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{/if}1Put some under the mattress
Keep some cold, hard cash in a safe place in your home (in your safe if you have one, fireproof box or freezer). It is not beyond possibility that you may need cash to travel spur of the moment or that some sort of emergency makes getting cash impossible. During emergency conditions, cash is king (you can’t run a credit card if the electricity is out).
2Pay attention to your Portfolio
Many people are thinking safety first now days, which is good…to a point. The man most consider the father of financial analysis and mentor to Warren Buffet, Benjamin Graham, had a thumb rule of “never less than 25% or more than 75% in stocks”. He said for most people, a 50-50 split of a good quality stock portfolio and high quality bond portfolio made sense. If you are looking to become your own stock expert, the one book you need to read is Benjamin Graham’s “The Intelligent Investor”.
3Review Your Life Insurance
If you have a family, and are not independently wealthy, you probably need life insurance.
Calculate how much you need. There are two basic ways to do this:
- Figure out how much you would need to invest to replace lost income if you were to die. If you have any problems with this, contact me and I’ll be happy to walk you through it via email or phone … it takes just 5 to 10 minutes.
- Or if your spouse has a good income and you simply would like to make sure your kids are taken care of if something should happen to both of you—you could consider second-to-die life insurance. It is much cheaper, but only pays out if both spouses were to die.
4Secure your home
Make sure your home is your fortress. Hard times can sometimes cause a spike in home break-ins.
- Get solid doors. Any doors that lead to the outside should have either a solid core or even better be metal. All outside doors also need to be fitted with a deadbolt lock.
- Don’t let your window be a window. Make sure you have locking mechanisms on all windows and sliding doors.
- Get some light on the subject. Make sure all entrances are well lighted and consider motion activated lights for the rest of the outside of your home.
- Consider a home security system They must be a good idea or home insurance companies wouldn’t be willing to knock off 15-20% off your premiums, as they do.
5Review your home insurance
Unfortunately, the last time many people have reviewed their home insurance policy was the day they got their home. Otherwise, people generally put it on auto-pilot and rely on their agent to take care of it. Wrong answer. You need to be proactive and ensure that your policy keeps pace with your life. Here are some things to consider:
- Try to get a guaranteed replacement clause. Construction costs are on the rise and you don’t want to get saddled with additional out of pocket expenses should you ever suffer a catastrophic loss.
- Though more insurance is good. You should consider using higher deductibles which will help to reduce your premium cost. Remember, insurance is for catastrophic losses, not small losses.
- Loss of use clause. Make sure your policy covers your additional living expenses if you are required to leave your home.
- Sit down with your agent at least every couple of years to go through your policy to ensure it is up to date.
6Keep Important Documents Safe
But not necessarily in a safe deposit boxes. Some documents should be stored at a site other than your home like a safety deposit box. Finding a safe place in your home for others would make sense.
- Safety Deposit Box. Expensive jewelry, important papers that you would not need when the bank isn’t open (title to home, stock certificates, savings bonds, etc.).
- Home safe. Passports, wills, insurance policies, jewelry you wear frequently, and the cash we talked about earlier.
7Keep your family safe even when you are not there
Make sure you have your legal ducks in a row in case something would happen to you. Some documents you should consider getting in place or updating:
- Will. Make sure your executor is correct and the rest is up to date as well. DO NOT put it in your safe deposit box as it may be sealed upon your death.
- Name a guardian for any minor children.
- Have a detailed list of who would get valuable or sentimental items. There are far more fights over “Mom’s china” than money so make sure items you think might be contested are on that list with who it should go to.
- Make sure your Powers of Attorney are up to date. Make sure the person you named as your Power of Attorney is still the one you prefer and make sure you get it re-notarized at least every two years to make sure most institutions will accept it as valid.
- Make sure your health care power of attorney and health care directives are up to date. No one likes making health care decisions for someone else, so make it as easy as possible for your loved ones by making your wishes clear.
8Don’t Get Surprised
If you are still in the work force, you should be regularly evaluating your employment prospects. This goes, even if you are still gainfully employed. If nothing else, the economic woes of the past few years have taught us that no job is absolutely safe. Some things to think about:
- Keep a safety net. Consider keeping 6 months to a year’s living expenses in a liquid account to give you some breathing room should you lose your job.
- Open a home equity line of credit. I didn’t say use it…just have it open so that it is available for emergencies should you lose your job. You will not be able to open it after you lose your job.
- Keep your network alive. Constantly be thinking, “Who would be a good resource if I would lose my job today?” Then reach out and nurture that person regularly. If nothing else, it may lead to an even better job!
9Protect Your Identity - Enough said.
If you feel that you need further advice on this, please give my office a call and I’ll send you information for identity protection kits available.
10Long term care Insurance
Nobody believes that they will need long term care, but unfortunately it is a reality that because we are all living longer, that the number of us need some type of long term care is going to go up. Another thing that is going up is the cost of long term care. The cost can run from $50,000 to over $100,000 a year depending on what state you live in.
- For a great tool to find out current costs of long term care by state go here.
More topics
Would You Insure a $300,000 Diamond Ring if You Had One? Duh! Right?
And yet many people make an even bigger mistake … Are you?
It would be silly not to insure a $300,000 diamond ring, right? And yet many people do not insure their most important asset…their home!
WAIT, I’m not talking about home insurance, most of us do that. I’m talking about mortgage insurance. Think about it. If you had the big, expensive ring and you lost it, the worst that could happen is that you could no longer wear it.
However, if something were to happen to you and you didn’t have mortgage insurance, what is the worst that could happen?
The people you love more than anything in this world…
Your family would be in danger of losing their home.
Think about this a moment…they just lost their most beloved possession…you.
And now they face the double trauma of losing their home too.
And the fix is cheap and easy. New and improved policies make protecting your home less expensive than ever. There have been several changes in the life insurance industry in the past 10 years that make not insuring your home, in case of loss of life, almost a no-brainer.
By doing things such as taking out a joint life policy, which pays regardless of which spouse may die first, you can significantly reduce the already low cost of this type of protection (and let’s face it, in today’s world, losing either spouse would be catastrophic).
This and many other proven solutions can insure that your family remains in the house you shared together, even in the unfortunate circumstance, something happens to you.
Holy Cow! Look How Much Money These Rich and Famous People Lost When They Died!
It’s amazing what a little planning can do.
In the cases of the rich and famous it’s amazing what not planning can do as well. It can cost them millions. What many people don’t realize that even for the average middle class American, lack of estate planning can cost their families hundreds of thousands and even millions as well.
Take a look here to see how the likes of Princess Di and Jimi Hendrix made some really embarrassing simple mistakes that caused big problems at their death: Click Here
And it’s not just estate taxes that can really hurt the family but probate costs as well.
If you’d like a free consultation on how to minimize probate and death taxes for your family, just contact me below and I’ll get back with you as soon as possible to set up a time for us to get together to take a look at your situation. This is a courtesy consultation at no charge.
Jack Nicholson Wants To Be Buried in a Tree And be Eaten by Birds
Famed actor Jack Nicholson, recently declared that though he’s not planning for death, he’s decided how he wants to be buried when it happens…
By the ‘Sky Burials’ made popular by native Americans.
“I’ve had several ideas,” Jack told German TV. “Once I thought it would be nice to be buried under a large statue that is at least 10-meters high. Then I liked the nature of the Indians, who haul their bodies up into the trees so they’re eaten by birds.”
Apparently, Native Americans created sky burials because they believed the souls of those who have died linger in the air, protecting their tribe until it’s time to move on. They believed the closer their bodies got to the sky, the sooner they would achieve this end.
The Point of this story is…
Everybody has an idea of how they want to go, but in many cases, it’s not the way their family thinks.
It really makes sense to take charge of this last thing you’ll do on earth. Get it done the way YOU want it done. The best way to accomplish this is to do a little pre-planning.
Some people view this as morbid, but far wiser people believe it is some of the best decision making of your life! And it’s as simple as 1-2-3.
1Prepare a Survivors Guide
This is a document that gives your loved ones essential information ranging from the financial to the personal. You can download our free survivors guide here.
2Pre-plan your funeral
- Decide whether to embalm your body.
- Do you want to be cremated?
- What clothing and jewelry would you like to be buried in?
- Where do you wish to be buried?
- Do you want a headstone? If so, what kind … or better yet, pick it out.
- What kind of casket or urn do you want … or again, just pick it out.
- Do you want an open or closed casket?
- Do you want a wake?
- If so, do you want it somber?
- Or cheerful?
- Where would you want it?
- What kind of music?
- What pictures would you want displayed … or maybe which pictures do you NOT want displayed
- Are there certain accomplishments you want remembered or stories you want told?
- Is there someone you would like to speak at your memoriam?
- Do you want everyone to attend your funeral or just your closest family and friends? If just close family and friends, who would they be?
- Do you have something special in mind? Maybe a fraternal organization or military organization that would be represented at the funeral?
- Do you have your legal matters in order?
3Buy Final Expense Insurance
Even a moderate funeral can cost well over $7,500 today. Many funerals cost even more. And funerals tend to come at unexpected times. That is why burial insurance makes sense.
Your family is grieving your loss and the last thing you want to be doing is creating a situation where they are forced to do financial planning during the week or so after your death. Mistakes can be made and arguing can occur.
The best thing to do is have a specific account set aside for the cost of the funeral so that your loved ones can address financial issues after everyone has had time to grieve your loss.
And the best way to set up an account for your funeral is through a final expense or burial insurance policy. It’s easy. It’s cheap. And it’s efficient.
Here is a checklist for buying final expense insurance:
- Determine how much the policy will pay and what will happen to money not used for the funeral.
- Find out if the policy is permanent.
- Find out if the premiums can ever go up.
- Find out if the policy’s cash value grows.
- Verify the agent, funeral director or company selling the insurance has an insurance license.
- Be sure to look over the policy closely after you purchase it. If you are not satisfied in the first few days you can cancel the policy and get all of your money back.
- If you need to, have a companion walk through the paperwork with you to ensure you are getting what you think you are getting.
- Never accept documents that have been filled out for you. It’s fine to have the agent fill it in for you if he is simply asking you the questions and filling it in … but he should not be answering the questions for you.
- Make sure the policy is delivered to you in a prompt manner.
- Make sure you get annual statements detailing your policy status.
- Find out what happens if you decide to cancel the policy.