
I’m not currently in the shopping for a casket market, but the prices listed on their site are significantly less than the funeral home hit me for the basic coffin in 2003. So yeah, make those plans before your sleep deprived loved ones are given a couple of days to handle it. You can pre-buy from here and have it drop shipped when you die.
Titan has a pre-planning contract and you can call them up and make arrangement for when things happen. I’m just mentioning them quite a bit due to the fact that they’re the number one coffin manufacturer that has contacted me over the past few days. My plans are to be dropped in the woods and hope bobcats take random limbs into town to scare the crap out of townsfolk. I’m told this may not be doable and have a nice coffee can lined up for my ashes.
Happy Monday!
Clear that browser history!
But seriously, passwords need more
What happens when you die? Due to two-factor authentication and several other things it’s next to impossible to just give a password to a loved one and expect them to take over your social media accounts these days.
If I died, people have to figure out my authentication methods just to get into an account they have the password for. While the methods of second factor authentication vary from social media platform to bank to whatever, you need to plan for more than just giving someone a password. Your Authenticator app behind a biometric unlock that needs a passcode to reach after the phone has died may be a lot more than is doable. Hell, being forced to change passwords on accounts is screwing with your legacy on a daily basis.
If you can designate a survivor/legacy account, or one time passcodes, make sure you figure this out and share before it’s too late. Sharing an authenticator QR token can go a long way to whoever’s in charge of posting your “I’m dead, thanks Maurice” post.
You also don’t want this sitting in an email for hackers to get because dang…
Just think about it.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way
Got something you want other than your next of kin to get everything? Spell it out in legalese or prepare to watch the loudest family member swoop in and dominate everything with their wishes.
I’ve googled “free online will” and basically looks like there’re several. I’m not recommending any one in particular but make one. Make sure it’s known that it exists. You can password protect it and dropbox it or something and set someone to send an email on your behalf with the password if you want. Or get a lawyer involved.
You die intestate, you go by local laws at that point. Sometimes they work out for you, sometimes not.
Cancelling Netflix is hard when you’re dead
Got recurring expenses? Get a card just for them if you’re able. Shutting down one card for Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, etc is easier than trying to shut down something property taxes and car payments might be tied to. Or you know, don’t put them on auto-renew and pay monthly. You do you.
Expect the unexpected
When my mom died it was just a few days after she was told she was clear of cancer and the doctor expected her to live another decade at the very least. He was off by about 3,646 days. She hadn’t made much of a plan because things were getting better and there was no expectation she was going to be unable to even recognize people five days later.
What happened was a nearly year long effort to just get things taken care of. Nothing was without a fight.
It takes a lot of work to die, get on it
Make a plan. Always make a plan. Assume any time you don’t you’re forcing someone who’s not prepared to make a plan to make a plan.
Leave an instruction manual… just because you know how to transfer bitcoin from your mining rig to your Cash App to your bank doesn’t mean your sleep deprived loved ones are going to be able to figure this out or that they need to expend effort to learn because it’s valuable.
Do your loved ones need to learn PuppyHashCoin or create an account? Make sure they have the URLs of the right thing and aren’t getting scammed by a crypto market.
Got a folder that needs to go when you do? Batch files man.
Got a message for your kids? Record it now.
