What about the post-wedding, YOU'RE MARRIED NOW checklist?
March 17, 2016 10:25 AM Subscribe
All the marriage-related "to do" lists I've found online are aimed at wedding-related activities. What about all the stuff that has to do with designating each other one's chief emergency contact, legal financial partner, etc.? I mean, I told my car insurance company that I'd gotten married and they were like, "GOOD THING YOU TOLD US. THAT CHANGES THINGS." So....yikes. I know I probably should be declaring my husband my emergency contact and heir and whatever, but I'm just not sure what TO do, exactly, and I can't find a good list to guide me. In short, I am soliciting all your "don't forget to do this now you've got a spouse" tips, no matter how big or how small.
Best answer: You can use a site like Get Your Shit Together to review and/or create some common documents like wills and advance care directives for your state. These self-service sites become less helpful the more complicated your situation is by things like kids and property, but it's one place to start.
Marriage counts as a life-changing event that allows you to update your health insurance selections if that applies. If you have retirement accounts or stocks, don't forget to update your beneficiaries there as appropriate.
In most states, I don't think you need to file additional paperwork to confirm you are financially intertwined. The marriage itself does that, and in fact, even if you keep your accounts separate that still doesn't usually matter to the state if decisions need to be made. Generally speaking, your debts and many of your assets belong to each other by virtue of the marriage.
posted by juliplease at 10:39 AM on March 17, 2016 [4 favorites]
Marriage counts as a life-changing event that allows you to update your health insurance selections if that applies. If you have retirement accounts or stocks, don't forget to update your beneficiaries there as appropriate.
In most states, I don't think you need to file additional paperwork to confirm you are financially intertwined. The marriage itself does that, and in fact, even if you keep your accounts separate that still doesn't usually matter to the state if decisions need to be made. Generally speaking, your debts and many of your assets belong to each other by virtue of the marriage.
posted by juliplease at 10:39 AM on March 17, 2016 [4 favorites]
Best answer: For all financial accounts, consider if you want to name your spouse as the POD beneficiary. I'm not saying you should necessarily -- some people have good reasons to name another person or entity. It's a good time to check who the beneficiary is for the accounts, even if you don't want to change them.
posted by yohko at 10:39 AM on March 17, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by yohko at 10:39 AM on March 17, 2016 [1 favorite]
Best answer: There's not a lot you have to do immediately. It's only really complicated if you have a lot of complicated financial arrangements or are changing your name. I'd do them in this order:
1. Health insurance: pick whether to each have your own or go in together on the same employer. Make sure you don't duplicate any of your coverage by being on more than one.
2. Bank accounts: are you going joint? Go ahead and open a new joint account if so. Decide what gets paid from what account; in general how will your money be parked and how will you pay bills.
3. Home insurance or renter's insurance: need to include you both.
4. Inheritance: do either of you have one, or have one coming? Probably need to involve a lawyer on this if you have a lot of money/assets to designate/protect.
5. Make each other the beneficiary on your 401k or other retirement stuff.
6. Life insurance, too.
7. Taxes: will you be filing jointly like most married folks? Research what's best for you.
8. Leases: are you renting? Are you both on the lease?
Most of this has to do with your employer, and their HR department will help you cover what's necessary on their end. You might need an accountant to figure out how to file depending on what point in the year you got married.
posted by emjaybee at 10:41 AM on March 17, 2016 [5 favorites]
1. Health insurance: pick whether to each have your own or go in together on the same employer. Make sure you don't duplicate any of your coverage by being on more than one.
2. Bank accounts: are you going joint? Go ahead and open a new joint account if so. Decide what gets paid from what account; in general how will your money be parked and how will you pay bills.
3. Home insurance or renter's insurance: need to include you both.
4. Inheritance: do either of you have one, or have one coming? Probably need to involve a lawyer on this if you have a lot of money/assets to designate/protect.
5. Make each other the beneficiary on your 401k or other retirement stuff.
6. Life insurance, too.
7. Taxes: will you be filing jointly like most married folks? Research what's best for you.
8. Leases: are you renting? Are you both on the lease?
Most of this has to do with your employer, and their HR department will help you cover what's necessary on their end. You might need an accountant to figure out how to file depending on what point in the year you got married.
posted by emjaybee at 10:41 AM on March 17, 2016 [5 favorites]
Best answer: Simulate your taxes as married filing joint (there are online apps, and you can use last year's software or returns or numbers) to see what the impact of marriage is.
If you get a substantial benefit, which typically happens if your incomes are far apart, you might want to lower your withholdings so that you aren't overpaying up front. Or if you owe a bunch, someone needs to up their withholdings.
posted by Dashy at 10:47 AM on March 17, 2016
If you get a substantial benefit, which typically happens if your incomes are far apart, you might want to lower your withholdings so that you aren't overpaying up front. Or if you owe a bunch, someone needs to up their withholdings.
posted by Dashy at 10:47 AM on March 17, 2016
Best answer: Talk to HR at work right away, as there are some tight restrictions on how late you can make changes.
In my state, at least for my pension account, getting married immediately voids all preexisting documents you've signed explaining who gets your stuff when you die, and sets it all to the standard rules within state law. So you need to check all the stuff that could get inherited, including life insurance, to be sure your new situation hasn't caused changes you don't want.
posted by SMPA at 10:50 AM on March 17, 2016 [2 favorites]
In my state, at least for my pension account, getting married immediately voids all preexisting documents you've signed explaining who gets your stuff when you die, and sets it all to the standard rules within state law. So you need to check all the stuff that could get inherited, including life insurance, to be sure your new situation hasn't caused changes you don't want.
posted by SMPA at 10:50 AM on March 17, 2016 [2 favorites]
Best answer: Are you changing your health insurance plans? Getting married is a qualifying event, so even if you're staying on the existing plans and just want to shift around FSA contributions or something, it's an opportunity to do so.
Assuming you wish to do so, update all your life and retirement plans to list your husband as the beneficiary (and vice versa). You may be able to do the same thing via a will or regional laws may do it as well, but doing it officially through their preferred interface will make it easier if something does happen, and sometimes getting the payout in under 30 days rather than dragging through probate can make a big difference.
Make a burial plan sometime soon - it's better to have picked out basic funeral arrangements ahead of time than to have to do it in the midst of grief if there's an accident.
If you own property, consult local guides for what needs to happen to get it into both of your names.
If you have elderly parents, you might see if they want your spouses to have any kind of power of attorney for medical care for them if their child is unavailable.
If you wish to and haven't already, update all your doctors to give your spouse access to your medical records. If you have pets and your vets aren't familiar with your spouse, make sure they're aware that you got married. Same with utilities if one of you is moving into the other's existing residence.
Draw up a budget and decide how you will stick to it.
You might want to pick out a marriage counselor and have at least a casual first meeting with them, so that if you do find you need a third party mediator, you've got one settled on already. Depending on your needs and finances, picking out a mutually agreed accountant can be good as well.
posted by Candleman at 10:51 AM on March 17, 2016 [1 favorite]
Assuming you wish to do so, update all your life and retirement plans to list your husband as the beneficiary (and vice versa). You may be able to do the same thing via a will or regional laws may do it as well, but doing it officially through their preferred interface will make it easier if something does happen, and sometimes getting the payout in under 30 days rather than dragging through probate can make a big difference.
Make a burial plan sometime soon - it's better to have picked out basic funeral arrangements ahead of time than to have to do it in the midst of grief if there's an accident.
If you own property, consult local guides for what needs to happen to get it into both of your names.
If you have elderly parents, you might see if they want your spouses to have any kind of power of attorney for medical care for them if their child is unavailable.
If you wish to and haven't already, update all your doctors to give your spouse access to your medical records. If you have pets and your vets aren't familiar with your spouse, make sure they're aware that you got married. Same with utilities if one of you is moving into the other's existing residence.
Draw up a budget and decide how you will stick to it.
You might want to pick out a marriage counselor and have at least a casual first meeting with them, so that if you do find you need a third party mediator, you've got one settled on already. Depending on your needs and finances, picking out a mutually agreed accountant can be good as well.
posted by Candleman at 10:51 AM on March 17, 2016 [1 favorite]
Best answer: We were very slow with all the real official legal stuff, but one thing we did relatively quickly was make sure each of us knew how to access each other's password list for banking, et cetera because in the absence of having all your paperwork in order, being able to access accounts in order to get account numbers and copies of policies is important.
emjaybee's list is pretty good--the only thing I would add is re-titling cars, condos or having "transfer on death" instruments drafted for large real property and ensuring that your spouse is also authorized to access your safe deposit box, storage lockers, and similar things.
posted by crush-onastick at 10:53 AM on March 17, 2016 [3 favorites]
emjaybee's list is pretty good--the only thing I would add is re-titling cars, condos or having "transfer on death" instruments drafted for large real property and ensuring that your spouse is also authorized to access your safe deposit box, storage lockers, and similar things.
posted by crush-onastick at 10:53 AM on March 17, 2016 [3 favorites]
Best answer: All the stuff above is important. This is just something that might make annoying parts of life a bit easier:
Get both of your names (whether or not anyone's changing theirs) on accounts like power, water, landline, etc. It's enough of a pain to do anything at the DMV, for example, and realizing too late that you don't have adequate proof of residence is just salt in the wound.
Do the same with any account for which you'll want to be able to call customer service. Whoever's home when the internet goes flaky should be able to call without worrying about having the account holder's permission to discuss the matter, y'know?
posted by whoiam at 11:47 AM on March 17, 2016 [2 favorites]
Get both of your names (whether or not anyone's changing theirs) on accounts like power, water, landline, etc. It's enough of a pain to do anything at the DMV, for example, and realizing too late that you don't have adequate proof of residence is just salt in the wound.
Do the same with any account for which you'll want to be able to call customer service. Whoever's home when the internet goes flaky should be able to call without worrying about having the account holder's permission to discuss the matter, y'know?
posted by whoiam at 11:47 AM on March 17, 2016 [2 favorites]
Best answer: Call your doctors to make sure you're each designated formally as the other's healthcare proxy, and that you have all the correct contact info listed.
posted by Miko at 8:56 PM on March 17, 2016
posted by Miko at 8:56 PM on March 17, 2016
Also, if your name changed, you need a new passport if you have one.
If you happened to get a passport for the honeymoon, you're in luck:
"If less than one year has passed since your passport was issued, you will not have to pay any passport or processing fees"
I didn't bother getting a new passport until my 3rd anniversary. I was a little annoyed to find out it could have been free if I were prompt about it.
posted by timepiece at 4:19 PM on March 21, 2016
If you happened to get a passport for the honeymoon, you're in luck:
"If less than one year has passed since your passport was issued, you will not have to pay any passport or processing fees"
I didn't bother getting a new passport until my 3rd anniversary. I was a little annoyed to find out it could have been free if I were prompt about it.
posted by timepiece at 4:19 PM on March 21, 2016
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by kindall at 10:31 AM on March 17, 2016 [9 favorites]