Professional Liability Insurance – Reporting Claims

Reporting claims in a timely manner is critical for any professional liability insurance coverage – E&O, D&O, EPL and Cyber Risk. What constitutes a claim varies by policy and can, in some instances, be construed broadly. (See our Prior Posts: here, here, here, here, here) A recent article discusses claim reporting and failure to report. Entitled Malpractice: Failure to Report Client’s Claim at Professional Liability Matters, the article makes some excellent points on claim reporting, and then focuses on an attorney’s sometimes obligation to report a claim on behalf of a client. Key points: In the first line of the article: There is no upside in failing to report a claim Taking a wait and see approach to a claim…

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Insurance Coverage Litigation Section to Present at Hawaii State Bar Convention

Insurance Law Hawaii

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My experience with alternative healthcare insurance

This article is by staff writer Lisa Aberle.

A few months ago, I shared about my health insurance alternative. As a recap, I belong to a healthcare sharing ministry (HSM) called Christian Healthcare Ministries (CHM), just one of several ministries that are ACA-approved alternatives to health insurance. What we belong to is not health insurance; therefore, we don’t pay a premium (although we pay a “gift” each month or what amounts to a deductible, except it’s called a “personal responsibilty”). We chose this option because neither my husband nor I have access to an employer-sponsored plan. The most important consideration for us was cost, followed by coverage options. We opted for the most expensive level, which means that we have a $ 500 personal responsibility for each medical event that each of our family members experience on an annual basis.

We made some changes, though

At the time of the previous article, I was the only member of my family to belong, and I paid $ 150 per month. Now our entire family of five belongs for $ 450 per month. Even if our family size were to double, that is the maximum monthly contribution we’d have to make.

This amount covered me up to $ 125,000 per event; but, as some readers pointed out, medical bills can exceed that in the blink of an eye. Because of that, we felt that becoming part of our ministry’s extra program would be valuable. For an extra $ 75 per quarter (and an annual fee of $ 40), we have no reimbursement cap per diagnosis.

The process

Shortly after becoming a member, I had the opportunity to try out this way of paying medical bills when I learned that I was pregnant. I called the HSM right away to let them know and ask for instructions. As instructed, I called my doctor’s office and the hospital where I planned to deliver to get an estimate of delivery charges. These documents were submitted to our HSM right away.

Throughout my pregnancy, as I received bills, I called each provider and asked for a discount. Most often, the discount was 20 percent. The greatest discount I received was 25 percent, and some places didn’t offer discounts at all. But I learned not to take the first answer. One place in particular told me they did not offer discounts. When I called back and asked specifically for a 25 percent discount with an offer to pay the entire balance that day, I got what I asked for.

Once I received bills and itemized statements, I sent them to the HSM, although not always in a timely manner (but I’ll explain why in a little bit). Usually, I was reimbursed within 60 days of submitting my bills, although the HSM says they will usually reimburse within 60 to 90 days. However, several months before my due date, I got a check from the HSM with instructions to pay my OB’s charges in full and $ 1,000 to the hospital as prepayment for the delivery charges.

Up to that point, my pregnancy had gone smoothly. Then I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes, resulting in weekly fetal monitoring. I was induced, had a C-section, and my son developed jaundice. All these things resulted in expenses that were higher than the original estimates.

What I like (and don’t like) about it

I like paying only $ 450 per month, to be sure. I also like how the personal responsibility is handled. You are responsible for the first $ 500; but if you secure a discount, you are responsible only for the total minus the discount. So, as long as the remainder of my medical bills are reimbursed, I have paid $ 400 out of pocket for delivering a baby because I got a 20 percent discount on my first $ 500. The price is right.

I also liked being able to pay my OB early, as well as to start paying on the hospital bill.

But I encountered a few difficulties as well. I am not a very organized person; so keeping track of all my bills, asking for discounts and itemized statements, and knowing which bills had and hadn’t been reimbursed was tricky for me. By the end, I had created a system that made it more manageable, but it still caused me headaches.

I also wish I would have submitted some bills more quickly. I was having a $ 255.20 test every week; and since it was only (haha) $ 255.20 a week, I paid the bill and collected each itemized statement. After all, I didn’t want to be sending off a letter every week. Wasn’t it better to batch them? Well, as you know, $ 255.20 a week is over $ 1000 a month, not exactly pocket change. That caused us to feel quite pinched. And snail mail? By the end, I was emailing them. Duh, Lisa.

In addition to sending bills in more quickly, I also wish I would have utilized the providers’ payment plans, just to give me some breathing room until the reimbursements came in.

But using the payment plans weren’t my favorite thing either, and I didn’t use them until I had to. Therefore, our savings accounts were dwindling. I felt — I am not sure — maybe irresponsible that I didn’t pay each bill in full as I received it. My hospital bill was over $ 13,000, and while I could have taken money from our emergency fund to pay it, I didn’t want to risk it. Our total bills were over $ 30,000, so if I had started this with that in mind, I think I would have planned better.

However, every single provider was very helpful as I explained our circumstances. And setting up the payment plans was simple; I just felt stressed about it. I think that doing this requires some savings — if you don’t want to be completely stressed out, that is.

So, yay or nay?

As of today, I just have around $ 4,000 yet to be reimbursed. I am feeling relieved as I paid off three bills and have just a couple more to go. Working with the HSM was definitely a pleasure because they were so kind and helpful.

If I were able to get health insurance for my family with a small deductible, I might consider going back to conventional health coverage. However, now that I have had some experience, I know how to make it easier next time. So for as long as possible, our family will probably be paying for our eligible medical expenses in this way.

Have you had experience with an alternative to Obamacare? How did you manage your medical bills and getting reimbursed?

Get Rich Slowly – Personal Finance That Makes Sense.

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Standalone Tail – A Better Insurance Solution

A Standalone Tail insurance policy can be a better solution than exercising an Extended Reporting Period (ERP) provision in a professional liability insurance policy (E&O, D&O, EPL, Cyber). Tail coverage covers claims made against an insured during the period after the original claims made policy has expired for services (for a professional) provided prior to the original policy termination date (see here). Tail coverage is critical in the sale of an operation, such as an insurance agency, and typically is required by a buyer. There is currently an active market for Standalone Tail coverage – unlike a few years ago (see our prior post here, and note the date!). As an example, a Standalone Tail was recently placed to support…

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Cyber Risk Insurance – A Necessary Coverage

Cyber Risk Insurance (also called Data Breach, Privacy, Network Security insurance) is a necessary insurance coverage for all organizations and most organizations are starting to buy the coverage. As an insurance agent or broker, you should be up to speed and ensuring your customers have (the right) coverage. The confluence of hacker attacks, employee errors, increasing regulation and internet security lapses has created a heightened level of exposure for all organizations, including smaller organizations. We noted an increasing need last year in our post Cyber Risk is Booming (see here, also Who Needs Cyber Coverage). The media is primarily focused on breaches at large organizations, but numerous breaches at smaller organizations go unreported. And many more companies are buying, as…

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The Simple Dollar Weekly Roundup: Take Action Edition

via The Simple Dollar:

A friend recently pointed me to the research work of Jennifer Aaker, a researcher at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. From the article: “The results show that acts designed to improve the well-being of others will lead to greater happiness for givers when these acts are associated with concretely framed, prosocial goals as opposed to abstractly framed prosocial goals – despite people’s intuitions to the contrary.”

In other words, you’re much more likely to feel good about your efforts if you actually take concrete action to help someone solve their problems than if you help them abstractly. For example, you’re more likely to get lasting joy out of spending an hour directly helping someone find a job than spending an hour drinking coffee with them and listening to their misery in unemployment. Not only that, you’re more likely to actually help someone find a job if you’re actively offering help in that process. Drive someone to a job interview, not to the coffee shop to swap stories.

If you want to help others and feel good about it, take action. Don’t just sit there. Listening helps, but it pales compared to actually doing something to help, both in terms of your happiness and their results.

How to Stop Black and White Thinking from Destroying Your Life Life isn’t an “either/or” choice. You don’t have to be super-frugal or not frugal at all. You don’t have to eat every single meal at home or eat every single meal out. Black and white thinking makes everything hard. (@ dumb little man)

On Making It Through Tough Journeys The only source of true happiness is inside. Nothing outside of yourself can bring you happiness. You have to make it for yourself. It is a huge mistake to throw money after things in hopes that it will bring you joy. (@ zen habits)

How Much Do You Need to Save for College? This is a great answer to a very difficult question. I see a lot of changes coming in higher education in the next ten to fifteen years that have the potential to radically change the process people go through when deciding whether to go to college and where exactly to go to school. (@ money ning)

The Right Moment There is never a “perfect moment” to do anything. If you keep waiting for the “perfect moment” to start on something, you’ll never start. The best moment is usually right now, but it’s easy to talk ourselves out of change. (@ seth godin)

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Personal Finance, insurance, morning roundup

4 Ways to Minimize Your Home Energy Bill This Spring

via The Simple Dollar:

This post first appeared at U.S. News and World Report Money.

Winter is over! Spring is here!

Spring offers many opportunities to save money. Spring makes it much easier to go outside and get some exercise. You can start a vegetable garden. Plus, when you’re outside, you can turn off all of the lights and electronic devices in the house so they’re gobbling less juice.

Besides the joy of being able to get outside, spring also opens up many options for reducing your home energy bill. The drastic improvement in weather means that you’ll be using the furnace less and less and might even start using the air conditioning soon, but you can minimize both of those uses with a few smart tactics. Spring can also help with other aspects of home energy use as well.

Turn off climate control and open the windows. If the outdoor temperature is anywhere between 50 F and 90 F, turn off the furnace and air conditioning and open the windows in your home. It will take a while for that outdoor air to really alter the temperature of your home, so your home temperature will stay fairly stable. You’ll just save because you won’t be running climate control.

Naturally, you should stop doing this if the climate in your home reaches an uncomfortable level, but as long as the temperature outside is pleasant, the temperature inside will be pleasant as well.

Set the ceiling fan to run in a counterclockwise direction. During warmer weather, you want your ceiling fans to blow air straight down, so you’ll want the blades to rotate in a counterclockwise direction when you’re looking up at the blades. Most ceiling fans have a switch on them that changes the direction. (Similarly, when the weather is cool, you want the blades turning clockwise.)

Doing this can keep you from turning on the air conditioning (or the furnace) when the weather is particularly warm (or cool). Just turn on your ceiling fans – which use relatively little energy – in the appropriate direction. If this little tip keeps you from closing the windows and turning on the climate control on an unusual spring day, then it saves you money.

Open the curtains and take advantage of both direct and indirect natural lighting. The light streaming in through your windows allows you to get away with turning on fewer lights in your house, saving a surprising amount of energy.

Of course, direct sunlight has a heating effect as well. Try to avoid direct sunlight when the weather is really warm and the house is getting warm, but when it’s still cool, you should welcome that direct sunlight. It’s not only great for lighting up the room, it can also reduce the costs of heating.

Do laundry and dishes late in the evening. Household tasks that produce heat make sense during the day in the winter where the extra heat will help warm up your house and make your furnace work a little bit less. In the spring, that situation changes – it’s cold in the evening but warm during the day.

Take advantage of that and perform household tasks that warm the house during the late evening hours. Bake cookies. Do the laundry. Run the dishwasher. That excess heat will add warmth to your home and thus reduce the need for home heating during the night hours. If doing this prevents even a single furnace cycle, then you’ve saved money on your energy bill just by doing the things you would ordinarily do at a different time.

Take advantage of spring. Go outside, of course, but also let the nice weather do its work in terms of your home energy use.

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The Jar of Life

via The Simple Dollar:

A new month is about to start. Let’s try something different.

This month, get a giant jar along with a notepad and pen. Put it somewhere where you’ll see it all the time.

Whenever something good happens in your life, write it down on a piece of paper. Fold it up and put it in the jar. Make it your goal to write down at least two things each day.

At the end of the month, dump out the contents of that jar, mix them up, and go through the notes. You’ll see how many points of light shine through.

During the month of March, I did this very thing. I wound up with about eighty little notes on folded up slips of paper.

When I looked through them, I realized most of them were pretty mundane things, but they each made me smile. Some had to do with my wife; others, my children. Some had to do with interactions with friends, often involving playing games with them. Quite a few had to do with observing nature. A couple had to do with exercise. A few revolved around observing other people doing kind things for each other.

Sometimes, we need a new perspective on our life to see how many good things we already have.

One thing that really stood out to me was that none of those things had anything to do with buying anything. Quite a few – about half – had to do with interactions with people I care deeply about, which didn’t cost anything. Several had to do with how I internally felt after exercise or after seeing how other people interacted with each other or after viewing a beautiful example of nature. None of these cost a dime.

I bought quite a few things during the month of March, but none of them were really memorable. The closest I can come to pointing to purchases with that list of things was that three notes had to do with board games (that I already owned) and the joy of playing them with friends and acquaintances, and two had to do with reactions to books that made me feel good or made me think (one was a library book, the other was a book I’ve had since Christmas).

The jar of life isn’t about stuff. It isn’t about the money you spend on things.

It’s about experiences, both little and small.

Those experiences usually don’t have a cost involved with them. Of course, they do every once in a while, but most of the good little experiences in our life – the ones that you’ll find yourself filling up your jar with in the next month – come from things we already have.

Our thoughts. Our feelings. Our little achievements. Our family. Our friends. Nature.

I bet that your jar ends up being filled with notes that hit upon at least some of those things. I bet that most of those notes describe things that have nothing to do with money.

Fill your life with that joy. At the end of the month, step back and look at the things that filled up your jar and strive to make them a bigger part of your life – and reduce the impact of the other things, the things you tell yourself are important to you but never really show up in your jar.

You’ll have a more fulfilling life and, likely, a less expensive one, too.

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The Simple Dollar Weekly Roundup: March Madness Edition

via The Simple Dollar:

As usual, I submitted the same exact bracket to a bunch of different NCAA bracket contests. This year, I’m doing really, really well, though I’m not perfect. My bracket percentage is 90.3%, believe it or not, as I have guessed 47 of the 52 winners so far correctly. I guessed right on most of the big upsets (my only big whiff was Dayton advancing at all) and I correctly guessed that Wichita State wouldn’t make the Sweet Sixteen and my West and East regions were 100% perfect.

I’m worried about this weekend, though, because some of my picks assumed healthy teams. I have teams winning that are struggling seriously with injury and I have other teams losing that played much better than I expected.

Still, in at least a couple of contests, I am in legitimate contention for prizes. I think this is the best I’ve ever done through the first weekend of the NCAA tournament in terms of picking teams, so I’m pretty excited.

How to Diversify Investments When You’re Just Starting to Invest This is a really great beginner’s guide to investing outside of retirement. I have mixed feelings about Betterment, which this post advocates, but those thoughts deserve their own article. (@ dough roller)

Want to be Financially Successful? Read More than Personal Finance Books There’s something useful in almost every section of the library. The more you understand life, the more you understand what you need to do to be successful. (@ saving advice)

What if You Didn’t Have to Worry About Yourself? It would make things easier, that’s for sure. It would also probably change the basis on which you make decisions. (@ zen habits)

Not even one note You have to care or else you’ll never become great. (@ seth godin)

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Personal Finance, insurance, morning roundup, personal finance

Can You Afford to Not Have Health Insurance?

via MoneyNing:

One of the biggest financial news stories right now is the approaching deadline to sign up for health insurance under Obamacare. If you aren’t covered by a health plan right now, you have until March 31, 2014 to sign up — or face the possibility of a penalty next year when you file your tax return.

Before you decide that paying the penalty is cheaper than buying health insurance coverage, however, it’s a good idea to consider the possible costs associated with not having insurance.

The High Cost of Medical Care

Health care in the United States is quite expensive. If you have a catastrophic accident or illness, your pocketbook could be affected — even if you have insurance. Without coverage, the effect can be devastating. According to a recent study from NerdWallet Health, one of the biggest factors in bankruptcy filings is medical bills.

Can you imagine the cost of a hospital stay out-of-pocket?

Health insurance can help you cover those costs. Even seemingly healthy people get sick, and you never know when an accident will strike. So, while you might think it’s cheaper to pay the penalty and avoid the coverage, the truth is that you’re taking a risk with your finances.

How to Reduce Health Insurance Costs

One of the hardest things for some consumers to do is buy health insurance when they have relatively few health needs. This is a bit of a challenge for me, since we mainly just go in for preventative care, along with a couple of regular prescriptions. We really don’t spend much on health care.

However, I do like to have insurance, just in case. What happens if my son falls on the playground and breaks his arm? Or my husband ends up with a major illness and has to stay in the hospital for a week? I feel better knowing these situations won’t bankrupt me, because the health insurance is there to help.

In order to make it a little more palatable, I make an effort to reduce my health insurance costs. One of the ways you can reduce your premiums (if you have few health care needs) is to get a high deductible plan. You pay more out of pocket, but your monthly premiums are much lower. You can combine this plan with a Health Savings Account to get a tax deduction and save up for the out-of-pocket costs. I’ve found that the HSA is a great way to help me reduce my overall health insurance bills.

If you don’t have coverage right now, and you qualify to buy on the exchanges, you might be eligible for a subsidy. Some consumers can buy a “Bronze” level health plan on the exchange for a very small amount, once the subsidy is considered.

Before you make any decisions, run the numbers. It might make sense for you to get health coverage after all.

Do you have health insurance? If not, have you signed up for coverage under Obamacare yet?

This article originally appeared on MoneyNing.com. Let us know what you think (or read what others thought) here.

Related posts:

1. Health Savings Accounts Are Great for Those with Inexpensive Health Needs


2. What You Need to Know About the ACA Health Insurance Exchange


3. 9 Ways to Beating the Health Insurance Woes

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Personal Finance, insurance, money news

Personal Finance 101: What Is a Dividend?

via The Simple Dollar:

A few days ago, I was working on an article where I referred to dividends. Since I didn’t really provide any sort of explanation of what dividends were, I went looking for an article where I explained in detail what a dividend actually is and, to my amazement, I never found a good, thorough explanation of dividends! (I ended up sticking a brief explanation into the article.)

Since dividends are a pretty big part of personal finance planning (they affect retirement savings significantly and also play a role in many other investment choices), it’s incredibly useful to know what exactly a dividend is, how they work, and how they put money in your pocket.

As always with explanations like this, I’m choosing to use simple language and simple examples. Business schools offer entire classes on these topics, so this is just a brief introduction.

Let’s dig in.

Start with stocks…

Before I explain what a dividend is, it’s important to know what stocks are. A share of stock means that you own a small fraction of a company. Obviously, then, a stock market is where people trade those shares of stock. The word “stocks” just means some number of shares of stock.

Companies usually start as partnerships between people. At some point, these people may want to make it clear how much of the business they each own, so the company issues shares of stock (usually just called “stocks”) to them. If Joe and Kevin started a business, they might decide that the business would issue them each 50 shares of stock. These shares would each state that the holder owns a share of the business.

Let’s say that the business wanted to raise some money. The business might choose to make more stocks and sell them. If Joe and Kevin wanted to bring some money into their company, that company might create 25 more shares of stock and sell them to Kevin’s uncle Larry (and name the company the JKL Company). Then, Joe and Kevin would each own 50 shares and Larry would own 25 shares. (Often, companies do this and sell the shares to the public – it’s called an “initial public offering” when they do it for the first time.)

In the old days, stocks were often represented by pieces of paper. Today, they’re usually stored electronically.

The role of dividends

What happens when The JKL Company makes a profit? The company might invest in itself to buy better equipment or to keep cash on hand. Of course, the reason people start businesses is to make money – and that’s where dividends come in.

The JKL Company might decide to issue a dividend to its shareholders. A dividend is a small payment that a company makes to each person that holds each share of stock in the company. Let’s say that The JKL Company decides to issue a $1 dividend. Since Joe and Kevin each own 50 shares of stock, they would get $50 each. Larry would get $25 because he owns 25 shares. That’s a dividend!

Let’s see what a real company does. Let’s look at Verizon.

As you can see on this page, Verizon issues a dividend every three months to its shareholders. The next dividend payment they’re going to make is on May 1, and it consists of $0.53 to the owner of every share of stock out there.

If I own 1,000 shares of Verizon, Verizon will cut me a check for $530 on May 1.

The catch, of course, is that a single share of Verizon stock, right now, costs $46.91. So, to own 1,000 shares of Verizon, I’d have to pay (roughly) $46,910 (plus some brokerage fees). As long as I sat on those shares, Verizon would issue me a check every time they issued a dividend.

Dividends in mutual funds and your retirement account

So, how does this impact most people? For most of us, dividends are most common in our retirement account. We might own a mutual fund within our retirement account and we’ll see that the mutual fund issued a dividend. Since a mutual fund is made up of a bunch of different stocks that pay dividends, the fund will collect all of those dividends and then share that dividend “profit” with all of the people who hold shares in the mutual fund.

Let’s say that in your retirement account, you own two shares of the ABC Mutual Fund, of which only 100 shares exist in the whole world. The ABC Mutual Fund consists of just 25 shares of The JKL Company and 25 shares of Verizon. In a particular quarter, The JKL Company issues a $1 dividend and Verizon issues a $0.50 dividend, like we talked about earlier. So, the ABC Mutual Fund is going to collect $25 from The JKL Company and $12.50 from Verizon, for a total of $37.50.

Since there are 100 shares of the ABC Mutual Fund, that $37.50 gets split up 100 ways, with $0.375 going to each shareholder of the ABC Mutual Fund. Since you own two shares in the ABC Mutual Fund, you get a total dividend payment of $0.75!

A mutual fund might own thousands of different stocks and have thousands of people that own shares in that mutual fund. This is one big reason why computers are really helpful in doing that math and handling that bookkeeping.

Many people who own mutual funds elect to have their dividends reinvested. In that case, that $0.75 would end up going toward buying another share of the ABC Mutual Fund – probably not a whole share, but you can usually buy fractions of a mutual fund share. So, after that dividend, you might now own 2.1 shares in the ABC Mutual Fund. You would now be eligible to receive a little bit more the next time your mutual fund issues dividends!

The risk of dividends

When people first learn about dividends, it’s really obvious why people would want to buy stocks and sit on them. They just get checks in the mail. If someone owned 20,000 shares of Verizon, for example, they would get a check for $10,600 on May 1 and similar checks every three months. A person could live quite well on that!

There are a few catches. First, companies can change their dividend. It’s considered very standard for companies to issue dividends every three months, but companies sometimes cut their dividends and sometimes eliminate them entirely. It’s at the company’s discretion to do that if they so choose (though the people who own the stocks would be rather angry with the company).

Companies that do that kind of thing are usually struggling just to survive, of course, which points to another risk – companies don’t live forever. People owned shares in Enron, WorldCom, and Lehman Brothers and those all paid dividends for a while – then the companies died, the stocks became worthless, and there were no more dividends to be had.

Owning stocks that pay dividends means that you’re relying on that company to be successful and keep paying dividends.

When people choose to invest in order to earn dividends, they typically choose a number of very large companies that are healthy and have paid a nice dividend for a long time. They’ll buy shares in those companies and just sit on them. This is somewhat risky for the reasons stated above, but by investing in big healthy companies they reduce the risk of a company cutting their dividend and by investing in a lot of companies they reduce the risk of losing their shirt if a single company runs into trouble.

Dividends and taxes

I discussed all of this in detail in that earlier post, so I’d go there for full details.

To put it simply, if you haven’t owned stock in a particular company for very long, the dividends are taxed just like normal income. If you’ve owned the stock for more than six months or so, the dividends are taxed at a lower rate – 15% at the moment for most people. You have to record that information on your tax return at the end of the year and pay the taxes out of your pocket.

Final thoughts

If you have a retirement account of any kind, you’re probably receiving dividends. If you own stocks, you’re probably receiving dividends. It’s likely that dividends either directly impact you or impacts someone of financial significance in your life. Knowing more about dividends makes it easier to understand one significant way in which your investments (or the investments of your loved ones) earn money for you.

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Personal Finance, insurance, investing, personal finance

What is the Ideal Retirement?

Here’s an interesting article from Time that talks about redefining the ideal retirement.Not that there ever was ONE ideal retirement, but the generally accepted retirement a generation ago was one where you worked until 65, lived it up for 5 to 10 years, then died.As a contrast, here’s what more and more people are thinking of these days: Once common and easily defined, the ideal retirement is now highly individualized and increasingly difficult to achieve because of our longevity, retirement savings shortfall, and the financial setbacks of the past six years. But if you embrace the new model and can find satisfaction with your extra years on the job, it’s still possible to retire in style. For the financially prepared, this is an exciting time with many options. …

via Free Money Finance:

Here’s an interesting article from Time that talks about redefining the ideal retirement.

Not that there ever was ONE ideal retirement, but the generally accepted retirement a generation ago was one where you worked until 65, lived it up for 5 to 10 years, then died.

As a contrast, here’s what more and more people are thinking of these days:

Once common and easily defined, the ideal retirement is now highly individualized and increasingly difficult to achieve because of our longevity, retirement savings shortfall, and the financial setbacks of the past six years. But if you embrace the new model and can find satisfaction with your extra years on the job, it’s still possible to retire in style.

For the financially prepared, this is an exciting time with many options. Sometimes the ideal retirement involves working full time—but at something completely different. It might mean volunteering, teaching, mentoring, consulting, getting into politics, writing a novel, or going back to school—for the fun of it.

The piece goes on to list five factors that make a great retirement as follows:

• Financial freedom


• Purpose


• Good Health


• Close Relationships


• Giving Back

I’m still thinking about what my retirement will look like as it’s at least a decade away. That said, all five of these are issues I thinking now as they all seem important in having a great retirement. My current thoughts on each:

• Financial freedom – Obviously I’m working on this one as I’ve been documenting my thoughts/progress for years here at FMF.


• Purpose – I can see taking some time off in “retirement” and traveling/relaxing, but I don’t think I could do that for 10 to 30 years. I’d go crazy!! So what am I going to do in retirement that has meaning?


• Good Health – I swim a mile three to four times a week but don’t eat like I should. If I want to be healthy in my golden years, something’s going to have to change.


• Close Relationships – I would LOVE to live somewhere near my kids when I retire. Just not sure where they are going to end up.


• Giving Back – Perhaps this is the answer to the “purpose” question above. Can I find a cause I believe in and work for free/reduced salary to help it? Maybe.

Anyway, retirement isn’t as simple as quitting your job and hitting the beach. We used to think it was (though it never was IMO) but now we’re wising up. There are many more issues to take into consideration and they need to be thought through well before your last day of work.

What’s your take on the items above? Have you considered any of them as part of your retirement planning?

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"Supreme Court’s Obsession With Secrecy"

“Supreme Court’s Obsession With Secrecy”: Kenneth Jost has this post today at his blog, “Jost On Justice.” Posted at 04:18 PM by Howard Bashman”Tennessee plans executions in secret”: Brian Haas has this front page article today in The Tennessean. Posted at 02:46 PM by Howard Bashman”What Judge Friedman learned about gay families from a lesbian law clerk”: Columnist Brian Dickerson has this essay in today’s edition of The Detroit Free Press. Posted at 02:44 PM by Howard Bashman”The Trouble with Amicus Facts”: Law professor Alli Orr Larsen has posted this article online at SSRN (via “Legal Theory Blog”). Posted at 02:38 PM by Howard Bashman”Review: ‘Anita’ revisits the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas drama; In the documentary ‘Anita,’ Anita Hill, central figure in the ’91 Senate hearings to confirm Justice …

via How Appealing:

“Supreme Court’s Obsession With Secrecy”: Kenneth Jost has this post today at his blog, “Jost On Justice.”

For more info: "Supreme Court’s Obsession With Secrecy"

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"Supreme Court’s Obsession With Secrecy"

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"Tennessee plans executions in secret"

“Supreme Court’s Obsession With Secrecy”: Kenneth Jost has this post today at his blog, “Jost On Justice.” Posted at 04:18 PM by Howard Bashman”Tennessee plans executions in secret”: Brian Haas has this front page article today in The Tennessean. Posted at 02:46 PM by Howard Bashman”What Judge Friedman learned about gay families from a lesbian law clerk”: Columnist Brian Dickerson has this essay in today’s edition of The Detroit Free Press. Posted at 02:44 PM by Howard Bashman”The Trouble with Amicus Facts”: Law professor Alli Orr Larsen has posted this article online at SSRN (via “Legal Theory Blog”). Posted at 02:38 PM by Howard Bashman”Review: ‘Anita’ revisits the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas drama; In the documentary ‘Anita,’ Anita Hill, central figure in the ’91 Senate hearings to confirm Justice …

via How Appealing:

“Tennessee plans executions in secret”: Brian Haas has this front page article today in The Tennessean.

For more info: "Tennessee plans executions in secret"

How Appealing

"Tennessee plans executions in secret"

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The Challenge of Frugality and Good Nutrition

via The Simple Dollar:

The other day, I went through a local grocery store flyer and marked items as either being “healthy” or “unhealthy.” I was curious as to whether items on sale were items that provided good long-term nutrition for people or not.

Of course, the first problem is defining what “healthy” and “unhealthy” means. Part of the challenge that people have when figuring out what foods are “good” for them and “bad” for them is that there is so much contrasting information out there.

For example, what’s better for you, skim milk or whole milk? There are reasonable arguments on both sides of that coin. In truth, it has a lot to do with what makes up the rest of your diet.

Does something have to be organic or treated in certain ways in order to be “healthy” and provide “good nutrition”? What about GMOs? You’re simply opening the door to endless arguments that simply aren’t resolvable in any satisfying way.

I think it’s generally easy to identify at least a few things that are clearly “healthy.” Fresh fruits and vegetables are pretty much healthy by anyone’s standards, as are flash-frozen fruits and vegetables.

It gets a bit harder to clearly identify which foods are “unhealthy,” because every time you make a broad statement about a category of items in the grocery store, you can find an item that can be a significant part of a healthy diet, at least by some acceptable standard.

Given all of this, it’s no wonder that people are often confused about what to eat. It gets even worse when you start looking at price as a significant factor. If money is no object, you can obviously make different dietary choices than some, but that’s not the reality for most of us.

Not surprisingly, I gave up on my grocery flyer “experiment.” It was too hard to identify each item as clearly “healthy” and “not healthy” once I got past the small number of fresh produce and frozen items that were clearly healthy.

So, how do you eat a diet that’s both nutritious and frugal? I’ve figured out five rules that, if you follow them, should point you toward a healthier diet.

Rule #1: At least half of your plate at each meal should be fruits and vegetables, minimally seasoned.

It’s pretty hard to argue that fruits and vegetables aren’t good for you, so just make them a larger part of your diet. That’s pretty easy.

This can still be cheap. Watch your grocery flyer for what’s on sale in the produce department each week and get plenty of those items. Figure out new ways to use them throughout the week.

Rule #2: Drink a big glass of water before each meal and make water your usual beverage.

If you do this, you’re not going to be as hungry during the meal because your stomach will have a bunch of water in it already. This helps tackling the big problem of portion control, which is actually the biggest enemy of all both for your health and for your wallet.

So, just before each meal, gulp down some water. You’ll find that you get full faster. That means you eat less food, which means that you have lowered food expenses.

At the same time, cut out extra beverages like soda from your diet. Get used to drinking water as your primary beverage. Water is extremely inexpensive from the tap; even if you don’t like the tap water, a water filter still makes it way cheaper than buying soda. The habit of just having something to drink on your desk easily works with water – trust me.

Rule #3: Put less food on your plate and eat it slowly.

You don’t need to put a ton of food on your plate. Try putting about half as much on your plate as you usually do. If you find that you want more when your plate is clean, get more (while sticking to the “fruit and vegetable balance”).

At the same time, eat a little slower. For me, I found it useful to start putting my silverware down on the table while chewing each bite. If I’m eating a sandwich, I put it on the plate and remove my hands while chewing. The whole purpose is to allow your body more time to signal when it’s full, which generally means you eat a little less, which generally reduces food costs.

Rule #4: Avoid any completely prepackaged meals.

If there’s one food item I would call “unhealthy,” it would be the completely prepackaged meals. If you can pop it out of the container, mix everything together, and just throw it straight in the oven, then there’s likely a bunch of junk in there that isn’t good for you. There are exceptions to this, but they’re exceptions, not the rule.

If you want the convenience of these kinds of meals, make them in advance – in fact, here’s my ultimate guide for making meals in advance. You can prepare them from basic ingredients, which makes them cheaper, and you can control what’s actually in there, which makes them (usually) healthier.

If you’re tempted by fast food, make your own versions of your favorite items. Stick them in the freezer so you can just grab them when you get home or before you leave. They’ll usually be cheaper and they’ll certainly be healthier without sacrificing taste.

Rule #5: If you’re unsure about what to buy, get the simpler version and jazz it up yourself.

If you have the option of getting seasoned or unseasoned meat, get the unseasoned meat and flavor it yourself. Buy the plain yogurt and add fruit yourself (this lets you buy one big container instead of several small ones, too). Buy plain bread and add garlic yourself.

This way, you have more control over what goes into the product. You never have perfect control, of course, but simply choosing to add things yourself instead of trusting food additives is almost always a good idea. Plus, it’s usually cheaper – compare the prices of an ordinary loaf of bread and a loaf of garlic bread in the bakery sometime, for example.

If you manage to follow the ideas here, you’re probably eating a reasonably frugal and reasonably healthy diet. You’re doing good, so don’t stress out about finding the “perfect” food or the “perfect” diet. Don’t cut out all of the foods you like. Don’t get obsessed with nuances.

These little changes will almost always reduce your food spending while also improving the quality of your diet.

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The Challenge of Frugality and Good Nutrition

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