Protection
Early Tap of the 401(k) Replaces Homes as American Piggy Bank (Reviewed)
Piggy banks may seem best suited to our childhood era. We mentally organize them with wagon-rides, tooth fairies, and the endless pencil-sharpening of early grade school. But as adults, we need and use piggy banks; they just come in a different form. When people need money for life’s setbacks and lean times, one of the…
Read MoreHow to Shop for Insurance Pt 3: Life, Health, and Disability Insurance
Life, health, and disability insurance protect you, your body, your wellness, and your livelihood. This range of coverage includes some of the most essential protections. Too often, people ask the wrong questions. This leads them to draw the wrong conclusions about life, health, and disability insurance. As a result, many remain drastically underinsured or forgo the protection altogether.…
Read MoreHow to Shop For Insurance Part 2: Home and Auto Insurance
Home and auto insurance are two pillars of insurance protection that are almost universally understood to be necessary. However, when it comes to choosing and paying for coverage, you have nearly infinite options. The range of coverage details, exemptions, coverage amounts, and limitations add complexity. This can make shopping for insurance seem like a maze…
Read MoreHow to Shop for Insurance Part 1: 7 Tips to Save on Insurance
When you shop around for insurance, it’s best to start with a game plan. Then you know what to look for and how to save on insurance without sacrificing value. It’s just like shopping for groceries, a marketing strategist, or an investment property. First, you need to know what you want. Next, you want to know…
Read MoreWhy You Want Insurance Part 3: It Costs More to Self-Insure
To navigate your insurance decisions, you must weigh the costs and opportunity costs of each option. While some choose to self-insure as a solution to reduce insurance costs, there are additional costs hidden beneath the surface that you need to be aware of. Insurance is fairly polarizing. Chances are, you either love it or you…
Read MoreWhy You Want Insurance Part 2: It Protects Your Human Life Value
Insurance is about more than protecting your stuff. It’s about protecting your human life value. Often, your life insurance needs rank pretty close on the motivation list with you need to change the oil in your car. Here’s the filtering mechanism your brain goes through when you hear it: Not that pressing. Things are going fine without it. …
Read MoreEstate Planning That Works, with Rick Randall
Rick Randall says that estate planning that works is not the norm, but it does not have to be that way. The goal of estate planning is to dictate how you will transfer the baton of your life’s wealth and wisdom to generations after you. With it, you ensure your legacy will live on, beyond you,…
Read MoreWhy You Want Insurance Part 1: Insurance Transfers Risk
Throughout civilization, people have created tools to transfer risk, protecting themselves from negative circumstances. This is the core function of insurance: to transfer risk. It’s what makes insurance not only something you want but something to love. However, many people have a misguided and negative view of insurance, being inadequately insured or uninsured altogether. As…
Read MoreHow Do Your Savings Stack Up?
So, here’s an action that you can do right away, in your personal financial life to determine how your savings stack up. Write down any places where you’re storing money. Now I say places because some of those might be accounts. It could be a savings account, a checking account, a money market account, a…
Read MoreWhat Is Savings? – Saving vs. Investing:
What Is Savings: Why We Need a Definition In all the financial pressure you feel to plan for the future, have you ever stopped to consider, fundamentally, what is savings? Often the answer is in asking the right questions. Concerning great issues, this is one that will behoove you to ask, understand, and answer that…
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