How to Decide the Right Level of Insurance For You & Your Family





Hi, welcome to the Finance Gym Action Plan for a Better Life With Money video series. My name is Stacey Powell and if you're ready to not just know better but do better with your money, then you've come to the right place. 

Today we're going to talk about insurance, like oh my gosh, and all of the stuff around insurance. I'm going to show you a little visual that I have in the book of the cogs around you and all the kinds of insurance and related types of things there are. Everything from health insurance which is kind of one of those things that we should all have to auto insurance to the smaller things like flood insurance, renters insurance, dental, disability, long-term care. Oh my gosh! The list can go on and on and on. The chapter of the book that that graphic is in is called the grown-up stuff. Dealing with it sometimes is like uhhh.. it feels a little like drudgery. A few videos back, I talk about adulting. When we finish a task like making a decision about insurance it's like good job Stacey, you did it. You sat down, you read, you talked to a professional and you made a decision. You know some of those are easy, like auto insurance it's kind of illegal to not have auto insurance right. Health insurance, it's kind of illegal to not have health insurance or at least it's very costly. But how do you make decisions about all the other kinds of insurances that yea it would be great to have it when you're trying to get your budget right sized with your income and your spending and if you buy all those insurances, are you going to have enough money left over to you know put food on the table or take a vacation? Where do you draw the line? Where do you draw the line? And that's the cruz of what I want you to walk away from this video. I can't tell you where to draw the line. You have to do a lot of reading, a lot of studying, you have to talk to professionals and you have to follow your own intuition about where you draw that line. But here's the thing is in the book I have you respond to each one of those. Do I want it? Do I need it? If I had enough money, would I just go buy it? And at what point does it become important? Life insurance, like here's my truth about life insurance - you've all hear me talk about how much I used to struggle when my daughter was little. But the truth is like life insurance isn't even a choice because if something happened to me it WOULD NOT be okay that I didn't leave something to help her become an adult. It's not okay. And the truth is I didn't need a one million dollar policy. I brought what was for years a $25/mo policy that would have left her with enough money to at least get her through college and help her get on her feet after that. And you know I was really looking forward to being done paying for life insurance at some point I thought you know when she turned eihgteen maybe. But now I realize no no no no, it's still for me that line is still no. I need to have life insurance. I'm older so I don't get to pay $25/mo anymore but no matter how challenging our financial situation was in those years, that is a payment that I never missed. And so that's what I want YOU to think about in this conversation about insurance is what is it that you know that there's a line that you should have. Go do your homework, go see how much it costs, if you think you can't afford it an you have kids like just go find out how much it is because you can at least maybe get half way there. And half way is better than nothing. So that's what I have to say about insurance. There's a lot more in the book and the truth is theres a never ending amount of information about this. I encourage you to learn, read and seek the advice of a professional who's going to teach you and not just sell you a product. 

If you have anymore questions or what to chat about this, come over to our Facebook Page group we have called Team Do Better, sign up for our weekly newsletter at www.TheFincanceGym.com or sign up for our video series below. And have a great day going and making decisions about insurance!

Today's Second BIG Announcement!

We told you today would be BIG and we meant it! We're thrilled to be hitting the road for a 36-city Piggybanks in the Park tour, a grassroots campaign where we'll talk about the REAL stuff of money, teach how to have a better life with money, and leave you with some serious "ah-ha's about the next thing you can do right to be better with your money.

Visit www.thefinancegym.com for tour dates and information.

Zero-Based Budgeting - Building a Budget from the Ground Up

Welcome to the Finance Gym Action Plan for a Better Life with money. My name's Stacey Powell, and if you're ready to not just know better, but to do better with your money, then you've come to the right place.

The latest series of videos we've been doing is focusing on budgeting and today we're going to talk about zero based budget ideas.

I'm assuming a whole bunch of you that are watching these videos are probably having a little bit of a hard time shoving it all in to make it make sense.

I know that's where I was when I started out. Actually, it kinda still is where I am, it's just that the things I'm trying to shove in now are so much better than what I was trying to shove in years ago.

So zero-based budgeting ... have you ever heard of it before? We don't really talk about it with personal budgets, but in business zero-based budget, the concept is every year departments that roll up into a company-wide budget start fresh and look at what areas do they need to spend money on, how much do they need to have in office supplies, human resource expenses, what kind of marketing budget do they need. And it's really useful to just start fresh like that instead of just pull from last year and the year before and the year before that, (which is kind of how governments do it.)

Because what happens then is that you're spending money on things you think you have to spend money on. But if you start with a zero based concept, like what would your budget look like if none of the other things in your life, that were there last year had to roll into the next year?

And it's kind of a refreshing way of looking at it. Because it helps you think about, well, what if I lived in a different kind of house? What if I didn't have a car? What if I had a different kind of car? What if I decided I didn't need cable? There's a million what ifs.

So, if you turn to page 40 in the book, there's this the zero-based budget idea here that you can start to write down some things you might do to make your budget balance to 0 when you're done with it.

And I might have mentioned some crazy things like, what if you just stopped driving a car ... how much money would that save? When I encourage people to do "what ifs", it's not about jumping immediately and saying "oh my God, I could never do that, I could never sell my house, I could never not have a car, I could never, I could never, I could never. We all have a bunch of those. It's really about just throwing out a bunch of brainstorming ideas.

Look at the possibilities and see what you're  willing to have stick. If you're the person that absolutely has to have a car, well that's fine. But if your budget isn't balancing, somewhere you're going to have to make some kind of choices.

I always like to give an example of Waren Buffet. He can live anywhere he wanted. He can live in any house he wanted. Waren Buffet and his wife and family have lived in the same suburban ranch house for decades.

He values living in that house. He doesn't need to spend a ton of money on a really big home. We get so tied into the things we had to do. I had a client once who, she had such high credit card payments. She could not fathom when I asked, "What would happen if you just stopped paying those?". She just couldn't fathom it.

You know the truth is, she needed to stop paying them for awhile. And she went through a bunch of machinations of getting beyond that with her budget. To the point that she's flourishing now. She is back in integrity. But the truth was that her credit card payments were more than her mortgage. She couldn't do it. She had to let go of a whole lot of things to get to where she is now. Which is a pretty happy, healthy budget.

And she got there by taking a hard look at zero based budgeting. So I'd like you to look at this. I'd like you to just throw caution to the wind, write down a bunch of crazy ideas and pick a few that you think will really stick, that you're really willing to live with for awhile.

And as always I don't want you to have to do this alone. Over on Facebook, we have a private group called Team Do Better. There's a bunch of other people that are working on doing better with their money. Come join us. We also have a newsletter that comes out at least once a week at thefinancegym.com is where you can sign up. And over on YouTube. Head over there and subscribe to our channel. Have a great day and thanks for watching.

Managing Your Money with These 5 Numbers - Part 3

Welcome to The Finance Gym Action Plan for a Better Life with Money video series. If you’re ready to not just know better but to do better with your money, you’ve come to the right place.

Today we’re going to be talking about the big picture again. In our last video we talked about the big picture but we wrote about it in sentences. Today we’re going to get those pencils out and put some numbers down. But for those of you that are number-phobic, I promise today we’re just going to do five simple numbers.

If you’re following along in the book, turn to chapter 1, page 11 and for those of you that haven’t gotten the book yet, just get a piece of paper and a pencil out and write these five rows down. You just start with “earning” and then we’re going to subtract “spending” and then the third row is going to be “difference”. The fourth row will be “debt” and the fifth row is “savings”.

What I want all of you to do is to think about your last year, either your last 12 months or the last calendar year, whichever is easiest and I want you to estimate. We’re not looking for exact here. What did you earn in the last year? That’s earning everywhere, in your businesses, in your job, in your investments.

Then I want you to write down what you spent in the last year and then of course the difference. Whatever that difference is, whether it’s positive or negative, I want you to divvy that up. Did you increase your savings with anything that was left over or if you had a negative amount, did you grow your debt? Was there some mix happening with both? So some of you, you’re like writing those numbers down right now. You guys are great. You’re all good. Some others of you are like, “How in the world would I know those numbers?”

So for some of you, you might need to pause this video and when you do that, I want you to set a timer for 15 minutes and spend no more than 15 minutes going and gathering that information to write those five numbers down.

Now again, estimate it. If 15 minutes ends and you still don’t have those numbers, then just do it to like the nearest 50,000. All of us can do it to the nearest 50,000. Well, most of us. But those people aren’t watching this video. Just do as close as you can and take a look at those numbers.

So here’s the thing. How much time did it take you to pull those four numbers and do that simple little calculation down? How much energy did it take and how comfortable are you with your final answers?

There’s a trick to this exercise. When I have an introductory meeting with potential financial coaching clients, they always want to know what information they can pull together to bring to that first meeting and I always tell them I would really rather you didn’t prepare and then I asked the questions that I just asked you and how readily someone can answer those questions tells me a lot about where they need to begin on their path to making their money life better.

So if this was a challenging exercise for you and you wanted to pull your hair out, you might not like my answer. My answer is you’re going to have to watch that next video on recordkeeping and you’re going to have to make a little bit of commitment to change your recordkeeping format.

I promise you I’m going to make it as painless and easy as you can possibly do. But you’re probably going to have to do something a little different and if you’re one of those people where those numbers just roll off of your head or they were at your fingertips, whatever recordkeeping you’re doing, even if it’s simply just recordkeeping in your head, you’re good enough. You don’t need to do anymore unless you really want to because you already know what your numbers are. You have your answers.

So thanks for walking through the first time of delving in, writing numbers down. I swear we’re not going to do this every time and as always, I don’t want you to do this alone. If you would like support, please join our community by signing up on our list at www.TheFinanceGym.com or head on over to Facebook and join our Finance Gym Action Group or head on over to Facebook and join our Finance Gym Action Group, "Team Do Better". Have a great day.

Holiday Cheer

How would you like to experience cheer and joy with your finances during the holiday season?

Entertaining, stocking stuffers, extra travel expenses, cookies for the neighbors, decorations, office holiday party gifts, holiday grocery shopping and of course, presents… these are just a smattering of expenses that are about to edge their way into your spending plan over the next several weeks.

Whether you’ve been saving all year, plan to squeeze it into your regular monthly spending, plan to not partake in any of it, or have a credit card you use for the holidays, now is a good time to make a plan. Even if you don’t stick to your plan completely, just spending the time to fill out this handy holiday plan will provide you a road map for the trip you are about to take.

• What are your priorities? 
• What are your limits? 
• What are your expectations? 
• How do you feel about the money you’ve spent during past holidays? 
• What could you do differently? 
• And a favorite question from our Financial Boot Camps, what would your hero do?

This is my favorite Holiday Spending Plan: “Manage Your Holiday Spending” guide from the AFSA Education Foundation. It’s easy, just print it, take a walk, think it over, journal the above questions if you’d like, then get a pencil and a calculator and make your plan!

Enjoy the season!

-Stacey Powell

Finance Gym offers personal finance coaching in professionally facilitated peer-advisory groups. 

We motivate. We support. We help people change their lives by improving their finances.

Budget for the Life You Want

Budgets have a bad rap. They aren’t all about denying oneself or cutting back on everything. Budgets are there to ensure that you have money set aside to do the things you love.

My budget is based on my “if I had a million dollars in savings” life. I’ve found that this is the best way to determine what I really want, because it removes my perceived restrictions due to limited funds. So, if I were financially secure/wealthy, I would travel often, go to the spa at least once a week, and eat the finest foods. There’s more to it, but those are biggies right now.

So, our household budget allows us to spend more on food than most families, even though we are only two people. We save like crazy for travel, to ensure that we can afford a trip to the other side of the world at the drop of a hat and weekend trips to Tahoe. We get a massage and chiropractic adjustment every week for our personal well-being.

Since we don’t have a million dollars sitting around, we make huge adjustments to make these things fit into our current budget.

Food budget: We don’t eat out much and when we do, we make it count. Whether it’s a food truck or a four-star restaurant, we go intentionally and within our budget. If we want caviar, we buy it at the store and enjoy it at home, rather than at a fancy restaurant. And we do our best to buy organic, but not always because it’s expensive. We shop at Costco and Trader Joe’s instead of Whole Foods or specialty shops.

Travel budget: We travel no-stars cheap. We travel by local bus, sleep in the cheapest of the cheap, and eat from street stalls. That being said, I love it because the experiences are rich and everything is an adventure. I chose longer no-frills travel often, over traveling less often, for shorter periods of time, but in-style.

Personal well-being budget: We get a weekly Chinese foot massage for $16 per hour and a weekly chiropractic adjustment at The Joint for $12.25 (with their four per month package). That’s only $28.25 a week in full body care per person. Is it a day at a four-star spa? No, but it’s better than nothing. It’s also better than one four-star massage every two months.

That being said, cutting back in other parts of our lives is also necessary to afford the things that we truly want. But we cut back or completely cut the things that don’t contribute to our long-term happiness (that’s a whole other blog). 

When we don’t have a budget, we end up spending more on the things we need, that don’t bring us joy, then we feel deprived, so we spend more on instant gratification purchases that are fleeting at best, and then we feel depressed when we have to go into debt to pay for the things that we truly want to do. 

Ignoring your money won’t make more appear, it won’t make you think about it less, it’ll just make you spend more and feel worse. When you know exactly where your money is going, you can consciously spend less on things that you don’t want to spend money on and spend more on the things that bring you happiness.  

Want more tips to get what you want? Check out my other blog “Getting the Life You Want.”

-Leah Schonlank

Finance Gym offers personal finance coaching in professionally facilitated peer-advisory groups. 

We teach. We inspire. We support. We help people change their lives by improving their finances.