pleasant surprise
I updated my net worth (with a few minor details yet-to-be-updated, like the big reduction in my student loan amount and the actual amount of my stocks’ value) and lo and behold, there was a $6,000 net worth increase sitting there staring me in the face! Wow. Praise God!
This progress, despite my newest material acquisitions – clothes, a smart phone, a data plan, weekly visits with a personal fitness trainer – is nothing short of amazing.
Here’s my latest net worth explanation:
“The amount shown in my net worth is incorrect because I’m having technical difficulties with one of my student loan accounts and with my ShareBuilder account, so I can’t see the actual balances. Until I can get these numbers, the amounts shown here are incorrect.
I used my tax refund to pay down some student loan debt. I made my last medical bills payment in April. Yay!!! That is why my “other debts” category has gone down. Another reason it’s declined is because I’m paying back the $7,500 tax credit from 2008 through payroll deductions, since 2010 is the first tax year in which Uncle Sam will start getting his money back from the homeowners who took the 2008 home buyers’ tax credit (i.e. “loan”) – which, in my case, is sitting in a bank account collecting an insulting amount of interest (when are the rates going to go back up?!?!?) and augmenting our emergency savings.
Mister Ant and I have been saving for our wedding expenses and for start-up costs for a family (no, we’re not trying yet!).
The credit cards get cleared by the end of each month, and I’m pretty much using them for rewards points. My main priority is to use the payment amounts I no longer have to pay to the medical bills to pay down my smaller student loan. I’m really excited about seeing that final 0.00 balance when I log in one day! I hate this loan with a passion.
I haven’t been saving much in my IRA, because so much of my money is going towards wedding/household savings and debt reduction. Apparently I lack the drive/discipline to contribute regularly to the fund, but at least I am saving something somewhere, and next month after open enrollment, I’ll start contributing to the 401K at work, since I become eligible this month. I looked into converting the IRA to a Roth, but it’s really not worth the initial tax costs to me right now.
Someone dinged my car, but not so significantly that it would have been worth paying my $1000 deductible, so I took some value ($500) off of the car, since the body is no longer in “excellent” condition.”
But, perhaps most importantly of all – my net worth has broken the -20,000 mark and I feel like I’m oh-so-close to going positive! I was so excited to see that, and then my jaw dropped when I saw that I’m 77% closer to a positive net worth than I was when I started this journey three-and-a-half years ago back in 2006. Oh joy! Negative 87K seems so far away now. I mean, what’s another 16K? I’ve already improved by about 70. This is so awesome!
live well
Live as well as you can. Tomorrow is not promised. Live in the present, but plan for your future.
I was a big Michael Jackson fan when I was a little girl. I have a lot of his albums, and I still enjoy them all. I hope there is not a circus over his estate. I really need to get my will drafted – it’s been taking me too long. It’s been six months since I went to that lawyer, but I didn’t follow up, and I totally missed my deadline.
Anyway, have a good weekend, and appreciate your life!
sweet and sour
The dentist cost $80.00 for yesterday’s visit. I have to go back at least twice, for a grand total of $305.00. Not bad, I guess, for not having dental insurance. There are no major problems, just some deep cleaning and ah… ahem… a couple of fillings – surface fillings. I also had to pay for parking yesterday. Y’all know I don’t pay for parking, unless it’s absolutely unavoidable. Well, yesterday at the dentist it was unavoidable, so, there went another eleven dollars. One more thing – my goal was to have my will drafted by the end of this month, which is fast approaching. I haven’t even sat down to get started yet. I gotta get on the ball. Well anyway, that’s the sour.
Here’s the sweet: I got a check in the mail for over $700 additional pay out from the amended homeowners insurance claim. Yay! I was only expecting two or three hundred. That’s $700 less that I have to spend on the plumbing job, which is sitting on my Visa right now waiting to be paid off by the monthly due date. My goal is to keep my e-fund from dipping below $4000. I’m hoping that between my income and the insurance company checks, I will be able to meet that goal.
living just enough
Oh yeah, I’ve been slacking. Late posts, no monthly net worth update – oh it’s just a mess.
Sorry! I’ve been busy.
Over the weekend I helped to prepare taxes as part of the Campaign for Working Families like I did last year. Between that and Sistah Butterfly’s baby shower and some overdue R&R, which is a priority I had to force, I just haven’t had time to focus on blogging.
There’s a lot on my mind. First, so far as I know, I won’t be employed by the middle of the month. For real this time. Also, I’ve got plumbing work happening in the bathroom soon. I’m long overdue for a mani, pedi, and my first professional haircut. I’ve got to file my taxes. I also have to get that will drafted by the end of this month. We’re still unpacking. Oh, and I’m trying to lose weight so I won’t be a centimeter away from having to replace all my pants, LOL! I’m not overly stressed, but I am busy!
I hope to be back with a net worth update soon.
plan of action
I met with the estate attorney at a free consultation that lasted about half an hour to forty-five minutes. I told her what my concerns were about the mortgage on the house, how to properly designate my life insurance beneficiary, and how to avoid negative tax consequences for my beneficiary. She gave me some good advice, not just about my own situation, but about my parents’, and now I have a plan of action for my will. I also have a plan of action for changing the beneficiary of my life insurance policy, based on the attorney’s advice. I know what I want to do and how I want to do it.
My path will be different from most others’. I can and will draft my own will. There is a [wise] saying among attorneys that a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client – my initial intention was to have someone else draft the will for me. However, attorneys help each other out, and the estate attorney I spoke with said that she will be available to me if I have any questions. She has also given me the layout of what my concerns should be as I draft. I have a safety net of quality assurance in the advice of a more experienced attorney. This will get the job done, yet save me some money. Now I know there is information on the internet, and at libraries and bookstores, but I would not suggest that people who are not attorneys attempt to draft their own wills. There are too many things to consider, every person’s situation is different, and there is too much of a chance that a non-professional would fail to make adequate provision for everything as they are drafting the document, which could lead to big problems for beneficiaries after the person’s death. I am a lawyer, I’ve taken a number of courses dealing with estate planning during my professional training, and I STILL desire the counsel of a reputable and experienced estate attorney in my estate planning process, specifically because I know how much could go wrong if I flew blind.
My task now is to get the thing done. I’m setting a deadline for myself – February 28, 2009. I want to have the will drafted and at least ready for signatures for myself and witnesses by that date. I don’t suspect that it will take that long, but I am busy and I have to allow myself time to work on it in the midst of all the other things I have to do. I will also have to make arrangements for safekeeping of the will and other important documents, like my life insurance policy, and among other things, an instruction letter in case I am incapacitated or I pass away.
I will keep you posted!
safety net
I doubled my life insurance policy today – sat down with the insurance guy on a pair of folding chairs at the house and signed the application. I had to make sure that if something happens to me, the mortgage on the house can be paid off. My new coverage amount now has enough to pay off my mortgage, my car note, my burial, and probably my parents’ mortgage too. (My other debts are student loans and would be forgiven if I died.)
I’m not done, though. I still have to get my will drafted. I already know which attorney I need to call, I just haven’t done it yet. But I told myself last year that I was going to get serious about estate planning, and I meant it. I don’t want my family and Mister Ant to have to scratch their heads to figure out my business – it’s my responsibility to make sure the burden on them isn’t heavy if something were to happen to me. Buying a house is a huge deal – huge enough to evaluate what safety nets are in place. There’s one more thing I need, too – long-term disability insurance, which could help me if I lose the ability to work. I don’t want Mister Ant to shoulder the burden of taking care of both of us on just his salary if that happened.
estate planning 101
I attended an estate planning workshop last night. It was actually part of another function that I had to attend, but in light of my recent musings on my and my family members’ eventual deaths, the timing was great. All the great buzzwords were there – insurance, will, trust, tax – and so was one of my favorite financial phrases, "generational wealth." I don’t want to spread misinformation by getting the details of what I heard last night wrong. However, one thing I heard that is easily repeatable was as follows: Every person should, at the bare minimum, have three documents involved in their estate planning. These should be a will, a power of attorney, and a living will. The presenter, an attorney/financial advisor who I’ve met in a professional capacity before, and who will likely get my business, also mentioned that there are other tools, such as insurance policies and trusts, that can supplement these three basic documents in ways that can help families preserve wealth and ensure an educational legacy. It was an excellent presentation! I’m so glad that I was able to come away with a copy of the presentation for further study.
Don’t feel bad that you couldn’t be there with me – I found something online that might give you roughly the same basic information I received last night – maybe even more! Without further ado, CNN Money’s Top Things to Know about Estate Planning.
While I’m at it, if you’re in my state, Pennsylvania, here’s another invaluable source of information that I found a few weeks ago: The Pennsylvania Estate and Trust Cybrary by attorney Daniel B. Evans. If you’re not in my state, this is still useful information for you, because now you know that every state has its own rules. You can’t just pick up an Estate Planning for Imbeciles book out of the local bookstore and be assured that you can come up with something that will be enforceable in your state when you die or become incapacitated (though it might help you to understand general information about estate planning). I highly recommend that when you are ready to get your estate planning together, you consult with a professional to get help with considering your local laws, contingencies you might not think about on your own, and the financial and tax consequences of the decisions that you make.
make arrangements
I will have been to two funerals in the past four weeks. One of the funerals, this coming Saturday, will be for a thirteen year old boy, whose mother had no life insurance on him. The other was for my friend’s (step)father, whose (step)children cannot find his will. Neither the young man nor the grandfather had warning, through sickness or otherwise, that they were going to die. Now one family is trying to bury a child with no insurance proceeds to help lighten the burden. Another family is trying to settle the affairs of their beloved father at their own expense, while facing possible disinheritance and a failure to meet their dad’s last wishes.
Get your houses in order.
And I’m going to practice what I preach, and do it right along with you, keeping you posted here on The Hustle.
Sorry to end the week on such a somber note, but time waits for no one. Enjoy your weekend, but don’t forget to put estate planning/insurance on your to-do list.
