Archive for Insurance & Planning

Using Blogs to Learn Great Basic Financial Planning Skills

March 15, 2013 / / 15 comments

Basic Financial Planning When I first became an adult with a family and mortgage, I knew that I would have both a responsibility and obligation to make sure that our household was always protected.  That meant not only just working hard and earning a decent wage, but also making sure I at least understood basic financial planning enough that I would be able to engage in some of the many ways to grow your income.

My ambitions started out with reading lots of the best money books.  I would go through page after page trying to find the magic equation for getting rich.  By purposely picking books that were written by millionaires themselves, I thought I would be able to learn from their methods and reproduce their success.

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Tips for Good Health and How It Can Reduce Your Life Insurance Premiums

February 5, 2013 / / 2 comments

Tips for Good HealthThe following post was provided by a guest contributor.  If you are interested in being a guest contributor for My Money Design, please feel free to contact me.

Buying life insurance is a common sense purchase that needn’t be the reason for too much soul searching, but there’s no reason why the process can’t be an opportunity to take stock of a few things. In fact, in terms of your health and wellbeing, it can make excellent financial as well as personal sense to think about a few of these things and follow some tips for good health.

Many – but not all – life insurance companies will take certain health factors into account when calculating your premiums. Some – such as your age and gender –are beyond your control, but others include your weight, smoking and any history of ill health, could be something you can improve on.

 

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How No Physical Life Insurance Would Be Better Than Nothing

February 1, 2013 / / No comments

no physical life insuranceThe following post was provided by a guest contributor.  If you are interested in being a guest contributor for My Money Design, please feel free to contact me.

Why do we put off buying life insurance? Is it because it’s complicated, we’ve heard bad experiences about it, we don’t know which type to buy, or how much we need? Believe it or not, for some people it is simply because they don’t want to go to the doctor or have their blood drawn.

Even though that may sound silly, but it only takes one excuse to keep you from doing what you should. Fortunately the industry offers a product known as no physical life insurance. By not requiring a physical, you can just buy the life insurance online or over the phone without any medical intervention at all.

 

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Should I Sell My Structured Settlement? Some Reasons Why You May Want To

January 14, 2013 / / 7 comments

sell my structured settlementWant a chance to win $1,000 in cash? Keep reading and check out the free contest at the bottom of the post.

Have you ever heard of someone being awarded a large amount of money (from a lawsuit, lottery, etc) and wondered if they receive it all at once? Chances are … they usually don’t.

Most of the time, the payment is broken up into smaller payments over a fixed duration of time. So for example, instead of receiving $500,000 all at once from a lawsuit, the plaintiff may receive $2,000 each month for the next 30 years.

Putting it all together, this type of payment is called a structured settlement.

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Optional Extras to Consider for My Home Contents Insurance

January 13, 2013 / / 2 comments

My Home Contents InsuranceThe following post was provided by guest contributor Chris Illingworth. If you are interested in being a guest contributor for My Money Design, please feel free to contact me.

When I think about making changes to my home contents insurance policy, it’s usually to get a better deal and reduce the premiums for the year. But bear in mind that cheaper isn’t always better. Unless you get a quote for exactly the same amount of coverage, it can be difficult to accurately compare quote to quote.

Not getting everything I actually need from my home contents insurance policy is where I can get myself into a lot of trouble. While one quote may appear cheaper, it may actually be missing additions that I’ll actually end up using later on when I need them the most.

 

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Which is Better – Term or Permanent Life Insurance? – Part 2

March 28, 2012 / / 24 comments

Permanent Life InsuranceIn Part 1, we reviewed the fundamental differences between Term and Permanent Life Insurance. Basically Term is cheaper but it expires and gets more expensive as time goes on. Permanent life is way more expensive, but it lasts forever and has the potential to build up cash value.

We concluded with me learning a fact about life insurance that made me question my Variable policy. I’ll explain below what exactly that was and how it caused me to request two new quotes so I could crunch the numbers to determine whether the Term or Variable Life Insurance policy was truly the better deal.

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Which is Better – Term or Permanent Life Insurance? – Part 1

March 26, 2012 / / 15 comments

Some of you may wonder “What in the world does life insurance got to do with my personal finances?”

The truth is that it plays a more significant role in your money than you think for 2 reasons:

1) Life Insurance is about taking care of those you leave behind. Do you have a spouse? Children? Dependents? If something were to happen to you, who would take of the bills? Pay the mortgage so they can stay in their house? Pay for your kids’ college? Life insurance is part of your safety net for protecting those you love.

2) Choose poorly and you can significantly over-pay! There are thousands of life insurance products available, and the costs can vary dramatically. If you learn about what the differences are, then you can select the most economic option for your situation and not drain your budget. Note: I made this mistake, so read on to learn how to avoid this situation.

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Year-End Financial Checklist

December 14, 2011 / / No comments

The end is near! The end of the year that is … And with that, December is a good time to get you finances in order and get ready to settle with the tax man. Here are some tips to get yourself ready for another year:

Set Your Budget for Next Year: Remember, a budget is simple:

• Money In – Money Out > 0 = Success.

The best way to do this is to create a table with 12 columns; one for each month. Start by listing your income towards the top. Then list all your bills and expenses. This strategy is usually a little more effective than just doing one generic monthly budget because it captures expenses that don’t occur every month or are seasonal (like Christmas expenses). This also lets you see how you’re doing throughout the entire year and if you will run into any problem areas.

Contribute: Before you file your income taxes, you’ll want to make sure you’ve maxed out your tax-deferred investments. This would include:

• IRA’s

• 529 College Savings Plans

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What Should Be in Your Safety Net?

December 7, 2011 / / No comments

You don’t think twice to lock your doors, look both ways before crossing the street, or turn off your electronics when you’re not home. So why is it that so many of us are one disaster away from a financial catastrophe?

That’s where a “Safety Net” comes in. By definition, a safety net is a term used by financial planners to describe a number of different things you should have to protect your family and your finances. But a safety net should be much more than just a few extra thousand bucks you’ve got saved in case aliens take over the world. A TRUE safety net could encompass a whole lot more. Here are a few ingredients you’ll need in your Safety Net.

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