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Be Prepared or Be Me

We had some nasty storms roll through over the weekend. There was a lot of tornado-ish activity, 70 mile-an-hour gusts of wind, hail, and an electrical blackout. For almost 24 hours, we were living in the stone age, with nothing but smartphones for internet, and high-lumen flashlights being used to see. With no cartoons for the girls, we were forced to read them bed-time stories, while my son and his friends were forced to use their imaginations to entertain themselves.

Every time we called, the electric company added 12 hours to their estimated repair time. Amazingly, they came in 7 hours ahead of schedule, if you don’t count the first two revisions.

By Saturday afternoon, we were out shopping for things we should have already had ready.

For years, we had discussed buying a generator. For some reason, it never became a priority. We have a large freezer and refrigerator full of food. With no electricity, a generator was suddenly prioritized. All of the places near us were sold out of budget-priced generators when we decided it was better to drop $400 on that than to lose $600 worth of food. We did find one, eventually, but it would have been better to take it out of the garage than have to shop for it when we needed it. Naturally, 10 minutes after we got it home, the power came on. Do yourself a favor: if you own a home and have a small corner available for storage, start shopping for a generator. Pick one up on sale instead of waiting until you have no real choice.

We have a ton of batteries. It’s one of the things we stock up on when they are on sale. Unfortunately, our broadest-beam flashlight takes a 6-volt battery, and we don’t keep a spare. By the end of the night, it was getting pretty yellow and dim. Another night would have killed it completely. This wasn’t a widespread blackout, so there was no shortage of batteries, but it would have been nice to have the spare already at home. Check your emergency supplies and make sure you have replacement batteries that fit everything you need.

The one thing that would have improved the night most is a good lantern. We had our 5, plus two of my son’s friends all trying to play board games by flashlight. A lantern could have been set on the entertainment center and lit most of the room.

For everything we were without due to the blackout, the one thing I truly missed was the air conditioner. When the storm died, so did the wind. Completely. Opening all of the windows didn’t help at all. Other than that, it was nice to have everyone forced to interact. Nobody was whining about being bored and we were all having fun.

I want to schedule a pseudo-blackout more often.

5 Reasons to Quit Saving and Start Living

Finance, Life

: Image by owaief89 via Flickr

Life is all about trade-offs. You trade your time for a paycheck. Your trade your paycheck for food, rent, and security. Don’t get so obsessed with saving and security that you forget to live your life. There are many good reasons to put your savings on hold in order to really live. Here are five of them:

1. You have an adequate emergency fund. You will never hear me advise against an emergency fund. If you don’t have one, stop reading this and get one. Go. Without an emergency fund, your budget is a financial crisis waiting to happen. With an emergency fund, you can weather life’s speed-bumps without watching them become total train-wrecks.

2. Your retirement is on autopilot. You are not allowed to stop saving and investing for retirement. Ever. Assuming you have a traditionally scheduled career that involves you working until you hit 65 and deferring a huge chunk of living until then, your income will cease when you retire. Do you know how long you will live? Do you want to spend your retirement broke and bored? Are you relying on the responsible financial management of the federal government to make sure you will still get your Social Security? Invest in your retirement and get this investment on autopilot so you can stop worrying about it.

3. Your income is set. I don’t believe in the fairy tale of a company being loyal to its employees. The aren’t. However, if you have a stable-ish job, an in-demand career, and some side-income coming from alternate sources, your emergency fund can be enough to carry you through the low times. That’s what it’s there for.

4. You have dreams. If you’ve always wanted to travel the world, follow a band on your, volunteer extensively, or anything else, it’s time to do it. Don’t postpone your passion.

5. Deathbed regrets suck. Very few people lie on their deathbed lamenting the things they did. Regrets tend to be focused on opportunities missed, skipped, or indefinitely postponed. Do the things that are important to you before it’s too late to do them. Don’t abandon your future in favor of current pleasures, but don’t forget to live, now.

Do you have any other reasons to stop saving?

Protection for your Loved Ones

Life

This is a guest post.

Life cover insurance acts as a safety net to pay for a family’s expenses should a wage earner become critically ill or die prematurely. Life cover includes life insurance as well as disability, critical illness, mortgage and income protection insurance policies.

Importance of life cover insurance

In most families, at least one adult is a wage earner and uses their income to pay for necessities such as food, clothing and rent or mortgage. If the wage earner becomes disabled, too ill to work, or dies, life cover insurance can pay for these expenses.

Stay-at-home parents provide valuable, though unpaid, services to the family. Without that person, the family would have to pay for childcare, household upkeep, errand running, and every other chore the stay-at-home parent did. If the stay-at-home parent has life insurance, these expenses can be covered.

Life cover insurance can pay off mortgages and education loans.

Live cover insurance policies will pay funeral costs, which can be substantial.

Family owned businesses can be insured and protected if the owner dies.

Objections

Life cover insurance is too expensive.

Insurance companies have plans to suit every budget and life circumstance. While young and healthy adults will generally receive the most affordable policies, older adults have plenty of reasonably priced options as well.

Disability or severe illness is unlikely.

Actually, 32% of men and 25% of women, ages 40 to 70, will experience a critical illness or disability. http://www.healthinsuranceguide.co.uk/statistics_mainbody.asp

Discussing disability or death is awkward and uncomfortable.

Agreed, but avoiding the topic puts loved ones into economic jeopardy. Without the wage earner’s life cover, a family could lose their home and have to lower their standard of living.

Variety of life cover insurances

Life Insurance

Term insurance is a protection policy, paid for during a specific time period (term), and is active during that time only. Permanent, whole, variable, universal and universal variable life insurance policies all are investment policies. They combine a death benefit (the amount paid out when the insured person dies) with an investment account. Licensed and experienced life insurance agents can help individuals make the best choice for their life situation.

Critical Illness/Disability Insurance

This type of insurance pays for living expenses if a person is diagnosed with a serious illness or disabled and can no longer work.

Mortgage Insurance

This is paid when the mortgage owner dies. This could help prevent the surviving family from having to sell the home.

The time to buy life cover insurance is now!

A 2010 survey (http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ownership-of-individual-life-insurance-falls-to-50-year-low-limra-reports-101789323.html) stated that individual life insurance ownership was at a 50 year low in the United States. An estimated 35 million (30% of households) Americans do not have life insurance, and 11 million of these households have children under 18. Already living paycheck to paycheck, any debilitating injury or death of a wage earning adult could spell financial disaster to the family. Buying life cover insurance is a vital part of caring for loved ones. Just as a wage earner provides a home, food and daily necessities for their family, life cover insurance can take over and provide for the family if the wage earner unable to do so.

Calendaring Life

Life

I’m incredibly absent-minded. I get involved in something and forget about almost everything else. While that makes me productive at work and helps the time pass, it means I forget to do a lot of things. On the days I am supposed to pick up my son, I have to set reminders so I don’t get wrapped up in a project at work and forget to leave on time.

My solution has been to put everything into Google Calendar. I use 10 different calendars, five of which are mine. I have one for regular scheduling of appointments, one I use to take notes for 30 Day Projects, and one that is copied from the school calendar so I don’t forget late-start days and school vacations. I also use calendars to track the wrestling team’s schedule, family birthdays, and upcoming holidays. I’ve got all of these calendars synced to my phone, I get reminders a week in advance, and I get a daily agenda at 5AM, every day. I don’t forget much anymore.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been working on a new project–a new calendar. I’ve been reviewing seasonal home-maintenance checklists, medical checkup recommendations, car maintenance lists, and more. All of this has been added to a new Google Calendar, the Home and Life Maintenance Calendar.

This calendar is designed to remind its users to do the things we all need to do, from biannual physicals to replacing your furnace filters, checking your tire pressure to cancer self-exams. The seasonal chores happen in the right seasons, and the monthly reminders happen monthly. It is a work-in-progress and I welcome any recommendations for the things I’ve missed.

So, here it is. Use it, set up reminders, smack me for missing something obvious and enjoy.
[google-calendar-events id=”1″ type=”ajax”]

Update: This post has been included in the Festival of Frugality.

Selling Your Home: For Sale by Owner

Finance

: Image by Casey Serin via Flickr

When you’re preparing to sell your home, your first instinct is often to rush straight to a realtor. There are benefits to using a trained real estate agent, but it isn’t always necessary.

The biggest motivation to skip the realtor is avoiding the fees, which can run as high as 7% or more in some places. What does that 7% get you?

First, it gets you experience. Realtors know which hoops you have to jump through, from both a legal and a marketing perspective. Do you need an inspection? How much of your stuff should you move to storage? Are you comfortable with high-dollar negotiations?

Time is another critical item in the fee. Do you have a minimum of an hour to dedicate to advertising and screening potential buyers? Every day? Do you have a flexible schedule to show your house at times convenient for the buyers?

The third element is access to the Multiple Listing Service(MLS), which lets other realtors see your home listing. There are alternative listing services you can use, but none are as widely know as MLS.

There are some good reasons to use a realtor, but none of that means you can’t sell your home yourself. FSBOs are done every day.

If you are nervous, your local community education program may have a course on selling your home yourself. These courses are usually very affordable.

Some tips:

Be objective about pricing. Look at the selling price of similar homes in the area, NOT what your dream price is or how much you have spent on improvements.
Always keep your home ready to show. Keep the dishes done, everything put away, and the floors mopped. The “lived-in” look will not help your house sell.
Keep track of the potential buyers. Put the name, address, phone number, and any identifying notes in a spreadsheet so you can follow up later if your house doesn’t sell.
A bid is not binding. Don’t stop advertising until you close on the sale.
Make a fact sheet and blank purchase agreement that potential buyers can take home.
Hire professionals where necessary: lawyers, inspectors, and closing agents.

Selling your home yourself can be intimidating, but it is a job you can tackle yourself for a significant savings. Would you try it?

Regret

Life

There comes a time when it’s too late to tell people how you feel.

There will come a day when the person you mean to talk to won’t be there. Don’t wait for that day.

“There’s always tomorrow” isn’t always true.

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Importance of life cover insurance

Objections

Variety of life cover insurances