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Get Your Shit Together

getyourshittogether.org

11–20 of 154 posts

Re: Get Your Shit Together

#12
One of the better pieces of financial advice I ever got from a mentor was: if you have a business or are self employed, get disability insurance.

I ended up enrolling in California's Disability Insurance Elective Coverage (DIEC) - http://www.edd.ca.gov/disability/self-employed.htm. I wonder if anyone else has gone this route?

Re: Get Your Shit Together

#13
This is great advice all around, but get a local lawyer involved to prepare your will. Even in US, there is not a single set of laws that apply to wills and power of attorney. It varies state by state. With a generic template pulled from the internet, you could just be doing a whole lot of work and ultimately be ending up with a document that has little legal basis.

Do your loved ones a favor - hire a lawyer to do it. It's not free, but they'll do the actual paperwork, and you'll get the comfort of knowing it's done right.

Re: Get Your Shit Together

#14
If anyone needs convincing to use this site, read the About Us page. It's a big credit to Chanel Reynolds that she was able to drawn on a tragic experience to help others.

Re: Get Your Shit Together

#15
I'm the sole income earner for our household (my wife is at home with our wee ones). I've found that it's a lot easier to plan for my own disability/death than for hers.

For instance, I get relatively straightforward short-term and long-term disability insurance through my company. Should I become disabled, I get a percentage of my salary. But because my wife does not work, we've struggled to find a straightforward way to get (reasonably priced) disability insurance for her.

I'm assuming that many of you who are either self-employed or are in a household in which one person is not currently working have faced similar challenges. Anybody have any recommendations about how to overcome them?

Re: Get Your Shit Together

#16
Heading to Egypt with my wife for two weeks while our 2 year old daughter stays at home. Definitely something we've been trying to get together, and I really appreciate someone doing the leg work.

Re: Get Your Shit Together

#18
post #15

I'm the sole income earner for our household (my wife is at home with our wee ones). I've found that it's a lot easier to plan for my own disability/death than for hers. For instance, I get relatively straightforward short-term and long-term disability insurance through my company. Should I become disabled, I get a percentage of my salary. But because my wife does not work, we've struggled to find a straightforward w…

There is a spreadsheet included with this book [1] that helps you figure out how much life insurance to get your non-working spouse. We signed up for private term life - it was substantially less expensive than my employer's optional term life plan. Plus it's decoupled from whatever job you happen to hold at the time!

[1] http://www.amazon.com/The-Ultimate-Financial-Plan-Balancing/...

Re: Get Your Shit Together

#20
post #15

I'm the sole income earner for our household (my wife is at home with our wee ones). I've found that it's a lot easier to plan for my own disability/death than for hers. For instance, I get relatively straightforward short-term and long-term disability insurance through my company. Should I become disabled, I get a percentage of my salary. But because my wife does not work, we've struggled to find a straightforward w…

Get the minimum insurance you will need to take care of your kids and pay any debts that would be hard or impossible to pay if your wife were to become disabled.

Anytime you buy insurance you have to be ready to do some math. If you make enough to cover a caregiver (often covered or partially covered under health insurance) for your wife and have a strategy for taking care of your kids then you may not even need it.

I'm fortunate enough to live close to both my parents and my wife's parents. Because of this and because we have decent savings we decided against disability and life insurance for her. We are in the process of getting better life insurance for myself but are keeping it as low as possible to cover our debts and living expenses until the children are old enough to go to work in the coal mines.

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