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Sunday Roundup: It’s Push-Up Time

Life

I Knew Pushups Would Pay Off Someday
Image by reid.gilman via Flickr

It’s the end of a month, so it’s time to announce my new 30 Day Project.   Last February, in 22 days, I went from having my abs cramp after doing 15 push-ups to doing a set of 100.   Yes, really.

The problem is that the push-ups weren’t perfect. Funny things happen to your body when you are doing 100 push-ups.   It’s hard to tell what your body is doing.  I had good form for the first 80, but after that, my body wasn’t perfectly straight.  I looked like a typical second grader in gym class.   But  I did it.  They were push-ups.

I haven’t done a push-up since.

In March, I am going to get myself back up to 100 push-ups, only this time, I will only be doing perfect push-ups.

Here’s the plan, based on what worked last year:

This weekend, I established my baseline.   I did as many push-ups as I could, until the point of failure.  Failure for this purpose is defined as either my form faltering or me collapsing.  I went until I couldn’t hold my body straight.

Starting on the first, I will be doing 5 sets of push-ups, twice a day.

Set 1: One half of my baseline. Starting from 24 push-ups, this set will be 12 push-ups.  As I progress, this set will never be more than 20 push-ups.  It is the warm-up set, after all.

Sets 2-4: ¾ of my baseline, so 18 to start.

Set 5: Go to failure. Once again, failure is defined as faulty from.  This will establish my baseline for the next session.

If I don’t progress for 3 days, I will take a day off to recover and–given previous experience–come back with some serious improvement.

This is a self-correcting progression.  If I can’t meet the previous day’s baseline, my last set will be lower, which will lower the baseline for the following session.

An interesting question I have is how it will affect my diet.  I haven’t been exercising at all, to see how well the slow carb diet does on it’s own.  Now, I’m going to be adding an aggressive exercise plan on top of it.   A plan that involves a bit of muscle bulking.  I’m guessing that my weight loss will slow down a lot, but I will shed inches like mad.  I will be tracking my progression, and my weight and  measurements.   The graphs should be fun.

30 Day Project Update

I am on the Slow Carb Diet.   At the end of the month, I’ll see what the results were and decide if it’s worth continuing.   For those who don’t know, the Slow Carb Diet involves cutting out potatoes, rice, flour, sugar, and dairy in all their forms.   My meals consist of 40% proteins, 30% vegetables, and 30% legumes(beans or lentils).    There is no calorie counting, just some specific rules, accompanied by a timed supplement regimen and some timed exercises to manipulate my metabolism.   The supplements are NOT effedrin-based diet pills, or, in fact, uppers of any kind.  There is also a weekly cheat day, to cut the impulse to cheat and to avoid letting my body go into famine mode.

I’m measuring two metrics, my weight and the total inches of my waist , hips, biceps, and thighs.   Between the two, I should have an accurate assessment of my progress.

Weight: I have lost 33 pounds since January 2nd!   That’s 3 pounds since last week.  Only 9 more to meet my goal for February.  Oh wait.   I won’t be hitting it this month.

Total Inches: I have lost 17 inches in the same time frame, down half an inch since last week.

Giveaway

I’ve got some codes for H&R Block Premium Online.  It’s federal only and the state return costs an extra $35, but that’s still a screaming deal.  Premium handles small business and investment tax issues.  If you want to get it, leave a comment saying so.  First come, first serve, until I’m out of codes.

Best Posts

Yes, I Am Cheap has a post about growing up poor.

Public Service Announcement: Liquidation sales are rarely good deals.  When one store in a chain closes, the profitable merchandise always gets shipped to another store.   The rest of it will often get marked up, in anticipation of people shutting off their critical thinking skills in the face of big “On Sale” signs.

I’ve found a new life goal: underground glowworm cave tubing.  Wow.

OpenLibrary is offering up 80,000 ebooks to borrow, for free.   10,000 of them are still in copyright.   I need a kindle.

LRN Timewarp

This is where I review the posts I wrote a year ago.  Did you miss them then?

A few years ago, I sold a truck(on payments) to a friend, who promptly quit paying me and disappeared.   I ended up playing repossessing the truck.

There was also a story about how I convinced two big companies that collecting on me for a bill of more than $800 wasn’t worth the effort.  It was good, because I didn’t make the call.

Carnivals I’ve Rocked and Guest Posts I’ve Rolled

Slow Carb Diet: How to Avoid Going Bat-**** Crazy was included in the Festival of Frugality.

Three Alternatives to a Budget was included in the Totally Money Carnival.

Protect your home was included in the Carnival of Personal Finance.

Budgets Are Sexy ran my post, Side Hustle Series: I’m a Gun Permit Instructor.  I forgot to link back to this, last week.

Prairie EcoThrifter ran my post, The Luxury of Vacation for the Yakezie Blog Swap.

Thank you! If I missed anyone, please let me know.

Yakezie Blog Swap

Eric hosted the Yakezie Blog Swap, which is a bunch of bloggers writing on the same topic and sharing the posts with each other.   Here is his list of the participants this round.

I wrote about my journey to become a DJ at Beating Broke.

Beating Broke wrote about shoe shopping at Narrow Bridge.

Barbara Friedberg got a really nice couch and shared the experience at Wealth Informatics.

Suba doesn’t think the rent is too damn high, in fact, Suba thinks it is worth it and shares at Barbara Friedberg Personal Finance.

Mr. and Mrs. BP spent a lot when they got a dog. Read about it at 101 Centavos.

101 Centavos went nuts on an anniversary, but you know what that can get you… Read about it at Broke Professionals.

Latisha Styles’ post at Bucksome Boomer is I Spent How Much?! My Birthday Trip to the Bahamas.

Kay Lynn spent her heart out on a new car with all the bells and whistles and you can read about it at Financial Success for Young Adults.

Derek got a sweet new digital camera and tells us about it at My Personal Finance Journey.

Jacob has splurged a couple of times on travel and outdoor gear and has no regrets and shares the experiences at My Life and Finances.

Miss T. likes to splurge on travel. We have something in common. The difference? She wrote about it at Live Real Now.

Jason is a fan of the luxury of vacation. You can read about it at the Prairie EcoThrifter.

Squirrelers went to Europe for three weeks. Totally worth it! Read about it at Money Sanity.

Money Sanity likes good champagne. I can’t judge, I like good Scotch. Read about why at Squirrelers.

Melissa took 10 days and took the trip of a lifetime to visit a friend in China. Read about it at The Saved Quarter.

The Saved Quarter bought a Blendtec blender. Yes, the blender from “will it blend.” The story is at Mom’s Plan. (In case you were wondering, this blender can blend anything. Well, anything but Chuck Norris.)

Get More Out of Live Real, Now

There are so many ways you can read and interact with this site.

You can subscribe by RSS and get the posts in your favorite news reader.  I prefer Google Reader.

You can subscribe by email and get, not only the posts delivered to your inbox, but occasional giveaways and tidbits not available elsewhere.

You can ‘Like’ LRN on Facebook.   Facebook gets more use than Google.  It can’t hurt to see what you want where you want.

You can follow LRN on Twitter.   This comes with some nearly-instant interaction.

You can send me an email, telling me what you liked, what you didn’t like, or what you’d like to see more(or less) of.   I promise to reply to any email that isn’t purely spam.

Have a great week!

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Sunday Roundup: Home Depot and Your Kids

Misc

Logo for The Home Depot. Category:Brands of th...
Image via Wikipedia

Yesterday, I took my girls to Home Depot.  On the first Saturday of every month, Home Depot has a workshop for kids that gives kids a chance to make a small craft project with a parent.  For free.  This month was race cars.   My girls look forward to it all month.

30 Day Project Update

This month, I am trying to do 100 perfect push-ups in a single set.  I’m recording each session in a spreadsheet.  As of this writing, I am up to 26 in a set, doing about 90 per twice-daily session.  I’m expecting to do more tonight(Saturday) as I’m currently taking a 24 hour break to let my muscles heal a bit.  By previous experience, I’m guessing I’ll hit 30-35 in the morning.

Weight Loss Update

I am on the Slow Carb Diet.   At the end of the month, I’ll see what the results were and decide if it’s worth continuing.   For those who don’t know, the Slow Carb Diet involves cutting out potatoes, rice, flour, sugar, and dairy in all their forms.   My meals consist of 40% proteins, 30% vegetables, and 30% legumes(beans or lentils).    There is no calorie counting, just some specific rules, accompanied by a timed supplement regimen and some timed exercises to manipulate my metabolism.   The supplements are NOT effedrin-based diet pills, or, in fact, uppers of any kind.  There is also a weekly cheat day, to cut the impulse to cheat and to avoid letting my body go into famine mode.

I’m measuring two metrics, my weight and the total inches of my waist , hips, biceps, and thighs.   Between the two, I should have an accurate assessment of my progress.

Weight: I have lost 35 pounds since January 2nd.   That’s 2 pounds since last week, meaning I missed my February goal by 7 pounds.   I added some cheese back into my diet, to see if it hurt.  It did.   Research showed that dairy inhibits the insulin response, make dairy a bad thing for a diet entirely out of proportion to its glycemic index.

Total Inches: I have lost 19.5  inches in the same time frame, down 2.5 inches since last week.

Best Posts

Lifehacker ran a post on simple ways to make money online. They may not all pay well, but the poorly-paid tasks are something you can do while watching TV.

Finally! A post explaining the exact connection between autism and vaccinations.

I’d love to see free-market healthcare given a chance, just once.  We’d never go back.

Going to college, try some of these scholarships.

Most observant people realize that TSA is a joke.  For those who didn’t realize that, TSA admitted it, too.

LRN Timewarp

This is where I review the posts I wrote a year ago.  Did you miss them then?

This week last year, I wrote a post about doing 100 push-ups in a single set.  Is it a coincidence that I’m trying again a year later?

Carnivals I’ve Rocked and Guest Posts I’ve Rolled

Money Problems – Day 3: What’s Coming In? was included in the Festival of Frugality.

5 Reasons Why I Splurge On Travel was included in the Totally Money Carnival.

Ignore Your Budget was included in the Carnival of Personal Finance.

Thank you! If I missed anyone, please let me know.

Get More Out of Live Real, Now

There are so many ways you can read and interact with this site.

You can subscribe by RSS and get the posts in your favorite news reader.  I prefer Google Reader.

You can subscribe by email and get, not only the posts delivered to your inbox, but occasional giveaways and tidbits not available elsewhere.

You can ‘Like’ LRN on Facebook.   Facebook gets more use than Google.  It can’t hurt to see what you want where you want.

You can follow LRN on Twitter.   This comes with some nearly-instant interaction.

You can send me an email, telling me what you liked, what you didn’t like, or what you’d like to see more(or less) of.   I promise to reply to any email that isn’t purely spam.

Have a great week!

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Side Hustle: Garage Sale Management

Finance

Garage Sale

Pre-sale preparation and marketing are important, but ultimately, the money comes from how you manage the sale.

How many people will you have staffing the sale?  There are a few considerations here.   How many people are involved in the sale?  How many people can take the time off?   It’s best to have three people at the sale at all times. Two people can manage the money while the third plays salesman and security.   Staffer #3 is in charge of watching for price-tag swaps or other theft, answering questions, and trying to upsell.    It also allows for breaks, which, if you’ve ever spent a day in a garage drinking coffee, is important.

When are you going to be open?  You don’t want to open so early you don’t have time to wake up and get ready for the sale, but you don’t want to open so late the professional garage-salers drive past and forget about you.   Plan to open sometime between 7 and 9. When will you close?   Staying open until 6 will catch most of the after-work crowd, but it makes for a long day, but closing at four cuts out a lot of the late-day shoppers.   Our hours were 8-5, which seemed to be a good compromise between a long day and the best sale.

[ad name=”inlineleft”]Don’t be afraid to shut down. The first day of our sale was cold, wet, and miserable.   We had to canopies in the driveway, but everything was getting wet, anyway.   Traffic was slow and we weren’t enjoying ourselves, so we shut down.  Lunch and a nap improved our outlook considerably.   At the end of the day, we start packing up, even if people were there.    We tried to only pack what they had looked at, and we didn’t try to rush the potential customers, but we did let them know that the sale was ending for the day.  The folks who came in half an hour after close on the last day seemed upset that we didn’t unpack everything for their amusement.

Our layout was designed to get everything easily visible while maximizing traffic.   The first day, we were confined to the garage and tents, so space was limited.   There were baskets under each of the tables.   That forced people to crouch and block each other.   The second day, we expanded to fill the driveway.   Our tables were organized in 3 rows–a “U” shape with a double-wide row of tables in the middle.   This allowed people to see everything in one pass.   The middle row had periodic breaks so we could move around to help the customers.    The pay table was in the middle of one of the outer rows, which let us monitor the entire sale.

Find someone to watch the kids and pets. If you have to keep an eye on your children, you aren’t watching the customers or giving them the attention they need.  Your dog–no matter how well-behaved–is a liability.   It will be stressed at the people.  Some customers will be allergic or afraid.  Just don’t do it.

Ideally, you will have someone who isn’t taking money, knows a little bit about most of the merchandise, and isn’t too shy to talk to strangers.   His job is to wander around, answer questions, and help people decide if they want an item.   He’s the sales-weasel. If he’s pushy, he’ll chase off the customers, but if he’s hiding, he isn’t making any money.   Unusual items should have a sign attached explaining why they are special, so the sales-weasel doesn’t have to explain it to everyone.

Every single item should be priced, but not everything needs to be priced individually.   We priced all of the movies in a group.  “VHS: $0.50 or 5 for $2, DVD $3 or 4 for $10”.   Nobody should have to ask what an item costs. If there are multiple people doing a sale together, make sure everyone is using colored price tags to identify who is selling what.

People come to garage sales expecting to find good deals.  If they don’t, they’ll leave. Our rule of thumb for pricing was about 25% of retail, with wiggle-room for the item’s condition. New-in-the-box sometimes made it up to 50% of retail.  Our goal was primarily to reduce clutter, so a lot of items were priced at 10%.    You have to keep in mind that, if you price things too low, people will assume there is something wrong with it and not assign a value in their own minds.    Price it at what you would be willing to pay in a garage sale, then mark it up–just a bit–to account for haggling.

People love to haggle at garage sales.  It gives them an opportunity  to brag about the great deal they fought for.   Try to accommodate them.   One of the people participating in our sale was selling antiques with a definite value.    She didn’t want to haggle on any prices, so we simply hung up a sign that read “All white-tagged prices are firm.”   Everyone else was willing to accept almost any reasonable offer.   Our most important rule for accepting a price?  If you pissed me off, I didn’t budge on price. Insult me, or offer 1/10 of the price, and my defenses go up, bringing your final price with it.   Talk nice and use some common sense while haggling, and you got what you asked for.

[ad name=”inlineright”]Could we have maximized the sale more?  Probably.   I had intended to hang up a sign that simply said “$100” to set a high anchor-price on everything, but I forgot.

Note: The entire series is contained in the Garage Sale Manual on the sidebar.

Update: This post has been included in the Carnival of Personal Finance.

How to Maximize Your Income and Reduce Your Expenditures

Finance

If the past few years have taught us anything, it’s that we need to be taking out less debt and building up more savings. And certainly, it’s where the public seem to be heading – levels of mortgage overpayment and personal savings have rocketed in the past year amongst those who have the luxury of being able to put income aside.

For many of us though, finding money to save is a real struggle. After the bills and living costs are taken out of a monthly salary payment, there’s not always a lot left to play with. So what do you do?

The answer lies in getting tough with yourself, carrying out a review of your current spending patterns and working out a sensible budget. Essentially you need to both maximise income and reduce expenditure – both sides of the coin. There are plenty of ways to do this when you start thinking, so be creative and start thinking outside the box.

Here are a few top tips to get you started:

Ask for a pay rise – it seems like an obvious option, but so many of us never do it. Take a look at the market and see what similar companies are offering for your job role or profession. This will give you an idea of whether you’re currently being paid enough for your skills level and experience.

Ask your manager in a calm and prepared manager and come with facts and examples to back up your request. If the request is turned down, try again in a few months time, with more evidence. Also, ask HR for advice about your job salary banding and progression, so you show that you’re serious.

Get a new job – the obvious option when your pay rise request is denied. You may find that you can earn more elsewhere in the same profession, or flex your skills into a new career entirely. See a professional careers advisor for guidance.

Get a second income – more people than ever are opting for this route, by becoming self-employed on a part time basis. There are numerous industries that rely on an army of part-time staff, often self-employed. Examples are party-planners, sales people, freelance designers, coders, copywriters and researchers, market researchers, bar and restaurant staff and plenty more.

Take in a lodger – if you have a spare room, then the government allows you to take in a lodger without paying tax on rental income (up to £4250 pa.) This can be an effective way to make the use of your home to bring in income. Do your research first though on how to select the right lodger and make the relationship work.

Look for opportunities to earn – examples include signing up for overtime during busy periods at work or selling unwanted items on eBay. You could also sign up with the local council to count votes during election period, or help steward at large events. There are various agencies offering links to such opportunities if you search online.

On the other side of the coin lies spending reduction. This is a bitter pill for some to swallow, but there really is no point in earning more if you’re not going to make good use of it!

Food shopping – when it comes to food shopping, start using grocery coupons/vouchers and sign up for reward schemes. Downgrade your brands when you’re out shopping, so that you save money on you shop each time. Look at bulk buying offers, local grocers, markets and other opportunities to slash monthly grocery bills.

Travel – identify ways to save on travel, firstly by walking when a journey is a mile and under. If you’re doing this regularly you’ll save on petrol and you can cancel your gym subscription! With train tickets, book well in advance to take advantage of special deals and with holidays, look for cheap holiday offers and promotions via online search sites – these check the whole of the market to find the best prices and options for your requirements. Holiday extras such as car hire and airport parking can also usually be arranged via these online travel sites so be sure to compare prices to save yourself some money.

Clothes shopping – instead of shopping expensively on the high street, channel your passion for fashion into eBay. Many of your regular brands will be on there already and you can sell last season’s purchases to make way for the current season of items. Get savvy with bids and set yourself limits – you’ll find some great bargains if you’re clever about it!

Entertainment – when it comes to entertainment, sign up to group buying schemes for special offers and look more broadly in your area for things to do that don’t cost a lot of money. Things like local leisure centres, museums, parks, libraries, city parades and exhibitions are often free or subsidised by the council and you can enjoy time with the family without spending a lot of money on more commercial entertainments.

Hobbies – rather than taking up yet another expensive sport that you’ll buy all the equipment for and then never see through, find low cost hobbies to enjoy and cultivate. Walking or running, painting, music appreciation, gardening, racket sports, debating groups, local social clubs – all of these can be enjoyed without necessarily parting with too much cash. And it will broaden your horizons too – thinking more broadly about what counts, such as spending time with loved ones, rather than throwing money at free time like there’s no tomorrow!

 This post brought to you by MoneySupermarket.

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Make a Budget

Finance

DSC02103
Image by r.lovewell via Flickr

In the past, I’ve gone through a detailed series of budget lessons demonstrating how to make a budget and showing my personal budget spreadsheet template.  If you weren’t here to see them develop, you probably haven’t seen them at all.    I’ve never built an actual index for those posts.

This is the master index of my budget planning resources.  As I develop more, this will grow.

Budget Lesson #1 – In this lesson, I go over how we handle discretionary income and I explain our modified envelope system.   The discretionary budget contains things like our grocery bill, or the clothes we buy.  We have near-total discretion over what is purchased, hence the name.

Budget Lesson #2 – Lesson #2 contains the details of our monthly bills.  These are the ones that are consistent, predictable, and actually due each month.  Most people take these for granted as the bills they have to pay, but it’s not true.   You can get almost all of your regular bills reduced just by asking.   You would also be surprised what you can do without, when properly motivated.

Budget Lesson #3 – This is where I explain how we deal with the non-monthly bills.  That is, the bills that have to be paid, but are not due on a monthly basis.  I also share the personal budget spreadsheet template I developed.   I am working on a few sample templates to match various imaginary scenarios.  If you’d like to be an anonymous case study, and get free help setting up a budget, let me know, please.

Budget Lesson #4 – In this lesson, I describe our “set-aside” funds for things that will need to be paid eventually, but not on a set schedule.  Sometimes, they are never actually due.   We set aside money for the parties we throw, for car repairs and for a number of other things.  A few of these items are outright optional, but they are part of what makes life fun.  You can’t make a budget without including some of the extras.

Budget Lesson #5 – This is the companion piece to lesson 2.   Learn how I’ve reduced–or attempted to reduce–each of these bills.   For the better part of two years, I called Dish Network every few months to ask for a discount.  For almost 2 years, it was granted.  Then one, day, they told me they were putting a note on our account to keep us from getting any more discounts, so I canceled.   100% discounts help us save more.

Budget Lesson #6 – This is the reduction companion to lesson 3.  These bills are harder to reduce.  Have you ever successfully gotten your property taxes lowered?

Budget Lesson #7 – This is the reduction companion to lesson 4.  Notice a pattern, yet?

Budget Lesson #8 – Here, completely out of order, is the reduction companion to lesson 1.   Watch as I magically reduce–or rationalize–our discretionary budget.

So, dear readers, what part of budgeting should I address next?

Money Problems – Day 8: Insurance

Finance

insurance
Image by alancleaver_2000 via Flickr

Today, I am continuing the  series, Money Problems: 30 Days to Perfect Finances.   The series will consist of 30 things you can do in one setting to perfect your finances.  It’s not a system to magically make your debt disappear.  Instead, it is a path to understanding where you are, where you want to be, and–most importantly–how to bridge the gap.

I’m not running the series in 30 consecutive days.  That’s not my schedule.  Also, I think that talking about the same thing for 30 days straight will bore both of us.   Instead, it will run roughly once a week.  To make sure you don’t miss a post, please take a moment to subscribe, either by email or rss.

On this, Day 8, we’re going to talk about insurance.

What is insurance?  Insurance is, quite simply a bet with your insurance company.   You give them money on the assumption that something bad is going to happen to whatever you are insuring.  After all, if you pay $10,000 for a life insurance policy and fail to die, the insurance company wins.

A more traditional definition would be something along the line of giving money to your insurance company so they will pay for any bad things that happen to your stuff.   How do they make money paying to fix or replace anything that breaks, dies, or spontaneously combusts?  Actuary tables.  Huh?  The insurance company sets a price for to insure—for example—your car.  That price is based on the statistical likelihood of you mucking it up, based on your age, your gender, your driving history, and even the type of car you are insuring.  What happens if a meteor falls on your car?  That would shoot the actuary table to bits, but it doesn’t matter.   They spread the risk across all of their customers and—statistically—the price is right.

What kinds of insurance should you get?

Homeowner’s Insurance

For most people, their home is, by far, the largest single purchase they will ever make.  If your home is destroyed, by fire, tornado, or angry leprechauns, it’s gone, unless you have it insured.   Without insurance, that $100, or  200, or 500 thousand dollars will be lost, and that’s not even counting the contents of your home.

Homeowner’s insurance can be expensive.  One way to keep the cost down is to raise your deductible.  If you’ve got a $1500 emergency fund, you can afford to have a $1000 deductible.  That’s the part of your claim that the insurance company won’t cover.  It also means that if you have less than $1000 worth of damage, the insurance company won’t pay anything.

You can get optional riders on your homeowner’s insurance, if you have special circumstances.  You can get additional coverage for jewelry, firearms, computer equipment, furs, among other things.  You base policy will cover some of this, but if you have a lot of any of that, you should look into the extra coverage.

Auto Insurance

Car insurance is required in most states.  That’s because the kind caretakers in our governments, don’t want anyone able to hit you car without being able to pay for the damage they caused.  To my mind, I think it would be more effective to just make whacking someone’s car without paying for it a felony.  If someone is a careful driver or has the money to self-insure, more power to them.

Auto insurance comes with options like separate glass coverage, collision, total coverage (comprehensive), or just liability.  Liability insurance is what you put on cheap, crappy cars.   It will only pay for the damage you do to someone else.

Rental

I’ve never had rental insurance.  The last time I rented, I could fit everything I owned in the back of a pickup truck with a small trailer, and it could all be replaced for $100.   Heck, I had the couch I was conceived on.  Err.  Ignore that bit.

Almost everything you can get homeowner’s insurance to cover will also cover renter’s insurance, except for the building.  It’s not your building, so it’s not your job to replace it.

Life Insurance

If you care about your family, you need life insurance.   This is the money that will be used to replace your income if you die.   I am insured to about 5 times my annual salary.   If that money gets used to pay off the last of the debt, it will be enough to supplement my wife’s income and support my family  almost until the kids are in college. You should be sure to have enough to cover any family debt, and bridge the gap between your surviving family’s income and their expenses.  At a minimum.  Better, you’ll have enough to pay for college and a comfortable living.

Life insurance comes in two varieties: whole and term.  Whole life…sucks.  It’s expensive and overrated.     The sales-weasels pushing it will tell you that it builds value over time, but it’s usually only about 2%.  It’s a lousy investment.  You’re far better off to get a term life policy and sock the price difference in a mutual fund that’s earning a 5-6% return.

Term life is insurance that is only good for 5, 10, or 20 years, then the policy evaporates.  If you live, the money was wasted at the end of the term.  The fact that it’s a bad bet makes it far more affordable than whole life.  It doesn’t pretend to be an investment; it’s just insurance.  Pure and simple

Personal Liability Umbrella

An umbrella policy is lawsuit insurance.  If someone trips and hurts themselves in your yard, and decides to sue, this will pay your legal bills.  If you get sued for almost anything that was not deliberate(by you!) or business related, this policy can be used to cover the bill.

If you call your insurance company to get an umbrella policy, they will force you to raise the limits on your homeowner’s and auto insurance.  Generally, those limits will be raised to $500,000, and the umbrella coverage will be there to pick up any costs beyond the new limit.

A little-known secret about umbrella policies:  They set the practical limit of a lawsuit against you.  Most ambulance chasers know better than to sue you for 10 million dollars if you only have a policy to cover 1 million.   They will never see the other 9 million, so why bother?  They’ll go for what they know they can get.

The flipside to that is that you should not talk about your umbrella policy.   Having a million dollars in insurance is a sign of “deep pockets”.  It’s a sign that it’s worthwhile to sue you.  You don’t want to look extra sue-able, so keep it quiet.

Insurance is a great way to protect yourself if something bad happens.   Today, you should take a look at your policies and see where you may have gaps in coverage, or where you may be paying too much.

 

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