Can't help the OP but we both now use a method (algorithm sounds grander I suppose) to create passwords for accounts so that in the event of the abrupt demise or incapacity of either then the other can still log on (designed with utilities and banks etc in mind)
There are prefixes, suffixes and other characters in certain positions which change depending on variable stuff like the web site name, the nature of the website and other things which you can "classify". Sometimes certain bits are capitalised. The core character sequence is just some characters which we have remembered, and can easily be changed when we decide to.
The password is always a minimum of 8 characters, looks just like a random set of characters (as opposed to actual words) and often includes a special character by default thereby fulfilling all security requirements. You can of course end up with two identical passwords for different sites but it's pretty unlikely.
So for instance you could have the number of characters in the website, followed by the last letter of the tld capitalised (e.g. m for .com) followed by an pound sign for sites where you have any financial detail, or a % if you don't, followed by other characters (ideally also made up by cleverness but on the examples below my street name, bor) to bring it to an 8 character minimum) then the third letter of the website - so for this site
8M%borr
and for NatWest
7M£bort
and for eBay
4K£bora
(The above are only 7 characters and really require something different to the street name "padding" to 1) make it min 8 characters and 2) reduce similarities)
So you can imagine that although we might have different views on, say, whether the saite contained financial info, and therefore we might not always get it right first time, we can usually hit the right password in two or three attempts. Of course, email needs to be strictly set up as that's often essential if a password has been "forgotten" (i.e. you can't work it out).
If someone compared a number of our passwords a pattern would start to emerge but even then it wouldn't be absolutely clear as some bits are pretty random. You can use smart stuff like if the website name has an even number of characters then the special character is at position 2 (i.e. even) uit if it's odd then it's at position 3 (odd!) to make it even more varied.
But maybe a password manage is easier... :-)
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