Your current job, the side income you run on the side, every job you’ve ever held, and your military service if you served. These pages answer the forms that ask for dates you can’t remember, and they protect benefits nobody will come knocking to explain.
Why it matters
Day to day, your current employer page answers small questions without a login: your leave balance, which account your paycheck lands in, and the HR number that actually reaches a person.
The step-in use comes down to one line: HR won’t call your family. Your family has to call HR. Group life insurance, the final paycheck, unused leave, and retirement benefits all wait for someone to ask.
Side income is harder. It doesn’t stop when you do. A channel keeps earning, a client keeps waiting, and subscriptions keep billing. The goal is to write down not just “here is my side business,” but “here is what I’d want done with it.”
Your full work history pays off, too. Background checks, license applications, loans, and security clearances all want exact dates. And old employers matter more than you’d expect, because a small retirement balance from a job you left at twenty-eight can sit forgotten for decades.
If you served, everything connected to your service runs through paperwork, starting with the DD-214, the key that unlocks nearly every benefit owed to a service member.
What to gather
- Your current employer’s HR contact, benefits, and where your pay stubs are
- Group life insurance and retirement plans through work, and who is named as beneficiary
- Each side business: the platforms it runs on, the accounts money moves through, and what you’d want done with it
- Every past employer, with dates, job titles, and any retirement plan you had there
- For veterans: service dates, branch, rank, and where the DD-214 (Member 4 copy) is kept
- Your VA file number and any veterans service organization contact
Where to find it
Your current benefits portal and most recent pay stub cover most of the employer page. Your annual benefits enrollment confirmation lists every plan you’re in.
For your work history, old W-2s, tax returns, and your Social Security earnings record fill in the dates and employer names. Look for retirement plans at every past job, including companies that have since merged or changed names.
For military records, check your own files first. If the DD-214 is missing, veterans and next of kin can request a copy from the National Archives.
A free resource
Retirement Savings Lost and Found (U.S. Department of Labor): a free federal database for finding retirement plans from past employers that you may have lost track of.
What the course adds
The Work and Career module has four workbook pages: Current Employer, Side Hustles, Employment Records, and Military Service. If one doesn’t apply to you, like military service, you skip it, and nothing else in the book breaks.
Each lesson covers where to find every field and what a helper would need first.
Facts of Life Book Course · $29 · Self-paced · Included in Off The Clock, On Purpose
Keep reading
- The Facts of Life Book: what it is and how the course works
- Financial Information
- Education and Training Records
Disclaimer: For educational and informational purposes only. This is not medical, financial, tax, or legal advice. Consult appropriate professionals in each area.