---
title: When one of you handles all the money.
description: When one of you handles all the money...It works until it doesn’t. What the other person actually needs to know is not the amounts — it is the map!
image: https://blog.keystonewealth.ca/hubfs/%E2%9C%85Saturday%2c%20Nov%207.png
---

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 Nov 6, 2026, 7:30:00 AM

# When one of you handles all the money.

![Picture of Harley McCormick, Financial Advisor; Keystone Wealth | Aviso Wealth](https://blog.keystonewealth.ca/hs-fs/hubfs/Harley%206-2023.jpg?width=50&name=Harley%206-2023.jpg) [Harley McCormick, Financial Advisor; Keystone Wealth | Aviso Wealth](https://blog.keystonewealth.ca/money-matters/author/harley-mccormick)

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When one of you handles all the money.

5:57

 *It works until it doesn’t. What the other person actually needs to know is not the amounts — it is the map. And it takes an afternoon.*

In most households one person handles the money. They open the statements, they talk to the advisor, they know when the mortgage renews and which account the property tax comes out of. The other person knows roughly what exists and trusts that it is being looked after. ![✅Saturday, Nov 7 (2)](https://blog.keystonewealth.ca/hs-fs/hubfs/Blog/%E2%9C%85Saturday%2c%20Nov%207%20(2).png?width=2000&height=556&name=%E2%9C%85Saturday%2c%20Nov%207%20(2).png)That is not a dysfunction. It is a sensible division of labour, and the alternative — both people doing the same work twice — would be worse. The problem is not how it operates day to day. The problem is what happens if it stops operating.

## **The failure mode is not always death**

People assume this is an estate question, which is why it gets postponed along with everything else in that category. It is broader than that.

A stroke, a serious diagnosis, a hospital stay, early cognitive decline, or simply being somewhere unreachable for a fortnight — each of these produces the same situation. One person is suddenly responsible for a system they have never operated, often while dealing with the thing that caused it.

And unlike death, most of these come with no paperwork, no lawyer, and nobody whose job it is to help the other person find their footing.

The households that struggle most are rarely the disorganised ones. They are the ones where the person who handled it handled it extremely well — entirely in their own head, with nothing written down because none of it ever needed to be.

## **What the other person actually needs**

Not the amounts. The amounts can be found. What cannot be easily reconstructed is the map: what exists, where it is, and who to call.

Here is the entire exercise. One folder, six things in it, and one other person who knows it exists. 

| **What goes in** | **Why it is there** |
| --- | --- |
| **Institutions and account types** | Which bank, which investment firm, which insurer — and roughly what sits where. Not the balances. |
| **People, with phone numbers** | Advisor, lawyer, accountant. The three calls that get made first. |
| **Where the original will is** | Not a copy. The original, and the name of the firm or the location of the safe |
| **Powers of attorney** | Both kinds, property and personal care. These matter while you are alive, which is the part people miss. |
| **Insurance policies** | Life, disability, critical illness, and anything attached to a mortgage or a workplace plan. |
| **Where the passwords live** | The location of the password manager or the written list — not the passwords themselves. |

That last item deserves a line of its own. Write down where the passwords are kept, not what they are. A list of passwords in a folder is a security problem, and — for reasons covered below — it is a particularly bad idea to put them anywhere near the will.

## **Powers of attorney are the part that gets missed**

A will does nothing while you are alive. If you are in hospital and unable to make decisions, your spouse does not automatically gain the authority to deal with your accounts, sell an asset, or make a decision about your care. Being married is not sufficient, and neither is being named in the will.

Two separate documents cover this: a power of attorney for property, and one for personal care. They do different jobs and they can name different people. Both need to exist before they are needed — nobody can sign one on your behalf afterwards.

A joint bank account is not a substitute. It solves access to that one account and nothing else.

## **How to start the conversation**

The usual reason this never happens is that raising it feels morbid, or like an accusation that the other person is not coping. It helps to frame it as organization rather than contingency.

• “If I got hit by a bus, would you know who to call first?” — direct, slightly flippant, and it tends to get a straight answer.

• “Can we spend half an hour writing down where everything is?” — an activity rather than a discussion, which lowers the stakes considerably.

• “I want you to come to the next review.” — the single most useful thing a couple can do. Meeting the advisor once removes most of the awkwardness from the eventual phone call.

Half an hour is genuinely enough for the first pass. The folder does not have to be complete to be useful; it has to exist.

## **Three things not to do**

• Do not put passwords or account numbers in the will. A will that goes through probate can become a public document, and in any case a will is difficult to update — which is the opposite of what a password list needs to be.

**•** Do not rely on a single shared email account as the record. If it is locked, recovery runs through a phone that may also be inaccessible.

• Do not assume an institution will be helpful. Without authority on file, a bank cannot discuss an account with a spouse, however obviously reasonable the request is. That is not obstruction; it is the rule they operate under.

## **Keep it current, and tell someone**

Review the folder once a year — the same conversation as the annual review is a natural time. Accounts close, advisors change, insurance lapses, and a map that is five years out of date can be worse than none at all, because it sends someone looking in the wrong places.

And tell one person outside the household that it exists and roughly where it is. An adult child, a sibling, your executor. A perfect folder nobody knows about is not much better than no folder.

## **If you are the one who handles it**

This is not a task you are doing for yourself. It is the clearest, most concrete thing you can do for the person who would otherwise be working it out alone, at the worst possible moment, with no idea what they do not know.

If it would help to go through it with someone, that is a conversation we have often — and one we are glad to have with both of you in the room.

**Talk to an advisor — keystonewealth.ca/contact** 

*Mutual funds and other securities are offered through Aviso Wealth, a division of Aviso Financial Inc.*

This article is general information about organizing household financial records. It is not advice about your own situation, and it is not legal advice — powers of attorney and wills should be prepared with a lawyer.

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