The Bus List
Making it easier for those who come after
What the hell is a Bus List? Well, I inherited the name from my step-grandfather and it’s ‘the list you’ll need if I go under a bus tomorrow’. Let’s just say he wasn’t the most sentimental of men. After a will, it’s the next thing those dealing with your sadmin will need if they are to make head or tail of your affairs after you’ve gone.
I’m off to Japan on Monday for an extended travel/writing sabbatical and perhaps it’s the thought of being so far away from home during a period of such global eco-political-systemic instability, or maybe it’s the spate of recent plane crashes in that part of the world, or it could be the friend a few year’s younger than me who has just died, on top of the many other losses I’ve had these last couple of years—whatever the prod, I knew it was time to tackle my Bus List.
But first of all, let’s talk about wills. Did you know that half of people in the UK don’t have a will, and neither do almost two-thirds of people in the US? That’s an awful lot of people who aren’t planning to die.
For me, as someone who is childless, there was a huge wallop of grief and fear to face when I finally made my first will at fifty: this was not the will I had imagined one day making. And indeed, at the solicitor’s office, I was faced with a pre-printed form that included several pages for ‘children and grandchildren’ with the option to add ‘supplementary pages’ as needed. My solicitor was childfree, and appreciated the pronatalist absurdity of this and, if it hadn’t been for her support, I think I would have put it off to ‘another day’ yet again; the pain of scoring through those several sheets of ‘descendants’ as not applicable is seared on my soul.
A decade later, my circumstances had changed and so last year (aged sixty) I updated my will. This time, understanding more about the process, I opted to do it online using a template from LawDepot.com (available in many countries) and, once it had been witnessed by two of my neighbours, it’s as legal as any other will—and a lot cheaper. If your financial affairs are fairly straightforward, it’s an option to consider.
And if you do need a solicitor to do your will, in the UK there is a Free Wills Month organised by a group of solicitors and charities each March. (Sign up here as your local solicitor may reach their quota of free wills quite quickly.) And did you know that non-parents leave more bequests to charities than anyone else? Another nail in the coffin to the idea that we’re ‘selfish’!
The most useful advice I ever got about writing a will, and which helped to unstick me from my administrative paralysis (putting aside the emotional aspects) was this:
All your will needs to contain is what will happen to your financial affairs if you die tomorrow. It doesn’t have to include eventualities of how things might change in the future.
That’s it. You don’t need to list who gets your favourite armchair or teapot, or all of the many other decisions about the distribution of your possessions; that goes into something called (in the UK) your ‘letter of wishes’. This is a non-legally binding document you give to your nominated executors so that they can carry out your wishes, as much as possible.
Whether you have property and savings, or just a pile of debts and problems, you need a will, because all these things will need to be legally resolved after your death. A will is not just for those who have assets to leave which, quite frankly, an awful lot of us don’t.
Dying without a will (what is known as ‘intestate’) leaves a complicated mess for those left behind, and costs a lot more money in legal fees to resolve, including a possible court case. Because unless you have absolutely no relatives (however distant) who will be asked to step in, both your body and your possessions will be dealt with, and belong to the state. And if you do have relatives, and even if you are estranged from them, they’ll inherit your assets, including all your personal papers, pets, etc.
‘I don’t have anyone I can ask to be my executor’ is one of the most common (and frankly heartbreaking) things I hear from childless women as the reason they are resisting making their will. Facing up to the grief of that can be so huge that it can feel easier to make it a ‘logistical’ roadblock, when it’s often so much more.
It can be hard to ask for help. Something I’m learning with my pilot study for my own ALTERKIN (Alternative Kinship Network) group1 is how vulnerable it can feel for us necessarily hyper-independent women without children (and often without partners too), to ask for help. However, in my experience, humbling to the ego as it can be, most people are flattered to be asked, and it also creates an invitation to a deeper relationship. We talked about this on our recent Solo Elderhood webinar, which you can watch/read here.
And of course, whilst imaginary children make the ideal executors, not all real-life children do, so this is something parents often have to consider deeply too.
You can appoint your solicitor/lawyer as your executor, if there is no one in your life you trust enough to manage your private affairs after your death (including organising your funeral), but this is expensive as you have no control over the legal fees that they will charge to your estate. And if there won’t be sufficient funds in your estate, that probably won’t be an option. In that case, perhaps developing a relationship with a trusted local non-parent might be a better option, perhaps through groups like the ones AWOC runs in the UK?
It can also really help with the emotional challenges of making your will to do so in the presence of another non-parent; even just doing it online on Zoom with them as company in the background can offer crucial support around what is, after all, a very emotional piece of admin. I host an online group for Childless Elderwomen as part of the Childless Collective online community, and that could be a good place to find that buddy.
My executors are my partner, then my step-father, then my best friend from school. All of them are the same age or older than me and, life being a terminal condition, I may well have to revise that in time. I have left a small bequest from my very modest estate to each of them, as a thank you for doing the work of being an executor; sadmin can be a protracted process, particularly if you haven’t left a Bus List.
The Bus List is the master document to unlock my financial and administrative affairs. In our digital world, this is a much more complex process than it used to be, and if you don’t even leave a trail of breadcrumbs for your executors to follow, a logistical nightmare.
So, my Bus List contains everything my executor would need to know, from details of my bank accounts and pension, contact details for my accountant and solicitor, lists of all my digital accounts (social media and otherwise) that’ll need to be shut down, etc. It also lists my funeral wishes and the charity I’d like any donations to go to. It runs to 6 pages, and I’ve sent each of my executors a copy (with the passwords removed) and then told each of them how to access the hard copy that includes them. I’ve also set them up as ‘legacy contacts’ so that they will be allowed to access my phone and everything in my cloud storage after my death. Stored with the master copy of my Bus List are also the documents that they might need when I die such as birth, marriage/divorce certificates, my will and my last tax return—anything I can think of that might be needed so that they don’t have to hunt for them.
It took about 2 days of concerted effort to put my Bus List together, and it brought up more questions for me about the next step—Death Cleaning— sorting out all my possessions and giving away as much as possible before I die. This isn’t such a huge issue for me as, apart from a ridiculous amount of books, I don’t have many possessions, having lost so many of them along the way (I lost everything except the clothes I stood up in twice as a child and adolescent, and then lost a whole load more through my mother’s divorce in my early-twenties, and mine in my late-thirties).
I’ve also noticed that when I made my peace with my childlessness in my late-forties, my desire for ‘stuff’ evaporated—without anyone to pass it onto, the desire to travel more lightly in life came quite naturally. However, my personal papers? That I’m still mulling over, and I’m leaning towards a ritual bonfire of them at some point.
As with making my will, I feel lighter having done my Bus List, and I’ve actually slept better too. Although some unfinished business from my childhood popped up last night, so perhaps the next level of preparation may also be more psychospiritual and could involve some deeper shadow work, as outlined brilliantly in Connie Zweig’s book The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul. I’ll let you know how that goes!
Whether we have children or not, we do not live in a culture of ancestor worship and all of us will be forgotten in a couple of generations, or sooner. Part of my eldering process is acknowledging and planning for that forgetting.
And for those that do remember me for a short while, and who have taken on the sacred duty of executorship, I don’t want that memory to be cluttered by unnecessary crap because I didn’t leave my earthly house in order. I want them to remember me fondly.
After all, they’ll be burying me and looking out for the cat.
As a few commentators have pointed out, I haven’t mentioned Lasting Powers of Attorney for Finances and Health. I’m working on these too and will report back when I get my head around them!
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This essay is based on my personal experience. I am not a legal professional, and nothing in this personal essay, nor in the comments below, should be taken as legal advice.
ALTERKIN (Alternative Kinship Network) is a pilot project I’m working on (first for myself) in my local rural community. It’s a multi-generational, mutual-aid ‘community of care’ designed to support those aging without children. You can hear/read me talking about it here, and I’ll be sharing more about it over the next few years as my local project evolves, in the hope that others can learn from my experience and we can build a network of them together.
Love "the bus list." I just interviewed Rusty Rosman, author of "Two Envelopes: What You Want Your Loved Ones to Know When You Die," and she takes into account that loved ones don't have to be family. Very easy-but-difficult undertaking! here's the Amazon link to her book: https://a.co/d/dQF1Bg2
Thanks for this! There's a book called "I'm Dead. Now What?" by Peter Pauper Press, that's a very useful place/format for the Bus List idea. Asked a lot of questions I wouldn't have thought of. And like everything else, it needs to be updated every few years.......