Happy Easter!
It’s another installment of financial tips. In honor of this egg day, grab some coffee and spend a few minutes with me and I’ll bring you more information to get a little better off by next Easter.

The fifth tip… of this series is to review all of your insurance coverage for yourself if it’s just you or the whole family. Car insurance, life insurance, health insurance, homeowners’ insurance, renters insurance, etc. It is very important to be insured to your needs and necessities, to be insured enough but not too much. This will take a little work, you’ll have to gauge the value of the things you own, how much you make, what your potential earnings will be for many years, whether or not you’re going to pay for college for your kids, help them pay for college, etc. You get the point, it’s like planning your life in a few short hours, or days if necessary, the point is that these are not easy things to evaluate. It’s necessary however, because you don’t want to be stuck in that horrible situation where things go wrong and you aren’t prepared.

If you’re renting however, I speak from personal experience when I tell you that there is absolutely nothing more horrible than coming home to your place, finding the door busted in and your things gone inside. The only thing worse is knowing there is nothing that can help you replace those things that were stolen. Do not get stuck in that situation, I was uninsured and it was just heartbreaking to see all the things I’d worked hard for gone, that easily and quickly.

I was robbed about four years ago, living in a gated community, my car had been broken into twice, so I moved closer to the front of the complex to be a little “safer”. Within four days I was robbed. You would think I took the proper kind of precautions, right?

Just two months ago when we moved, I finally threw away the remotes for the electronics I had back then, and I was mad all over again. I’m sure some of you have experienced this, but if not I tell you this because I hope it’s easier to experience what I dealt with when I was robbed. You don’t want to have to ever deal with that, sure you’ll be really pissed that you got robbed, but you’ll at least have the comfort of knowing you’ll get everything replaced, and it’ll be new stuff, just be sure you have “replacement” insurance and not just the kind of coverage that gives you the appraised value of your things.

The point is, you work too hard for what you have to sell yourself short by not having insurance for those kinds of things. As renters it’s easy to not really take it seriously, a lot of times, it just never crosses your mind, but it is important to insure your belongings, cars, house, apartment, and your life. This means taking an interest in insurance, you have to know enough about it to know if you’re covered well enough, or too well.
But you can do it, and when you do, it’s one more thing you’ll have control over in your life, knowing how well you’re covered can mean the difference between total despair in a horrible situation, or a calm controlled reaction, because you know you can bounce back from it.

The sixth tip… is to review or write a will, or have one written, whatever you need to do. But you need one. Yeah so that hits a spot we don’t want to think about. I know that, you probably don’t think it has anything to do with finances either, but it does. Let me tell you why, if something happens to you, whether you are the primary wagearner in your household or not, if you own anything and there is anyone else involved in your life, you need a will.

No one wants the people that are grieving over you to have to sort out your finances, figure out who gets what, or worse, your kids have to suffer without the benefits from your insurance because probate court hasn’t had a chance to iron out how things will go, who will get what, who will take care of the kids permanently, etc. That’s a horrible thing to think about, but you don’t need to avoid it. If you already have one, read it, make sure it’s updated sufficiently and congratulations on taking care of yet another area we all need control over in our lives.

Three years ago when I did mine, I sent a certified copy to my sister and my dad and called them to let them know it was coming, they freaked out. Both of them thought I was hiding some kind of cancer or something. Fortunately, that was not the case. But suppose you went to the doctor in three months and the doctor saw something that made that line appear in his forehead, we all know that’s not good. So be prepared for all of that, so that if something bad this way comes, you don’t have to worry about it then. There are programs you can use with templates, kits you can buy at your local bookstore, check it out.

Click Here for Part Two.
Click Here for Part One.