2) Contact all income sources about your spouse's death. They need to know right away, preferably from you. Those you should contact include his/her employer, the Social Security Administration, his/her pension fund, managers for all Individual Retirement Accounts (IRA) and 401(k)s, insurance companies, health insurers, banks, and brokers.

3) Immediately notify the U.S. Social Security Administration of your spouse's death, to receive whatever retirement or survivor's benefits to which you are entitled. Note that the earliest you can receive Social Security survivor benefits is age 60.

4) Determine survivor/orphan eligibility for your children. If you are a survivor and have children under the age of 16 in your household, you may collect Social Security survivor benefits for yourself, and orphan benefits for your children.

5) Since you're probably the beneficiary listed on your spouse's IRA, you have the right to switch it to a "spousal IRA." Depending on your age, IRS rules governing a spousal IRA enable you to either continue receiving income payouts, or delay receiving payouts and creating a "stretch IRA," allowing tax-deferred growth for future years.

6) As the surviving spouse, you may be entitled to continue receiving your husband or wife's pension income, if he or she had picked "joint annuity" pay out. Regardless, depending on the rules, you might have to accept a lower rate. Ask a financial advisor to help you explore your options.

7) Put your death payouts to work — tax-free. All death benefit payouts from your spouse's life insurance are tax free to the beneficiary. Consider investing these payouts for future income.

8) Protect your identity. Now that your spouse is gone, you're even more vulnerable to identity theft. Sophisticated thieves often steal the identities of the deceased. Change all personal identification numbers and passwords related to banks, mutual funds, credit, ATM and debit cards, as well as all other computer security systems that govern your investments and finances. Cancel all jointly held credit cards and apply for brand new ones, solely in your name.

No one likes to think about death, but to paraphrase the famous poem, don't ask for whom the funeral bell tolls. When it comes to your financial future, it tolls for thee.

This post originally appeared at InvestingAnswers.com.