Family Financial Matters

"Beware of little expenses. A small leak will sink a great ship." - Benjamin Franklin

Every day of our lives, we hurry about working to provide and get ahead. We worry about our teenage children driving, the frightening drug use trying to lure them away and all of the possibilities of what could happen.

But, as article stated, "worry about what if something happens to you...what will happen to those around you?" You could be the most careful person around...buckling your seatbelt, eating right and exercising.

As an old saying goes, "stuff happens."

Financial experts estimate that nearly 70% of men have not taken the needed steps to secure their family's financial security. Heaven forbid you end up getting hit by a car or have an unfortunate accident.

It is natural as human beings not to think about dying. Heck, who wants to think about that stuff? But it is relatively easy to take steps to ensure some 'after-you' stability.

Steps you can take are;

1. Get yourself together - put together a document listing details of your finances, investments, bank account, insurance policies and any financial advisers. Then ask around for an attorney to draft a will for you.

2. Replace your salary - Employer-sponsored life insurance policies will normally cover two times your annual salary. This is much less than your family needs. So buy a term life insurance policy to cover you until the kids have graduated and moved away. From that point on, the kids are less dependent upon you. Notice I didn't say they are totally independent.

3. Pay your family, not Uncle Sam - When you die and leave everything to your wife, your children lose something many of us didn't know we had: a $2 million exemption from the estate tax. Upon your wife's death, your kids benefit from her $2 million exemption, but yours would be lost. For your kids to get the combined $4 million exemption, the attorney can set up a credit shelter. Transfer $2 million in assets (or up to this amount as all of us do not necessarily have that much) into the trust, including your house and enable your wife to access the funds, but name your kids the beneficiaries upon her death. What happens is eventually the kids will inherit your $2 million and her $2 million...all estate tax free.

4. Protect your legacy - Remember to update and keep updated all beneficiary forms for 401(k)s, IRAs and other retirement accounts as these override your will. Just make sure they are current. Ensure that your will includes instructions including specific instructions about how your assets should be handled.

5. Hire your replacement - When you and your wife are traveling, there is the underlying thought that, "what if the plane goes down?" Assign the jobs of executor and guardian to different people. Divide the power by giving control of your kid's inheritance to one person while someone else takes them in. "The best person to raise your kids may not be the best one to handle finances," says Lisa Osofsky, a tax advisor in New York. Think of things like, what if the guardians divorce? Name one person in a couple as the guardian...and name backups.

There are many things to think of, many not the most pleasant, but necessary to leave a legacy for your family. Do what you can to prepare. Your family will thank your memory for it.

Stay inspired my friends.

Fool Me Once

"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." - Folk Wisdom

From the pages of The Nun's Priest's Tale, part of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, can hold lessons for us in modern day life. It is a story of a group embarked upon a pilgrimage and amuse themselves by sharing stories. These stories provide each other with lessons learned by each of them.

Shared knowledge in the form of storytelling, an age old human connection.

The story told is one of a vain rooster named Chanticleer and a sly fox that is similar to fables told by Aesop in the sixth century. Chanticleer is known by the many hens to be intelligent, charismatic, and manly. One day he is sitting and has a horrifying dream of a beast killing him.

A while later he finds a fox stalking him and through sly flattery, the fox tricks Chanticleer into trusting him. It was then in a flash of vulnerability, Chanticleer is carried off by the fox, swallowed whole.

Danger strikes when our vanity closes our eyes.

The fox is chased around by the humans and from within Chanticleer convinces the fox to taunt them. When the fox opens his mouth, Chanticleer escapes. In dismay, the fox attempts to sway him back closer.

He says, “Oh Chanticleer, I am so sorry! I must have scared you when I grabbed you and brought you out of the yard. But sir, I wasn’t going to hurt you. Come on down and let me explain. I promise I’ll tell you the truth, so help me God.”

Fanciful promises and deception meant to sway us again.

“No way,” Chanticleer replied. “Fool me once, shame on you—but fool me twice, shame on me! You’re not going to trick me again and get me to close my eyes and sing with your flattery."

Yes, we can each fall to our human weakness of arrogance and susceptibility to flattery. We fall prey to distractions, taking our eyes off the task at hand. The applause of a job well done and the ensuing swagger provides just enough time for hard lessons to occur.

After our experience with the fox, we can learn and not be twice fooled. There is no shame in learning the lesson for life is a collection of earned experiences. Use those experiences to live a life filled with fewer sly foxes.

Stay inspired my friends.

Move a Nation

"Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that amateurs built the ark. Professionals built the Titanic." ~ Unknown

I try to write my blogs from various devices from time to time. It becomes sort of an experiment doing so with devices such as an iPad or iPhone. My admission here is that I am a Windows PC kind of guy and it is my comfort zone.

Yet I'm not here to review the iPad or my lack of skill in figuring out how to do a lot of cool things with it. I am sure there are hidden features and applications to soon be discovered. What I am interested in talking about is the unknown.

An exciting part of life is stretching out into the new and unknown.

When you look down a new path and trust your own ability, doing so is what makes life great. You do n0t have to be the best trained or the smartest one out there. Heck, look at me! I'm not a professional writer nor a professional motivator, or even a professional speaker.

I step out and stretch myself because they have an impact on people's lives and my own. I am careful not to over step into areas where "real" professional help is needed. But I do reach into the unknown and try to create a new path.

You have the ability try the unknown, the new, in your life.

There is nothing and no one stopping you except yourself. You can take on a new way of looking at your attitude about life. You can find a different kind of book to read or maybe a new set of friends. And maybe it doesn't have to start that extreme.

Just believing in yourself is the start of something greater.

Knowing that regardless of which path you go down, you will overcome anything that comes your way. And it is not the professionals I am talking to here. They perform great work throughout their lives with hard work, dedication and belief.

The people I am speaking to are the ones who can build an ark, move a nation or inspire a generation. And that just happens to be each one of you.

Stay inspired my friends!

Today Is Not A Rehearsal

The Rehearsal by Edgar Degas

"Stop acting as if life is a rehearsal. Live this day as if it were your last. The past is over and gone. The future is not guaranteed."
~ Wayne Dyer

I read an article recently which spoke about the act of moving forward. An act in which we keep moving forward despite the obstacles we each face every day. In the article, Sandip Dutta wrote of a warrior bearing his burden and keeping his eye on the goal.

"The warrior moves on; he moves on despite a dead horse and a broken sword. The warrior moves on! With no one to fight for him, no one to fall back on, he moves on with an unshakeable faith and an unwavering determination. With a damaged armor and an empty arsenal he moves on.... he moves on!

He has already lost a thousand battles but he still moves on despite the hundred bleeding scars on his moonlit face. The warrior moves on for another battle; may be he will lose it too but he moves on with his dead horse and a broken sword because the battlefield is calling. He knows he might lose another hundred battles but he has his eyes fixed on the war and he cannot be whipped if he fights another battle, and then another battle, and another. So he moves on despite a dead horse and a broken sword."

The battles we encounter each day are large and fearsome within our individual world. Those battles will tempt us to yearn for the past and try forcing us to give up. Those battles may seem insurmountable as we look for a way out.

Time moves forward because no one has yet found a way to live in the past.

We may even look beyond today towards the future. Tomorrow is out there waiting for us and we may wish to skip today. But still the battle must be fought today. It is not a rehearsal for life. Today is a real thing that must be achieved so tomorrow can wait to be fought and won.

You can win the war for your future, while not guaranteed do not give up your future without a fight. Yesterday is just that, a past that can not be relived. Tomorrow is only a glimpse into what can be.

Today is the bridge between the two and it must be lived.

Live today in anticipation of success that will be achieved. Live today like success is here and now. And stay inspired my friends.