Elusive Wealth

Get Your Ducks in a Row

As a follow on to Tom’s post about security, let’s look again at the weakest link in your security – You… and the little scraps of paper that contain your user names and passwords.

As noted earlier in this forum, accumulating wealth can be quite simple: buy a lottery ticket, get lucky, voila! you’re wealthy. But even with that simple, albeit  unlikely scheme, you still have to remember where you stored the lottery ticket.

Using Tom’s ( and Smith-Barney’s)  “old fashioned way” of accumulating wealth takes more time, patience and a lot more remembering.  You have to remember more than just user names and passwords.  There are  account numbers, safe combinations, pin numbers, life insurance policies, spouse’s SSN, etc., ad nauseum, ad infinitum.  Now, if you’re twenty-something, have only a few accounts spread around and most of your brain cells are still in tact, you’re thinking “How bad can it be?”  However, if,  like me, you’re a (way) bit older and haven’t  organized this information, you’re most likely rocking in the fetal position, hoping your  memory will return.

Of course, you can organize data on a sheet of paper, put it in a drawer and like the lottery ticket simply remember where it is so you can constantly keep it up to date.  You just have to hope your 7 year old daughter doesn’t take it to school for financial “show and tell” or the new puppy doesn’t rearrange a few figures when you forget to put it back in the drawer (the paper, not the puppy!).

A better solution is a simple and, preferably secure, database.  There are several solutions out there ranging from cheap to free.  Unless you’re reading this article at the library (you’ll need your own computer), the cheapest digital solution is a text file or spreadsheet with a few columns for description, user name, password, URL and account number(s). Although I would contend, it’s better than nothing, this solution has some serious security issues and is not as easy to use as a dedicated program.

The database I have used for the past 5 years is Passwords Plus.  It’s under $30, is extremely easy to use and syncs with any device running the Palm OS.  This last feature saved my butt a couple of years ago when my wife and I, while vacationing in Maine, discovered the rustic little cabin (read “hellhole”) we were staying in didn’t take credit cards.  Because my PDA  contained my checking account number, we were able to quickly secure cash at the local bank without resorting to masks.

KeePass, mentioned in Tom’s post,  is another program that I tried recently just for comparison.  It’s friendliest feature is that it’s free!  It also appears to have another layer of protection that Passwords Plus doesn’t have, that being a “disk key” that you generate yourself.  So, if super security is one of your requirements, it may be the better choice.  Also, for you Mozilla Firefox users (like myself), KeePass allows you to import any usernames and passwords you’ve captured in your browser.  However, I think I will still stick with Passwords Plus just because it’s so darned easy to use.

In conclusion, there are several other similar solutions out there, but it’s not so important which one you use as that you organize your important data…now!   If you’re currently using Passwords Plus, KeePass or another similar program, let us know; we’d love to hear from you.