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5 Personal Safety Apps that Could Save Your Life
No one likes to think about the possibility of dying too young. But knowing that potential exists, you take the smart step of protecting those you love by carrying term life insurance. But what about preventing the worst? Did you know your iPhone or Android device can call for help or record vital information if you ever find yourself in a life-threatening situation? Here are five personal safety apps that could save your life.
1) myGuardianAngel
Once this app allows you to reach all of your emergency contacts with the push of one button. You enter the contact information for anyone you would want to get in touch with if you were in any sort of emergency as soon as you download it. If you are in an emergency, the app will call your contacts, send them an e-mail with your GPS location and immediately begin recording audio and video from your phone.
2) StaySafe
This app is good for anyone who works or travels alone. You can schedule the app to automatically notify friends or family after a certain period of time when your phone is inactive. For example, you can estimate how long you expect to drive from one location to another on your own and then the phone will contact someone automatically if you are out of contact longer than expected. That way your friends will know to send help because something is wrong, even if you aren’t in a position to contact them yourself. StaySafe sends your contacts a detailed GPS location for you so that they can easily find you and bring help.
3) RESCUE
This full-service app can help you on the scene as well as notify your emergency contacts for you. If you are in trouble, you can trigger the app to sound a loud alarm that might frighten off anyone who might be planning to do you harm. The alarm can also help someone find you if you are lost or unable to move from your current location. When the alarm is triggered, the app will also send immediate notifications to your emergency contact list so that they can begin to send help right away. Emergency services such as the police and fire department can also be set for notification through the RESCUE app.
4) Night Recorder
This is a good app to have when you need to make a quick recording of your surroundings for any reason. The app can be set to begin recording at a touch. If you are stranded, you could create a recording by speaking about the landmarks you can see and explaining how you got to your current location. The recorder can then send an email of your recording to anyone on your contact list.
5) iWitness
With this app, you can instantly make video or audio recordings of your situation so that there is a permanent first-hand record of everything that happens. It is a handy tool for anyone who has been in a car accident or involved in a medical emergency because you can go back and look at the video to see exactly what happened if there is any question about it later. The app will also contact emergency services or your personal emergency contacts if you are in trouble. The built-in GPS locator will transmit your exact location so that people can find you quickly and easily.
Post by Term Life Insurance News
ING Direct – 2 Day Sale
Today and tomorrow, ING Direct is having a “Financial Independence Days Sale”.
It’s a good sale. If you open a checking account or Sharebuilder account and you’ll get $76. Apply for a mortgage and you’ll get $776 off of the closing costs.
I have accounts at 4 different banks. Two of those were opened for specific debt-reduction purposes. Of the others, one is used for most of my cash flow and bill payments, and the other is ING. As of this moment, I have 15 accounts or sub-accounts with ING Direct.
Opening an account is painless and only takes a few minutes. They are currently offering up to 1.25% in an interest-bearing checking account, though I’ve never qualified for more than .25%. That account comes with overdraft protection, so you are charged interest instead of overdraft fees.
Once you have your first account set up, sub-accounts can be created in literally seconds. Why would you want a bunch of sub-accounts? I have a number of saving goals. Each of these goals has its own account at ING. I can tell at a glance how much we have saved for our vacation next month and far away we are from affording my son’s braces. My kids each have an account here because, currently, the interest rate is at 1.1%, which is miles ahead of most traditional banks. Combined with the convenience of total online control, there’s no contest.
Money transfers are smooth. I use one of my accounts as a transfer account to get money to and from two separate banks.
I also have a Sharebuilder account. For those who aren’t familiar with it, it is a stock brokerage with low fees and a low barrier to entry. If you set up an automatic investment, you get $4 stock trades with no minimum. I’m not aware of any place cheaper.
That all sounds like a lot of ad copy and the links are affiliate links, but the truth is, I am just that happy with ING. I’ve never had an accounting error, or any problems at all.
The downside? Paper checks are verboten. They will not accept paper checks, but you do have a check card to use. You can hit 35,000 ATMS for free withdrawals, but any deposits are held for a few days before you have access to the funds. It can also take 3-4 days to transfer money from ING to another bank. I keep enough in the accounts that I’m always spending or transferring older deposits while I wait for the new ones to clear.
Even if you don’t like the bank, get a checking account, use it a few times and get $76 for very little trouble. Open a Sharebuilder account, buy some stock and collect $76 for it. Without an automatic payment, it will cost you less than $20 to buy, then sell the stock, netting you $56.
Who doesn’t like free money?
Budget Lesson, Part 6
It’s been a month since I’ve written a post for the budget series, so I’ll be continuing that today. See these posts for the history of this series.
This time, I’ll be reviewing my non-monthly bills. These are the bills that have to be paid, but aren’t due on a monthly basis. Some are annual, some are quarterly.
- School Lunch – This could be cut by sending a bag lunch. We pay about $1.25 per day for school lunch. At that price, I don’t think I can beat the nutrition, let alone the convenience of the meal. We pay this whenever the account gets below $10.
- Property Taxes – We pay this semi-annually. This bill goes up every year due to the ****** ***-******* ******-******* who don’t care about their constituents making ends meet. ******* ***** ******* *******. Huh. Who knew WordPress came with a censor? I could move, but I’d have to get out of commuting distance to get this down much.
- Life insurance – I’ve got two quarterly life insurance policies. I can’t get these much cheaper, but I should be able to next year. The questions asked if I’ve smoked in the last three years, and that will be up on Halloween.
- AAA – It’s only been recently that I’ve owned vehicles reliable enough to avoid paying my AAA dues for me. I could cancel this, but for $80 per year, the hotel discounts make it a wash. One vacation per year comes close to making the difference.
- Vehicle Registration – The only way to cut this would be to get rid of a vehicle. I don’t think that’s possible for us. We work in opposite directions and, for at least one quarter per year, spend too much time chasing around for activities.
- Daycare – We’ve been using our current daycare provider since my oldest(10) was one. When my youngest turns 2 in June, our costs will go down. Without one of us quitting our job, this bill can only go down as the kids grow up.
- City Bill – This bill combines our garbage, water, and sewer. With three adults, three kids, and 5 animals in the house, reducing our garbage level is difficult. We do try to manage our water usage in the summer, to keep that down.
- Web host – I have a few domain names and a hosting package to handle my side hustles and miscellaneous projects. This is a deductible expense. I have been allowing my domain names to expire if the project isn’t being actively pursued.
- Memberships – I have annual dues to two organizations. I’m making payments on lifetime memberships, so these will be going away in about 18 months.
Reviewing this list, there doesn’t seem to be too much I can cut and accomplish any meaningful savings. Am I missing something?
My Financial Plan – How I Improve on Ramsey
In April, my wife and I decided that debt was done. We have hopefully closed that chapter in our lives. I borrowed, then purchased, The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. 
budget” width=”300″ height=”213″ />We are almost following his baby steps. Our credit has always been spectacular, but we used it a lot. Our financial plan is Dave Ramsey’s The Total Money Makeover, with some adjustments.
Step 1. Budget:
The budget was painful, and for the first couple of months, impossible. We had no idea what bills were coming due. There were quarterly payments for the garbage bill and annual payments for the auto club. It was all a surprise. Surprises are setbacks in a budget.
When something came up, we’d start budgeting for it, but stuff kept coming up. We’re not on top of all of it, yet, but we are so much closer. We’ve got a virtual envelope system for groceries, auto maintenance, baby needs(we have two in diapers) and some discretionary money. We set aside money for everything that isn’t a monthly expense, and have a line item for everything that is. My wife is eligible for overtime and monthly bonuses. That money does not get budgeted. It’s all extra and goes straight on to debt, or to play catch-up with the bills we had previously missed. I figure it will take a full year to get all of the non-monthly expenses in the budget and caught up.
Step 2. The initial emergency fund:
Ramsey recommends $1000, adjusted for your situation. I decided $1000 wasn’t enough. That isn’t even a month’s worth of expenses. We settled on $1800, plus $25/month. It’s still not enough, but it’s better. Hopefully, we’ll be able to ignore it long enough that the $25/month accrues to something worthwhile.
Step 3. The Debt Snowball:
This is the controversial bad math. Pay off the lowest balance accounts first, then take those payments and apply them to the higher balance accounts. Emotionally, it’s been wonderful. We paid off the first credit card in a couple of weeks, followed 6 weeks later by my student loan. Since April, we’ve dropped nearly $10,000 and we haven’t made huge cuts to our standard of living. At least monthly, we re-examine our expenses to see what else can be cut.
Step 4. Three to six months of expenses in savings:
We aren’t on this step yet. In step 2, we are consistently depositing more, making us more secure every month.
Step 5. Invest 15% of household income into Roth IRAs and pre-tax retirement:
I have not stopped my auto-deposited contribution. It’s stupid to pass up an employer match. My wife’s company does not match, so she is currently not contributing.
Step 6. College funding for children:
We have started a $10 College fund.
Step 7. Pay off home early:
I don’t see the point in handling this one separately. Our mortgage is debt, and when the other debts are paid, we will be less than a year from owning our house, free and clear. This is rolled in with step three. All debt is going away, immediately.
Step 8. Build wealth and give!
We have cut off most of our charitable giving. Every other year, it has been a significant percent of our income, and in a few more years, will be so again. The only exception to this is children knocking on the door for fundraisers. I have no problems with saying no to a parent fundraising for their kid, but when the kids is doing the work, door-to-door, especially in the winter, I buy something. My son’s school, on the other hand, gets fundraisers ignored. When they come home, I send a check to the school, ignoring the program. I bypass the overhead and make a direct donation.
Make Yourself Accountable
Everybody knows the reputation New Year’s resolutions get for being abandoned in under a month. Following through with your saving and budget goals can be difficult. There are thousands of strategies for keeping your resolutions, but I’ve found that the best goal-keeping mechanism is to make yourself accountable. There are several ways to accomplish this.
Make Firm Goals. If your goals are open to interpretation, it’s easy to interpret them in a way that lets you off the hook. Make the goals concrete and immune to interpretation, and that can’t happen. “Get up earlier” may mean five minutes, which is technically meeting the goal, but not really. “Get up at 5am” is clear and concrete.
Get a “Goal Buddy”. When I am out shopping, if I’m struck by the impulse to buy something I probably don’t need, I call my wife. She’s more than happy to encourage me to put the movie or game back on the shelf. I have a friend who will call me up if he’s thinking about buying a new gadget so I can talk him down. Friends don’t let friends mortgage their futures.
Go Public. As you may have noticed, I’m being as open as possible with my goals for the year. I have laid out clear goals and I provide fairly frequent updates through both this site and twitter. If I fail, I fail in front of an audience. That’s strong encouragement to succeed. Tell your family, friends and coworkers. Announce your goals on the internet. Make it as difficult as possible to fail gracefully.
Punish Yourself. I have a line item in my budget called “In the hole“. If I go over budget one month, the overage is entered as an expense the following month. This serves the double purpose of getting the budget back on track and forcing me to sacrifice something the next month to make that happen. Another option may be to write out a check to a charity you hate, and drop it in the mail if you miss your goal. Anything unpleasant can work as your punishment.
How do you keep your goals?
