A fellow Chief Home Officer (CHO) recently asked about organizing login information for family accounts such as insurance, mortgage, banking, etc. This is something every good CHO knows how to do! But CHO spouses: not so much.

Ask my husband to login to our insurance policy and you’ll get a blank stare. Mortgage accounts? Car loans? He doesn’t know that stuff. Because I know that stuff.

But what if I get hit by a street cleaner tomorrow? How would my spouse know which bills to pay and where to find them?

For this in-case-of-emergency, I created a shared Google Drive document, which I will gladly share with you (if you click the box below). The same difference would be a shared Excel document in Dropbox, or Microsoft Office 365.

But, you ask: Is that safe? What if someone were to hack this document? They’d know which accounts I have, account numbers, logins, passwords, etc. (Hackers are drooling at this list I know.)  I cannot absolutely promise you that this is safe but I believe that you can only be as safe online as you are offline. Offline, I always use a paper shredder. (God I love that thing!) Online, I use the following tips for added online security:

1. 1. Always use 2FA, or 2-factor authentication. Google calls this 2-Step Verification. It means that you cannot login to your accounts on a new device without a second form of identification such as a code that was sent to your phone via text message, voicemail, or voice call. I login to Google with my real password, then a code is immediately sent via text. I enter that code, and only then can I enter my Google universe. There have been times when someone has tried to hack my Google account but I get texts in realtime and immediately change passwords. Most companies have some form of 2FA. USE IT!
   2. Use a password manager. I use 1Password. This means that my passwords have nothing to do with children’s birthdays, anniversaries, imaginary friends, or any variation thereof. 1Password generates random passwords for all of your online accounts and saves them behind one wall: one secure password. There is an app for your desktop as well as your mobile devices so that you never have to remember a password like Y7^a%vMB${5. The program also helps you generate strong random passwords for new accounts. This isn’t a cheap solution but it isn’t all that expensive either. It costs $50, which is a lot cheaper than dealing with identity theft!

So now that you know your documents have a fighting chance at privacy, feel free to use my template for family account management. I’ll gladly email it to you if you click the link below. You can upload it to Google Drive, Dropbox, Microsoft Office, or any number of document sharing services and then share with your partner. Just use the tips above for doing so!

If you need help with this document or the sharing services I suggested, let me know! I’ll gladly help you out with a video tutorial.

Be safe out there folks!