You may have noticed that I was a wee bit on the grumpy side today.
It all started last night. Jack took three incredibly long naps yesterday. He must be getting ready to do calculus or something really monumental, because he slept more than he was awake.
Until 11 pm, when he woke ALL the way up. For three hours.
Yes, I was up with my darling child and his brand new fun-to-grind front teeth until 2 am.
I finally crawled to bed and fell asleep, then Mary Grace came down. It felt like it was immediately after I fell asleep.
"What time is it?" I asked.
"I don't know."
"What does the clock say?"
"S."
"Go back to bed."
I'm pretty sure S is for "5." Or possibly "Sunrise." Or "holyS*** it's early!"
Regardless, no one should wake up at S.
I tried, today. I really did. After we got MG on the bus, Claire, Jack and I got dressed and we went to the bank, then to McDonald's for breakfast (Claire wanted cinnamon rolls). On the way out, as we were crossing the parking lot, this woman came BARRELING into the parking lot, she must have been doing 30. I had to push Claire back out of the way. "SLOW DOWN" I yelled.
Then as I was backing out, some other idiot in a truck came screaming into the parking lot and didn't bother to stop, even though I was 2/3 of the way out of my spot before he turned in. He got the Hoosier Salute and a little bit of reality-TV style arm action.
We were late for Claire's preschool open house because somehow I'd put it on the calendar for 9 - 10:30 instead of 9 - 10. It's ok, we know the drill from last year. But it wasn't the best way to start the year. I promise I'll do better next week, Mrs. P and Mrs. D!
We made it through the grocery store with no fussing, which is a monumental accomplishment. A nice lady even let us go ahead of her when a new line opened up. We managed to get the frozen stuff put away and get to the school on time to get MG.
Home. Lunch. And then, somehow, it all fell apart.
I will spare you the gory details, but I ended up yelling at some poor customer service rep from Bank of America because they bought our mortgage from Huntington and they don't have a branch here, so I can't talk to real people, and it's just SO unfair and stupid, and I don't WANT to deal with them because when I get a late fee which was totally not my fault and I took care of it last month, immediately after they called me and said I'd mistakenly paid the wrong amount, but there's no real person to go talk to unless I go to flippin' Oklahoma or something, and just take the $45 off of my bill, lady, before I go postal, all right?
The kids were screaming in the background, I was crying. It was not pretty.
She was like, "Step away from the knife drawer, woman. I'll take it off."
Being insane saved me $45 today, so there's that.
Then Monica saw my angsty blog post and she was like, "Bring all the little children unto meeee!" and she even offered to keep them while I went and did something, but I had already been shopping so I couldn't think of anything to do, so I stayed and we laughed and it was all ok again.
Jack fell asleep on the way home, and I dropped the kids off at Grandpa's so I could sneak in a little nap before dinner. BJ handled almost all of bedtime. I'm about to go get some ice cream. It's going to be ok.
Mama said there'd be days like this. *sigh*
Looking forward to a long weekend, here. How 'bout you?
Showing posts with label Money - YUCK. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Money - YUCK. Show all posts
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Monday, October 5, 2009
Insurance and Your Family
Over the weekend, a friend of ours had an accident. He works construction, and he was working on a side-job with my brother-in-law, and he fell when a piece of scaffolding broke beneath him and he broke both bones in his leg. He has already had two surgeries. He'll be in the hospital at least a week, and can't bear weight until Christmas. Obviously this is going to put a huge financial strain on his family.
If any of you have been through something similar, and have suggestions as to how we can help out his family, I'd love to hear them.
Anyway, it got me thinking about insurance. Insurance is one of those things they really should teach in high school - but don't. I'm well into my 30s, and I'm still not entirely sure how all of it works.
I do know that BJ and I have short-term disability insurance that covers BJ if he can't work. It'll pay 80% of his salary for like 2 years. I also know that AFLAC has an accident policy that, thank goodness, will cover some of my friend's family's expenses.
If you own a home, you simply must have homeowner's insurance. Hopefully the policy of the homeowner that my friend was working for will come through and help with their expenses, also. If you rent, renter's insurance is extremely affordable and could be invaluable if there's a fire and you lose everything you own.
In light of what happened to my friend, I hope each of you will check with an insurance agent and make sure that you have some kind of coverage for accidents and lost wages. I know it's frustrating to pay for so many kinds of insurance - we have homeowner's, car, health, disability, life... - but the peace of mind that you'll get from having everything in place, just in case, is well worth the money.
And again, if you have any suggestions for how we can help this family (they live in Grammaland) please let me know.
If any of you have been through something similar, and have suggestions as to how we can help out his family, I'd love to hear them.
Anyway, it got me thinking about insurance. Insurance is one of those things they really should teach in high school - but don't. I'm well into my 30s, and I'm still not entirely sure how all of it works.
I do know that BJ and I have short-term disability insurance that covers BJ if he can't work. It'll pay 80% of his salary for like 2 years. I also know that AFLAC has an accident policy that, thank goodness, will cover some of my friend's family's expenses.
If you own a home, you simply must have homeowner's insurance. Hopefully the policy of the homeowner that my friend was working for will come through and help with their expenses, also. If you rent, renter's insurance is extremely affordable and could be invaluable if there's a fire and you lose everything you own.
In light of what happened to my friend, I hope each of you will check with an insurance agent and make sure that you have some kind of coverage for accidents and lost wages. I know it's frustrating to pay for so many kinds of insurance - we have homeowner's, car, health, disability, life... - but the peace of mind that you'll get from having everything in place, just in case, is well worth the money.
And again, if you have any suggestions for how we can help this family (they live in Grammaland) please let me know.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Investing
Anonymous asked:
What should we invest in, if we can afford to buy low right now?
Oh my goodness, this question is so far outside of my area of expertise, that I don't even want to talk about it... But I will, because it's important, as long as you promise to remember that I'm a business manager with a background in special education, not an investment banker, a stockbroker, or anyone else who knows anything.
The first step, I believe, for regular people like us (Hockey Moms! Hahah!) is to get good advice. Get yourself a financial advisor, ask people you know who have money for referrals. Have a meeting. (It should not cost anything. If it does, find someone else) and talk about where you're at, where you're going, and where you want to end up.
We have two financial advisors. One personal and one business. Our business guy is with Edward Jones, and he called me yesterday to assure me that EdJo hasn't invested in any of these mortgage securities, and that while our investments will have to ride the market like everyone else's, we're not going to lose everything like some people who were heavily invested in mortgage securities. Call companies like Edward Jones, or Charles Schwab (it's funny how almost all of these companies are named after old dead white guys!) and ask them how secure their investments are right now, and go from there. Google the name of the company, and make sure you don't find anything scary - like I just found about Wachovia, so I decided to take it off the list!
We own, through EdJo, shares in several different mutual funds. A mutual fund, basically, is a bunch of different stocks all mixed up together. So, rather than owning 100 shares of IBM, we might own a little piece of IBM, and a little piece of 99 or 999 other stocks, which are traded as a group. The advantage of a mutual fund is that, generally, there is a real live person somewhere whose job it is to manage the mutual fund, and to buy or sell what he thinks will be in the best interests of the group. It's like going in on stocks with all your friends - you spread the risk out among the group. You also spread out the gains. They're more stable than having all your money (eggs) in one stock (basket) because if one goes up, another will go down and balance it out (generally), although when everything goes down, as we've seen in the last week, you're going to lose money just like everyone else.
But as I said before, it isn't real money unless you sell. It will come back up, eventually, and if you're in a position to "ride it out" (or leave your money where it's at until things come back up) you stand to make a lot more money than you would have if this had never happened.
Let's say, for instance, that last month $100 would buy 1 share of the mutual fund XXX. Now that the market's down, that same $100 might buy a share and a half, or two shares of the same mutual fund. When things come back up, because it's a cycle and things always come back up, instead of having just one share, you'll have one and a half or two. It's a good time to buy, if you can.
But first you want to pay down your debt. Interest rates are going to go up, if you're late on a single credit card payment they're going to jack up your rate. And even if you've done nothing wrong, credit lines are going to go down. We had a Visa card with the business that we rarely used, had never maxed, and had never missed a payment on, and when we got the new card in the mail last week (the old one is expiring this month) our credit line had been cut from $1500 to $800. Change is coming. So INVEST IN YOURSELF by paying down any outstanding debt you have right now. Call your lenders and ask if you can have a lower interest rate - it never hurts to ask, right? Shop around and see if you can transfer your balance to a lower-interest-rate card. Do everything you can to get your outstanding balance as close to zero as possible.
I'm reading a book right now called How to Prosper During the Coming Bad Years in the 21st Century, by Howard J. Ruff. Incidentally, it's really cheap right now at Amazon... The copyright date is April '08, so he saw this coming and had enough time to write and publish a book about it. That alone is enough to make me consider carefully any advice he might be handing out for the low, low price of $5.
He says the conditions are right, right now, to buy gold and silver. Typically gold and silver are bad investments, because it takes 20 years to make any money, but right now they're really low - just like they were in the 1970s - and they're going to come back up with everything else. Apparently Ruff bought (and recommended) gold and silver in 1975 when the prices were at $125 and $2, and he sold in the late 70s when gold was over $700 and silver was at $35. Not a bad return in less than 5 years.
I recommend that if you have any money to play with, you read as much as you can about what's going on and how to shelter yourself. I think Suze Orman is saying a lot of smart things. She's worth listening to, also.
Just as you wouldn't want to manage your health care all by yourself, without an expert (a doctor) to guide you, you do not want to manage your financial health all by yourself, without an expert (a financial advisor) to guide you. This stuff is seriously complicated, and I only understand bits and pieces - but I know where to go for help and advice, and I know how to be a good consumer of information, how to weigh and balance the advice I'm getting against my own knowledge, experience, and common sense, and that's worth more than being able to do everything all by myself.
Being a success means having a team of successful people behind you. You need good doctors, who help you manage your health. You need a good lawyer, who helps you manage all the paperwork of life (wills, etc.). You need a good accountant, who helps you manage the yearly paperwork of life (taxes). You need a good realtor, who will guide you through the process of buying a home, and make sure that you don't get a screwy mortgage or overextend yourself on your monthly payments. You need a great insurance agent, to make sure that your ass is covered if something unexpected happens. Think of your life as a business, and all of these experts are your employees, and your job is to be the manager, and to see the big picture and keep all the wheels turning smoothly in the machine that is your life.
YOU don't need to be an expert in the stock market, or in accounting, or in medicine, but you need to have the courage to make changes in your current team, if necessary, so that you're getting the best results possible. You need to have the sense to see the big picture, and to choose people who are experts, and who you trust take care of you to the best of their ability. Choose people with experience, foresight, and excellent recommendations from other people you trust.
What should we invest in, if we can afford to buy low right now?
Oh my goodness, this question is so far outside of my area of expertise, that I don't even want to talk about it... But I will, because it's important, as long as you promise to remember that I'm a business manager with a background in special education, not an investment banker, a stockbroker, or anyone else who knows anything.
The first step, I believe, for regular people like us (Hockey Moms! Hahah!) is to get good advice. Get yourself a financial advisor, ask people you know who have money for referrals. Have a meeting. (It should not cost anything. If it does, find someone else) and talk about where you're at, where you're going, and where you want to end up.
We have two financial advisors. One personal and one business. Our business guy is with Edward Jones, and he called me yesterday to assure me that EdJo hasn't invested in any of these mortgage securities, and that while our investments will have to ride the market like everyone else's, we're not going to lose everything like some people who were heavily invested in mortgage securities. Call companies like Edward Jones, or Charles Schwab (it's funny how almost all of these companies are named after old dead white guys!) and ask them how secure their investments are right now, and go from there. Google the name of the company, and make sure you don't find anything scary - like I just found about Wachovia, so I decided to take it off the list!
We own, through EdJo, shares in several different mutual funds. A mutual fund, basically, is a bunch of different stocks all mixed up together. So, rather than owning 100 shares of IBM, we might own a little piece of IBM, and a little piece of 99 or 999 other stocks, which are traded as a group. The advantage of a mutual fund is that, generally, there is a real live person somewhere whose job it is to manage the mutual fund, and to buy or sell what he thinks will be in the best interests of the group. It's like going in on stocks with all your friends - you spread the risk out among the group. You also spread out the gains. They're more stable than having all your money (eggs) in one stock (basket) because if one goes up, another will go down and balance it out (generally), although when everything goes down, as we've seen in the last week, you're going to lose money just like everyone else.
But as I said before, it isn't real money unless you sell. It will come back up, eventually, and if you're in a position to "ride it out" (or leave your money where it's at until things come back up) you stand to make a lot more money than you would have if this had never happened.
Let's say, for instance, that last month $100 would buy 1 share of the mutual fund XXX. Now that the market's down, that same $100 might buy a share and a half, or two shares of the same mutual fund. When things come back up, because it's a cycle and things always come back up, instead of having just one share, you'll have one and a half or two. It's a good time to buy, if you can.
But first you want to pay down your debt. Interest rates are going to go up, if you're late on a single credit card payment they're going to jack up your rate. And even if you've done nothing wrong, credit lines are going to go down. We had a Visa card with the business that we rarely used, had never maxed, and had never missed a payment on, and when we got the new card in the mail last week (the old one is expiring this month) our credit line had been cut from $1500 to $800. Change is coming. So INVEST IN YOURSELF by paying down any outstanding debt you have right now. Call your lenders and ask if you can have a lower interest rate - it never hurts to ask, right? Shop around and see if you can transfer your balance to a lower-interest-rate card. Do everything you can to get your outstanding balance as close to zero as possible.
I'm reading a book right now called How to Prosper During the Coming Bad Years in the 21st Century, by Howard J. Ruff. Incidentally, it's really cheap right now at Amazon... The copyright date is April '08, so he saw this coming and had enough time to write and publish a book about it. That alone is enough to make me consider carefully any advice he might be handing out for the low, low price of $5.
He says the conditions are right, right now, to buy gold and silver. Typically gold and silver are bad investments, because it takes 20 years to make any money, but right now they're really low - just like they were in the 1970s - and they're going to come back up with everything else. Apparently Ruff bought (and recommended) gold and silver in 1975 when the prices were at $125 and $2, and he sold in the late 70s when gold was over $700 and silver was at $35. Not a bad return in less than 5 years.
I recommend that if you have any money to play with, you read as much as you can about what's going on and how to shelter yourself. I think Suze Orman is saying a lot of smart things. She's worth listening to, also.
Just as you wouldn't want to manage your health care all by yourself, without an expert (a doctor) to guide you, you do not want to manage your financial health all by yourself, without an expert (a financial advisor) to guide you. This stuff is seriously complicated, and I only understand bits and pieces - but I know where to go for help and advice, and I know how to be a good consumer of information, how to weigh and balance the advice I'm getting against my own knowledge, experience, and common sense, and that's worth more than being able to do everything all by myself.
Being a success means having a team of successful people behind you. You need good doctors, who help you manage your health. You need a good lawyer, who helps you manage all the paperwork of life (wills, etc.). You need a good accountant, who helps you manage the yearly paperwork of life (taxes). You need a good realtor, who will guide you through the process of buying a home, and make sure that you don't get a screwy mortgage or overextend yourself on your monthly payments. You need a great insurance agent, to make sure that your ass is covered if something unexpected happens. Think of your life as a business, and all of these experts are your employees, and your job is to be the manager, and to see the big picture and keep all the wheels turning smoothly in the machine that is your life.
YOU don't need to be an expert in the stock market, or in accounting, or in medicine, but you need to have the courage to make changes in your current team, if necessary, so that you're getting the best results possible. You need to have the sense to see the big picture, and to choose people who are experts, and who you trust take care of you to the best of their ability. Choose people with experience, foresight, and excellent recommendations from other people you trust.
In addition to mutual funds, gold, and silver, right now I wish we had the money to buy land. As Mark Twain said, it's a good investment because "they're not making it anymore." A couple of years ago, before the "real estate bubble" popped, land wasn't such a great investment. But now that the market has corrected itself and the prices are more reasonable (repeat after me, everything is a cycle) it's a good time to buy land. Not necessarily a house, but land. The population is just going to keep growing, and all of those folks that are going to be born are going to need to live somewhere, right? Again, talk to an expert (a realtor) if you have some money lying around, and see if there are any good investment properties near you, and what you'd need to do to acquire them.
One of the things BJ and I have planned to do, once we pay down our debt, is to buy land where we're going to build our "forever house." The house we're in now is our practice house - and we built it with that in mind. He's learned to hang siding, lay tile, and all sorts of good skills here. I've learned that we need bigger closets and bathrooms, and a ton more storage. I've also learned to paint and what my style is in decorating. We know a lot more, now, than we did 6 years ago when we started the process of buying a house. Anyway, our plan is to find some land, buy it, get it paid off, and then get the construction loan to build a house. We figure that's a good way to go about things.... We'll see. But anyway, if your plans are similar, now might be a good time to start looking for the land you want to build your "forever house" on, too.
What you should invest in, how much money you should put in risky stocks - those that have the potential to gain or lose a lot, versus how much you should put in more stable stocks, depends so much on how much you have, where you're at in life, when you're going to retire, etc. etc. that unless I went to school for 6 or 8 years, then sat down with you and really looked at everything you have in your financial picture, I couldn't tell you to buy this or buy that. But I hope that some of this has pointed you in a good direction.
Have a good team. That's really what it comes down to. Have a good team that you trust, and manage it carefully.
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