Insurance & Estate Planning

Are you wondering about the benefits of starting a revocable living trust vs just a will? For years, my wife and I put off what we know we have to do as responsible adults and parents, and create a will. Without a will, the courts decide what happens to everything you leave behind: Your kids, your money, the house, the family dog, … everything! Ask yourself this simple question: If my spouse and I were to get hit by a car tonight, is there anything in place to protect all of those things I just mentioned? If the answer is “no”, then you absolutely need to sit down and do a little estate planning. I know … it’s hard.  It’s not fun to think about times when you’re not here anymore.  It took me battling cancer and a … [Read more...] about Why We Started a Living Trust Instead of Just a Will

As if the decision in estate planning over whether to create a will or open a trust isn’t confusing enough, I’ve come to understand (on a personal level) that even this may not be sufficient for ensuring your lifelong savings get passed on to your loved ones. In short: With the way things work now with elder care, there may not be anything left to give! Here’s my story.  Recently, my wife’s grandparents both developed a very bad case of Alzheimer’s, and somewhat rapidly.  This has caused the family to make a quick decision to move them from their residence and into the care of a nursing home instead. Do you have any idea how much a nursing home costs these days?  While interviewing a number of various ones, we … [Read more...] about Could an Irrevocable Trust be the Key to Leaving a Financial Legacy?

Have you ever wondered when to drop collision and comprehensive coverage from your auto insurance policy? Without a doubt, auto insurance is a must-have when your vehicle is relatively new, higher in value, and you need the financial protection. But what happens as time goes on and our vehicles begin to decrease in value? What about when you've racked up hundreds of thousands of miles, and you know the trade-in value of your car will be next to nothing? Is there a point where full coverage simply doesn't make good financial sense any longer? This is a question I struggle with every time I have to renew my auto insurance policy. I commute every day over 60 miles each way to and from work. Traditionally, to get the most bang for … [Read more...] about How Do You Know When to Drop Collision and Comprehensive Coverage?

Recently I wanted to find out: How can I start making contributions to an HSA? HSA's (Health Savings Accounts) have been gaining a lot of buzz in the personal finance community. In case you've never heard of them, HSA's are a type of special investment account in the U.S. you can setup to help bank money that can be used for medical expenses - tax free!  This means that similar to your retirement accounts, you get a tax-break on the front-end ... just for saving your money. For years, we've been using an FSA (flexible spending account) to help stash tax-advantaged funds that we can use for medical expenses. But the problem there has been their "use it or lose it" policy - if you contribute too much to the plan and don't redeem … [Read more...] about Can I Make Contributions To An HSA?

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. … [Read more...] about Using Blogs to Learn Great Basic Financial Planning Skills