Simply Essential Family Records Kit

Monika Rohlmann is an environmental consultant in Victoria, B.C.

Self-Counsel Press is in the business of providing do-it-yourself
guidebooks on otherwise intimidating topics. The books are laid out in
logical fashion beginning with background information and ending with a
glossary and handy computer disk for accessing forms and recording
personal data. In between all that are hefty pages of guiding detail and
ample explanation.

The Family Records Kit contains 50 tear-out forms for recording
descriptions of everything from your home filing system, to banking
information, to end-of-life concerns. The Personal Budgeting Kit gives a
solid lesson on how to count and track your spending habits. The
financial tables are filled in with examples, leaving the reader with
the seven tear-out forms at the back as well as the floppy disk version
to fill out and print. The financial lessons also cover such topics as
tax and estate planning.

If only we could be the cerebral and planning type—how organized our
affairs would be, how easily our money managed. All the tools for
personal management and financial independence are laid out in these
books. And therein lies the trouble: too much detail, too
time-consuming, too methodical. Still, even if you fill out just a few
of the tables in either of these books, you’ll be thankful—and so
will your children and grandchildren, for don’t we all whine and wish
for more recorded information about the everyday life of our ancestors?