Visualizzazione post con etichetta simple. Mostra tutti i post

giovedì 13 febbraio 2014

Net Worth and Pleasure

via The Simple Dollar:

In a post a few days ago, I made an offhand comment about how I didn’t really receive personal pleasure from seeing my net worth increase, though I once did. A few people emailed me on that subject, so I thought I’d clarify what I meant.

When I first began to overcome my personal finance mistakes, I found that calculating my net worth and looking at the change from month to month was incredibly powerful. It was a single number that provided “proof” that I was making better decisions than I was making before.

An increase in net worth meant that I was unquestionably spending less than what I earned, which is the key to personal finance success. An increase in net worth meant that all of the hard day-to-day choices I was making were actually adding up to something big.

It was exhilarating. Each time I calculated that number, I could clearly see the impact that my choices were having even if they weren’t really evident in my day-to-day life.

Over the ensuing years, however, things changed in my life. I changed careers and moved in a self-employment direction. We bought a house and had two more children. All of our debts disappeared and we started building a nice nest egg.

In other words, I began to really see the impact that our financial choices are having on our day-to-day life. If we hadn’t turned our finances around, I would not be self-employed right now. I wouldn’t be able to be sitting there waiting when my children come home off the bus. We wouldn’t be living in a nice house with enough space for a home office. I would be feeling stress from things as simple as checking the mail.

I don’t have to look very far to see how our good financial choices changed my life.

So, let’s look at those situations side-by-side. When we first started our financial turnaround, I didn’t see those changes in my day-to-day life. I was still working the same job, living in the same place, driving the same automobile.

I didn’t have the milestones in my life to demonstrate the changes brought about by our financial choices.

Today, things are different. I have lots of things in my life that have only happened because of our financial choices. Being financially stable opened the door to the house we own. Being financially stable opened the door to a career change for me, one that lets me help my children get ready for school in the mornings and be there for them when they get home, which is incredibly important for me.

I don’t need a number to show me those things.

It’s those life milestones that show me the incredible positive impact that good personal finance choices have made in my life. Every single day, my life shows me what I’ve accomplished and why I need to keep my eye on the ball.

At first, I needed that number to see that I was accomplishing something. Now? I don’t need that number. I just need to look around my life.

That’s the reward for sticking with personal finance improvement. You eventually begin to see how it affects your life in a lot of ways and when you recognize that it’s your hard work that made it happen, it inspires you to keep going.

I still figure up my net worth every once in a while, but it’s mostly an exercise to ensure that I’m making smart financial decisions. The day-to-day inspiration that I used to get from that number now comes from the realities of my life – and that’s the result of pushing through those years where I was working hard to improve things but I wasn’t seeing any direct reward.

The post Net Worth and Pleasure appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

utilize the services the simple that the simple simple dollar simple services referral policies on privacy personal finance king dollar adviser or certified personal finance

For more info: Net Worth and Pleasure

The Simple Dollar

Net Worth and Pleasure

The post Net Worth and Pleasure appeared first on FX FOREX.

via WordPress http://ift.tt/1gxGZM9

Personal Finance, adviser-or-certified, dollar, king, personal finance, policies-on-privacy, referral, services, simple, simple-dollar, that-the-simple, the-simple, utilize-the-services

lunedì 10 febbraio 2014

Finding Your Bliss Station

via The Simple Dollar:

Our life has become so economic and practical in its orientation that, as you get older, the claims of the moment upon you are so great, you hardly know where [...] you are, or what it is you intended. You are always doing something that is required of you. Where is your bliss station? You have to try to find it. Get a phonograph and put on the music that you really love, even if it’s corny music that nobody else respects. – Joseph Campbell

I love playing tabletop games. There is nothing that makes me happier than sitting around a table with friends new and old, playing a game together. The puzzle of the game makes my brain cells work a little, but the social interaction with the people around the table makes it sublime. For me, that’s one of my “bliss stations.” It really brings me joy.

I also getting lost in a book. I love reading nonfiction, where my mind spins around new ideas, but I also love speculative fiction, where my imagination runs wild. I love getting so deep into a book that the time just disappears. That’s another “bliss station” for me.

Another one? I actually really like getting lost in a work project, getting into the zone where the hours fly by. I absolutely love how I feel when I snap back to attention, realize that time has passed, and notice how much I’ve accomplished. That’s yet another “bliss station” for me.

The time I spend with my children is another one, as is the time spent doing pretty much anything with my wife. Sometimes, I get them when I get lost in a powerful piece of music, or when something makes me laugh deeply.

“Bliss moments” are simply those moments and situations where many of the negative parts of your life just float into the background, leaving you simply feeling great and enjoying the moment.

I believe that “bliss moments,” however you might achieve them, are the true highlights of our life. They make our day-to-day existence worthwhile. I know that they certainly make my own life worthwhile.

There was a time in my life where I felt that I was achieving “bliss moments” when I would walk out of a store with an armload of books or a new gadget or when I was trying out a new restaurant. In those moments, I would feel incredibly good about things, but those moments came with a price.

I felt empty and sad whenever I’d examine the state of my finances and get a glimpse that I was heading in the wrong direction. I’d feel distraught when I’d look at the bills and not know how I was going to pay them.

Here’s the truth: if you have to spend money to achieve a “bliss moment,” then it’s a false moment.

A bliss moment, on its own, doesn’t steal from the joy of other parts of your life. It brings joy without ever demanding a payment in return. It doesn’t give you stress at other moments in your life. It takes away that stress for a little bit and makes the stress you do have easier to handle without adding more to the pile. A “bliss moment” shouldn’t require hard choices and sacrifice later on.

Here’s a big secret that I’ve learned about personal finance and life: the more “bliss moments” you can find in your life that don’t require you to spend money, the better off you’ll be.

It’s because of that realization that I constantly seek out free sources of “bliss moments” – or at least sources that incur only the slightest additional expense. I go to community events, particularly those that are free and overlap with my interests, such as community game nights and free concerts. I consciously set aside blocks of time to allow myself to fall into the “flow” of working and, as often as I can, the “flow” of a good book. I also set aside blocks to spend specifically with my children.

These steps cost me very little in terms of my money, but they’re all powerful sources of “bliss moments,” and it’s those little moments that bring so much deep joy into my life. With those moments at hand, the desire to have more stuff falls dramatically. I don’t need “stuff” to have these moments.

Seek out the bliss moments in your life, especially the free ones. Find ways to bring them into your life on a regular basis. I’ve found nothing better in terms of making my life feel whole and making me realize that I don’t really need things or expensive experiences to enjoy a tremendous life.

The post Finding Your Bliss Station appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

utilize the services the simple that the simple simple dollar simple services policies on privacy personal finance material king insurance completeness personal finance

For more info: Finding Your Bliss Station

The Simple Dollar

Finding Your Bliss Station

The post Finding Your Bliss Station appeared first on FX FOREX.

via WordPress http://ift.tt/1db4USB

Personal Finance, completeness, insurance, king, material, personal finance, policies-on-privacy, services, simple, simple-dollar, that-the-simple, the-simple, utilize-the-services

sabato 8 febbraio 2014

Avoiding the Comfort Zone

via The Simple Dollar:

It is easy to become comfortable and complacent.

You get a job. You work there for a few years. You get to know the people there and the routine. You earn a few perks for being there for a while, such as a bit of additional vacation. It’s easy to just settle in and ride.

You wake up to your financial situation. You make a bunch of moves to pay down debt and establish some new routines that aren’t as costly. Eventually, you start to simply enjoy the lower bills and it all seems to come easily. You just settle in and ride.

Settling in is the easy thing to do. Usually, it’s the path of least resistance, so unless you’re consciously making other choices, you’ll probably wind up doing just that.

The problem is that “settling in and riding” is more dangerous than you think. Settling in assumes that the thing that comes easy today will last forever.

If you’re coasting in your career, you’re just assuming that your current job will just last and last. You never see the job loss coming.

If you’re coasting with your finances, you’re assuming your income will just last and last and that you’ll just eventually take care of all of your debts and your goals. You never see the changes in your life coming.

On a more positive note, if you’re just coasting with your career, you might never see opportunities for a great promotion at work or a new job opportunity that could put you in a great place. The same is true with finances – if you’re just coasting, you might not be ready to take advantage of something when it comes along.

The challenge for all of us is to avoid falling into a comfort zone. But when the comfort zone is so easy to fall into, how do we avoid it?

How do we keep ourselves ready for change when there doesn’t seem to be any change on the horizon?

One tactic is to make preparing for change part of our ordinary life routine. For example, part of your ordinary professional routine should be to keep your resume fresh through educational opportunities and taking on professional challenges in the workplace. Part of your ordinary financial routine should be improving your financial state month over month and seeking out new ways to ramp up the improvement. This should be normal behavior.

For me, I find it useful to spend some time each week looking at the various areas of my life – my professional goals, my finances, my marriage, my parenting responsibilities, my community responsibilities, my skills and passions, and so on – and ask myself what I’m doing to improve in those areas. If I can’t identify anything I’m doing right now to actively improve, then I make sure to add it to my checklist for the coming weeks.

Another tactic I value is to regularly envision disastrous scenarios. What exactly happens in your life if you lose your job? What exactly happens in your life if your spouse falls ill? What exactly happens in your life if your parents fall ill? What exactly happens in your life if your health starts to slip?

Walk through those scenarios a little bit. What would you do? You’ll quickly be able to find some steps that you could take right now to make that scenario go down smoother. Add those steps to your to-do list.

The key to both of these steps is to add things to your to-do list that will lead you to better preparedness for opportunities and for disasters. Riding in the comfort zone makes you complacent and poorly prepared for both disaster and opportunity. Every day, you have a chance to take little steps to make sure that you’re ready for whatever comes your way.

Don’t be complacent. You’ll miss out.

The post Avoiding the Comfort Zone appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

the simple that the simple simple services provided by its policies on privacy material adviser or certified personal finance

For more info: Avoiding the Comfort Zone

The Simple Dollar

Avoiding the Comfort Zone

The post Avoiding the Comfort Zone appeared first on FX FOREX.

via WordPress http://ift.tt/1eAAOJK

Personal Finance, adviser-or-certified, material, policies-on-privacy, provided-by-its, services, simple, that-the-simple, the-simple

giovedì 6 febbraio 2014

Do the Hard Things First

via The Simple Dollar:

It’s a pretty common principle of time management. When you have a list of tasks to do, choose the one that’s hardest and do that first. That way, you tackle it with the most energy and the freshest mind.

What’s interesting is that many well-organized people use this principle quite well in the short term, but then completely discard it when looking at the long term. When they figure out today’s to-do list, they’ll choose the hard task, but when they look at plans that cover years, they avoid the hard task.

The easiest example I can think of for this phenomenon is retirement savings. Many, many people, when they’re first given the chance to save for retirement, choose not to save anything at all. They choose the easiest part first – not saving anything at all – and save the hardest part for later – socking away 10% or 15% for retirement.

As many as 40% of households near retirement age have no savings at all for retirement – and the numbers get even worse when you look at younger folks.

Your long term goals work almost exactly the same as your to-do list for today. You have more energy and more mental capacity now than you will have in the future, so you should tackle the hardest parts of your goal now, not later.

Retirement savings? Kick that rate up high now while you’re employed and have youth on your side and a strong ability to find a new job if needed.

Debt repayment? The more extra payments you throw at it right now, the less interest you’ll pay over the lifetime of the loan.

Insurance? A plan to get life insurance or health insurance in a few years doesn’t help you if something goes wrong in the next few months.

Yes, it’s hard, especially when you’re younger and your income level is lower.

However, youth has tremendous advantages. You have a much greater capacity to be flexible with your life. You have more energy and more career opportunities. You also have a much longer time horizon, meaning that you’ll have much more time on the other side of that hump.

What can you do to get started? Clean out your closet and sell your unused stuff. Choose the smaller apartment. Make some harder choices today like eating a cheap dinner at home.

Want a specific example? Try out the 52 week money challenge, but knock out all of the highest numbers first – or, better yet, do the entire thing backwards, starting with the $52 week. It’s pretty sweet when you’re finishing up that project and the last few weeks only require you to sock away a few bucks.

You are never younger and fuller of energy and motivation and ability to solve life’s problems than you are right now. Doesn’t it make sense to step up to the plate and knock down some of the more challenging parts of your goals?

The post Do the Hard Things First appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

utilize the services that the simple simple dollar simple referral provided by its policies on privacy material king dollar completeness adviser or certified personal finance

For more info: Do the Hard Things First

The Simple Dollar

Do the Hard Things First

The post Do the Hard Things First appeared first on FX FOREX.

via WordPress http://ift.tt/1eWW6fN

Personal Finance, adviser-or-certified, completeness, dollar, king, material, policies-on-privacy, provided-by-its, referral, simple, simple-dollar, that-the-simple, utilize-the-services

martedì 4 febbraio 2014

Make Failure Into a Stepping Stone, Not an Excuse

via The Simple Dollar:

Whenever I push myself into a strict diet or a strict exercise regime or a strict set of personal finance rules, I find that I thrive in the short term.

For the first week or so, I’ll hit every benchmark I have within those strict rules. I’ll exercise. I’ll eat incredibly well. I’ll avoid spending an unnecessary dime.

Then, at some point, I fail. Usually, it’s out of thoughtlessness – I just backslide into a bad routine for a moment. I’ll eat something way outside the bounds of what I should be eating. I’ll tell myself I’m going to exercise later today – then I’ll get distracted by playing with the kids. I’ll buy something small on a whim.

Soon after, I’ll realize that failure, and I’ll beat myself up over it. I’ll think really negative thoughts about how I’m hopeless for a little while, then I’ll resolve to get everything back on track. I’ll have a few more days of success, then I’ll fail again.

The cycle repeats itself a few more times, with a smaller and smaller period of success in the middle, until I simply give up.

It’s a common cycle that a lot of people find themselves in when they’re trying to make a major change in their lives. I’ve been through this cycle quite a few times myself, and I’ve come to realize that there’s one big thing at the core of all of it.

I set myself up for failure by adopting changes that offer a very narrow path for success. If you choose life changes that require a significant change from the habits you already have, it’s going to be hard. If you make it so that those changes must be absolute – no backsliding allowed – you’re begging for failure. You need an approach that you can slowly build on.

Instead of saying, “I’m cutting out all food and drinks I don’t eat at home,” simply say that you’re going to cut out those treats three days a week. That way, if something comes up and a friend wants to meet you for coffee on Tuesday, you don’t have to freak out about failing at your goal and you won’t feel like a loser if you do. If you find that this goal becomes trivial, change it to four days a week or five days a week.

Instead of saying, “I’m going to exercise every day for 30 minutes,” simply say that you’re going to work out three times this week for thirty minutes. That way, if you miss an exercise session one day, you haven’t failed at your goal. If you find that this goal becomes trivial, increase the number of days.

In other words, it’s a lot easier to stick with a goal if one mis-step or a simple life interference doesn’t mean failure.

What happens if you fail anyway? If you still find failure, then you should reassess what you’re trying to do.

Failure at a personal goal means that there’s some significant aspect of your life that’s working in opposition to that goal. It’s a sign that maybe you need to work on something else first.

For example, if you find that the reason you’re failing at spending goals is because it’s so easy to buy something incidental with a friend, your challenge shouldn’t be to adopt strict spending limits, at least for now. Your goal should be to separate social encounters from shopping, because it’s that connection that’s causing you problems.

If you find that you mess up on your spending goals because of the ease of online shopping, your goal should focus on your online behaviors.

It’s pretty hard to win a race if there’s a speed bump in the way. Sometimes, you have to stop and smooth out the speed bumps before you can really get going. A failure doesn’t mean you’re incapable of winning the race. It just means that maybe you should stop and smooth out the speed bumps.

The post Make Failure Into a Stepping Stone, Not an Excuse appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

utilize the services the simple that the simple simple referral provided by its policies on privacy material dollar completeness adviser or certified personal finance

For more info: Make Failure Into a Stepping Stone, Not an Excuse

The Simple Dollar

Make Failure Into a Stepping Stone, Not an Excuse

The post Make Failure Into a Stepping Stone, Not an Excuse appeared first on FX FOREX.

via WordPress http://ift.tt/1bYIUpM

Personal Finance, adviser-or-certified, completeness, dollar, material, policies-on-privacy, provided-by-its, referral, simple, that-the-simple, the-simple, utilize-the-services

domenica 2 febbraio 2014

Building an Electronic Price Book

via The Simple Dollar:

When Sarah and I were reassessing our finances, we looked around for as many tips as possible on how to save money. One of the best resources we discovered was The Complete Tightwad Gazette .

One of the best suggestions that we found in the book was to use a logical system to determine where the best prices were on the grocery items that you commonly buy. Dacyczyn’s process for doing this was to create a listing of those goods along with columns that indicated the price of those goods at local grocers. She called this a price book, and it wasn’t long before Sarah and I implemented a price book ourselves.

At first, I kept this book in a three ring binder. It consisted of about four sheets of paper, front and back, and I tried to leave plenty of space for updates in each rectangle. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t take too long for the sheets to get filled up.

Our next step was to just create a template in Microsoft Word. It was simply a large table with seven columns – the first column contained the item and the other six columns contained the price on that item at the six different stores we compared. Again, I left space for manual corrections.

This worked well for several years. For a while, I included the sheets in a “coupon binder” to make grocery shopping easier.

Eventually, though, I stopped taking the binder with me because I had a good sense of the respective prices. Of course, after a while of not doing the price book, I started to lose perspective on the comparative prices. Stores tend to raise and lower prices fairly often, even to the point of changing how the stores rank on many products. Since the change is often gradual (usually, it’s due to a store gradually raising prices), it’s often hard to notice how big the change is over time.

That’s why, a few weeks ago, I brought back the price book, in electronic form. Rather than making a price book in a word processing program or by hand, I’m doing the whole thing electronically.

Here’s how it works. I simply recreated my old price book in Google Docs. I can access that price book document from my phone, so I can update it really easily.

It’s pretty easy to do. Just create a new document within Google Docs, add a seven or eight column table to the whole thing, and start adding items to that table in the first column. Each of the other columns should represent a store that you shop at with some regularity.

What items do you include in the table? Mine has about forty items – the items I buy most frequently. A gallon of milk. A pound of bananas. A loaf of the whole grain bread that we like. A bag of frozen vegetables. A pound of spinach. You get the idea. The list should just include the items you buy most frequently.

The next time you go to that store, just fill out the price book with the non-sale prices of all of the items. Since you already have the list of your most common items, you can use a phone or a tablet to enter them directly into this document (you can also use paper and transfer it over later if you prefer that method). Since most of those items are already on your grocery list, it’s not that much extra work.

At the bottom of the table, I have a Total line that adds up the prices for each column. When I re-did my price book recently, I was surprised to find that the order of the stores had changed substantially and that all of the stores were actually closer together than I remembered. The most expensive store was no longer the most expensive one (Hy-Vee), for starters.

The biggest impact this experiment had on me was that it made me re-think the items I buy at Hy-Vee and Fareway, respectively. My general assumption that Fareway was less expensive was still correct, but the items where Hy-Vee matches or beats Fareway’s prices had changed. I usually use both grocery stores on a full shopping trip, but now I know to buy a somewhat different set of items when I stop at Fareway. In other words, the electronic price book is already saving me money.

How often will I update it now? For the moment, it’s fun, so I’ve been checking it every time. Once the “new” dies off, I’ll probably try to update it once a month – I’ll add a note to my calendar to remind me to “add to the price book” when I shop. Now that it’s electronic, though, updating the book became much easier than before.

The post Building an Electronic Price Book appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

the simple that the simple simple dollar simple services king insurance frugality completeness adviser or certified personal finance

For more info: Building an Electronic Price Book

The Simple Dollar

Building an Electronic Price Book

The post Building an Electronic Price Book appeared first on FX FOREX.

via WordPress http://ift.tt/1dW5qPS

Personal Finance, adviser-or-certified, completeness, frugality, insurance, king, services, simple, simple-dollar, that-the-simple, the-simple

sabato 1 febbraio 2014

Shopping and Tunnel Vision

via The Simple Dollar:

One feature that Sarah and I have decided to add to our dream home is a “den” of sorts. This den would serve as a game room and a party room of sorts, plus it would be a place to house our board game collection, our book collection, and our remaining movie collection.

As I’ve mentioned before, we have a pretty detailed idea of what kind of house we’re going to build, so we’ve actually been thinking about details like how to furnish the house. What will we take from our current home? What will we need to add to the new home?

Any game room / party room will need at least one solid table and we currently don’t have any that will work well for that purpose (we could use our main dining table, but we intend to continue to use that for dining and if we repurposed it, we’d be buying a new dining table). So, this has left me looking for a good table for a game room.

I want a sturdy table that will last for a very long time, meaning I want one made of solid wood that’s well constructed. I’d also like the table to have some features that make it work well for tabletop games – it shouldn’t be too far across the table, but it needs to be big enough to hold a sprawling game. Easy access to beverages without them being right on the table would be very nice, too.

In looking around for ideas for this, several friends pointed me toward this company. I had the chance to examine several of their tables recently and I fell in love. Some of their products are basically perfect for what I’m looking for.

The price tag, though? Painful is an understatement.

Here’s where things get tricky. It would be really, really easy to get “tunnel vision” at this point and begin to focus obsessively on one of those tables. I could keep gazing at their website, imagining one of those tables in my dream home. I’d add in details – friends sitting around it, enjoying each other’s company while playing a game.

Eventually, I’d reach a point where the desire would become overwhelming and I’d decide that I must have this table. At that point, I’d find myself clicking the “buy” button, deciding that I’d figure out how to pay for it later.

Why would I envision that? I used to do it all the time – and I know from talking to readers and reading other articles that many, many people do that very thing. We get caught up in something we perceive as a need, we find the “perfect” solution for it even though that solution is really expensive, and then we talk ourselves into buying it.

Sure, this is another “want versus need” situation, but it’s worse than that. Once that “perfect” solution is found, tunnel vision will often set in and other solutions aren’t even seen, let alone considered.

How do you stop that?

For me, the first method of breaking the cycle is simple. Can I find the same product for a better price elsewhere? Even if the item is basically one-of-a-kind, you can still look around and see if you can find someone who can make you the same thing locally.

This first step is a good one because it doesn’t introduce any compromise on the item itself. All I’m doing is looking for ways to have that exact item at a lower price.

What inevitably happens as I shop around is that I see similar items at much better prices. For example, with the above table, I asked around with a local woodworking group and a few people pointed me to a local woodworker who looked at the designs and said he could make me a duplicate of the table I was looking at for about 30% less. He also pointed me to something similar he could make that would cost about 70% less than the desired table just by losing a couple minor features. It’s still basically the same table, but it would cost 70% less.

I’ve also found success when simply browsing for ideas. Not too long ago, I went to a furniture store and found a table that was surprisingly similar to the table I was looking at for about 75% less. I wasn’t particularly looking for a table, but I was surprised to find such a similar one.

I found several options that will save me a mint essentially without compromising on what I liked about the table.

I’ve gone through the same process with many items: computer tablets, work desks, and work chairs, to name a few. I’ll find an item that’s “perfect” and, for a while, I’ll get “tunnel vision” with that item. The first step is to simply shop around for that same exact item, but in the process, I almost always find similar items that are functionally equivalent. By doing that, I usually end up saving a ton of money and wind up not compromising on the aspects that matter.

The post Shopping and Tunnel Vision appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

that the simple simple dollar simple services referral material king insurance dollar personal finance

For more info: Shopping and Tunnel Vision

The Simple Dollar

Shopping and Tunnel Vision

The post Shopping and Tunnel Vision appeared first on FX FOREX.

via WordPress http://ift.tt/1fIckuZ

Personal Finance, dollar, insurance, king, material, referral, services, simple, simple-dollar, that-the-simple

giovedì 30 gennaio 2014

The Best Renters Insurance for 2014

via The Simple Dollar:

In my last post, I shared my take on the best home insurance. With the growing popularity of renting, I conducted some additional research to determine which carriers provide the best renters insurance.

After analyzing several national and local companies, Allstate stands out as the best renters insurance provider. If you want a free online quote, you can get started right away. Continue reading and I’ll explain why you need renters insurance and discuss the major components of a solid policy.

Selecting Allstate as the best ultimately boils down to three important factors:

Policy Management

Coverage

Cost

The other national renters insurance providers that rank just behind Allstate are:

Nationwide

Liberty Mutual

American Family

Who Needs Renters Insurance?

To put it simply, if you’re currently renting an apartment or home, it’s in your best interest to get a renters insurance policy. It’s easy to get a free online quote and learn exactly what your rates will be. Once your policy is purchased, you then have the assurance of knowing your possessions are protected.

Some people mistakenly assume that a landlord’s home insurance policy includes coverage for your personal property. In most cases, this is not true. Chances are, your landlord’s policy does not cover your personal possessions.

College Students

Needing renters insurance as a college student depends primarily on where you live. If you live in a dorm or a rental unit close to your college campus, there’s a good chance you’ll be covered by your parent’s homeowners or renters insurance policy (assuming of course they actually have one of these policies). The same is not true if you rent a house or apartment off campus.

College Student Living in a Dorm

Many home or renters insurance policies limit your coverage as a college student to 10% of your parent’s personal property coverage. To give you an example of how this might work, if your parents have $100,000 of personal property coverage, as an eligible college student you could receive 10% ($10,000) of coverage for your possessions. The exact percentage you’re eligible for varies from policy to policy, so be sure to verify with your parents before you assume you’re covered.

College Student Living Off Campus

If you rent a house or apartment off campus, get your own policy. The best thing to do is start with a free quote and go from there. As a college student, you might not think your belongings have a lot of value, but just the cost of your computer, cell phone, books, and clothes can quickly add up.

Young Professionals

You may’ve been able to get through college using a couch you found on the street, but

chances are you’ve made some improvements to your standard of living. Maybe you bought a new TV, overhauled your furniture, or upgraded your electronic devices. Along with these improvements, you’ve probably moved into a nicer apartment. According to research conducted by the National Multifamily Housing Council, roughly one-third of apartments in the U.S. are rented by someone under 30 years old.

Although it’s not legally required, many property management companies that manage multiple complexes in big cities make renters insurance compulsory. Whether it’s a requirement of your rental agreement, or you’re just taking the initiative, protecting your new investments with a renters insurance policy is a wise move.

Grandparents

If you have a grandparent that rents a home or apartment, you should check in with them to make sure they have some protection. Many seniors are retired and living on a very fixed income. If a major incident were to occur, it could be especially tough for them to get back on their feet.

Older adults also have valuable jewelry or family heirlooms they have collected over the years. Some of these items may have more sentimental value than anything else, but it’s still worth it to protect these items with a basic renters insurance policy.

Finding the Best Renters Insurance

All of the best renters insurance companies provide a similar set of basic coverage options. Knowing that you can get the basics covered, factors like price and the ease of policy management start to take on more importance. The following sections dig deeper into these topics and illustrate why Allstate comes out on top.

Renters Insurance Policy Management

Managing your renters insurance policy really starts with determining how much coverage you need. This is an important part of the purchasing process that you need to get right.

Many of the best renters insurance companies provide access to a simple calculator to help you estimate the cost of your possessions. But the online tools provided by Allstate are a step above what much of the competition has to offer.

To begin with, Allstate’s What’s Your Stuff Worth? tool walks you through several categories like clothing, electronics, hobbies, office and living, kitchen, and more. As you progress through each category, the tool shows you images of common items and enables you to specify how many of each item you own.

For example, in the clothing section, you might specify that you have four pairs of shoes and six pairs of pants. Meanwhile, a calculator in the lower right of the screen keeps track of your running total.

Digital Locker Mobile App

Allstate’s Digital Locker app includes several features that help you manage your renters insurance policy. Perhaps most useful, the app enables you to catalogue your possessions with pictures. You use the app on your smartphone or tablet to take pictures of all your possessions, assign values to each item, and upload the images to your account.

Available on Apple and Android platforms, the app also enables you to:

Organize your possessions by room, category, or in lists.

Provide more accurate estimates by using the Google or barcode search (especially helpful if you’re uncertain of the value of an item).

Take advantage of room and category templates to help make sure you don’t overlook anything important.

Using the Digital Locker app makes it incredibly easy to keep your inventory current and gives you the peace of mind of knowing that if you ever have to file a claim, all the information you need is literally at your fingertips.

With all the tools and resources provided by Allstate, managing your policy is a breeze.

Renters Insurance Coverage

In the insurance world, a “peril” is a cause of loss. Most renters insurance policies are listed as “Named Peril” policies, meaning that your policy will identify exactly what you’re insured against.

Some of the most common perils include:

Theft

Water Damage

Vandalism

Fire

Smoke

Lightning

When you get a renters insurance quote, be certain to review the perils you’re protected against. If you live in an area particularly susceptible to fire or lightning, verify that these perils are listed in your policy.

Types of coverage

All of the best renters insurance companies provide access to four types of basic coverage:

Personal Property Coverage: This includes coverage for items you use on a daily basis, like your clothing, appliances, and furniture, as well as specialty items like your jewelry collection or musical equipment. (You’ll want to look into extended coverage for really expensive items, but more on this later).

Liability Coverage: This portion of your renters insurance policy provides protection when you are legally liable for bodily injury or property damage that occurred as a result of an accident or incident involving you or another member of your household.

Medical Payments to Others: Covers the medical costs for any house guests that are injured at your residence, regardless of whether you are liable or not. Medical payments could include things like x-rays, doctor’s fees, or hospital stays. It’s important to note that medical payments protection does not cover you or other members of the household.

Additional Living Expenses/Loss of Use: Covers additional living expenses if damage to your home or apartment is so severe that you are temporarily displaced. This could include hotels, restaurants, or other similar expenses. Your policy will specify how long you have access to the coverage.

Nationwide is one company that stands out for offering superior coverage options. In J.D. Power’s 2013 U.S. Household Insurance and Bundling Study (Renters) , Nationwide was one of only two companies to be rated among the best in Policy Offerings.

Extended Coverage

As alluded to earlier, there are a few circumstances where additional renters insurance is worth looking into. Extended coverage (also called a floater policy) is appropriate if you have a particularly expensive piece of jewelry, a valuable stamp collection, or other similar item that has especially high value.

Extended coverage is offered by Liberty Mutual, American Family, and other top renters insurance companies.

Renters Insurance Cost

Similar to what I mentioned in my post about home insurance, the best renters insurance carriers provide access to an online quote tool. Getting a quote really is the only way you can see how much it will cost given your unique circumstances. Many first-time purchasers are surprised at how affordable renters insurance is. Past studies by the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America and Trusted Choice Independent Insurance Agents indicate the average price for $30,000 of renters insurance ranges from $12-$15 per month, while experts at the National Association of Insurance Commissioners suggest you can expect to pay $15-$30 for a policy depending on your level of coverage.

I was curious to see how these numbers held up and got quotes from three different companies using the same renter profile. The quotes were generated for $30,000 worth of coverage, with replacement cost, for a rental unit just outside a major U.S. city. Here’s what the monthly rates looked like:

American Family: $11.50

Allstate: $17

Nationwide: $22.42

These rates are pretty close to what the studies and experts suggest, but rates always vary based on your location.

As you can see, the difference in price between the providers will definitely add up over time. If you’re looking for the cheapest renters insurance, the best thing to do is to compare quotes from at least two providers.

Discounts

All of the best renters insurance companies offer discounts. The most common discounts include:

Multi-Policy: Available if you have an auto insurance or other policy with the same company.

Claims-Free Discount: Available if you haven’t filed a claim over a certain period of time.

Protective Devices: Available if you have fire or smoke detectors or a home security system installed. Although there are not as many discount opportunities when compared with home insurance, taking advantage of all available discounts can result in big savings.

Factors That Impact Renters Insurance

Similar to home insurance, there are several factors that influence the cost of your renters insurance premium.

Level of coverage: The level of coverage you choose is one of the major factors that impacts the price on your renters insurance premium. The level of coverage you need is going to vary from person to person. The easiest way to determine what you need is by using the estimation tools provided by Allstate and other top companies.

Location: If you live in an area that has higher crime rates or is more susceptible to wildfire, tornadoes, or other natural disasters, you can expect to pay more for your renters insurance policy.

Deductible: The deductible is the amount of money you pay out of pocket before the insurance kicks in. The formula for deductibles is pretty straightforward: a low deductible means higher premiums; a high deductible means lower premiums. Again, you might be tempted to choose a high deductible, but be sure to choose a level you can realistically meet.

Replacement cost vs. Actual cash value: Most renters insurance providers give you the option to choose between replacement cost and the actual cash value. If you choose replacement cost, you are covered for the actual cost to replace the item that has been lost. If you select an actual cash value policy, the insurance company covers what the item is worth at the time of the loss. In other words, it would be the replacement cost minus depreciation. Replacement cost is the more expensive alternative, but you won’t regret going with this option if you ever have to file a claim.

Is Renters Insurance Worth It?

When you live in an apartment building or a house with multiple units, it doesn’t matter how careful you are — you are only as safe as your most irresponsible neighbor.

When you actually sit back and crunch the numbers, the cost of replacing everything you own can add up quick. This is exactly what makes finding the best renters insurance so important.

Renters insurance is affordable, it’s easy to get, and has a huge upside. Choosing to live without a renters insurance policy may end up being a big financial mistake.

Written by Andrew Hansen

Disclosure: Please note that some of the links in this post may be affiliate links. At no additional cost to you, The Simple Dollar will earn a commission if you decide to make a purchase clicking through those links. Earning revenue through affiliate sales is a necessary practice to maintain the website and continue to provide our users with free content. The Simple Dollar and the authors of The Simple Dollar believe in transparency and honesty. For more on this please read our affiliate disclaimer page.

The post The Best Renters Insurance for 2014 appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

utilize the services the simple that the simple simple services referral provided by its policies on privacy material insurance completeness adviser or certified personal finance

For more info: The Best Renters Insurance for 2014

The Simple Dollar

The Best Renters Insurance for 2014

The post The Best Renters Insurance for 2014 appeared first on FX FOREX.

via WordPress http://ift.tt/1npbx7z

Personal Finance, adviser-or-certified, completeness, insurance, material, policies-on-privacy, provided-by-its, referral, services, simple, that-the-simple, the-simple, utilize-the-services