How are you preparing for the future?

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2009 Bridal Shows (Omaha/Lincoln/Council Bluffs Areas)

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How are you preparing for the future?

posted 3 years ago in Newlyweds
poll: I would consider us:
Very prepared for the future. : (8 votes)

24 %

We have most of our ducks in a row. : (20 votes)

61 %

We have discussed some of the topics, but haven't made steps yet. : (5 votes)

15 %

Not at all prepared! Thanks for the heads up, Niki! : (0 votes)

33 votes

Hostess

751 posts

Busy bee

Niki 05/31/2008

These are all questions that I have been thinking about since we got married, thought some of you might be able to benefit from the difficult questions I have had to ask.

Do you have a savings? If you or your spouse (or both) were laid off, are you able to provide for yourselves for 6 months?

Do you and your spouse have life insurance?

If something happened to your spouse and might have to be put on life support, do you know their wishes? Does he know yours? Do either of you have a will?

If you live in an apartment, do you have renter's insurance? Did you know that if your apartment were to catch fire, your apartment complex's insurance will not pay for items lost?

We do not have a savings, I am working on that. He has life insurance, but not me. We do know each other's wishes, thanks to 5 Wishes. We don't have a will and probably won't until we have kids. We do live in an apartment and do have renter's insurance, as well as a rider policy for my ring.

What about you?

3 years ago

Bee

1,480 posts

Bumble bee

mssushi March 2009 Hershey, PA / Kaneohe, HI

We have a 5 year plan, although it is not set in stone and we have no problems altering if need be.

Do you have a savings? If you or your spouse (or both) were laid off, are you able to provide for yourselves for 6 months? We do have a savings, maybe not enough to live off of for 6 months, but we're working on it. We're also working on saving for a down payment for our next house (in 5 years).

Do you and your spouse have life insurance? Yes.

If something happened to your spouse and might have to be put on life support, do you know their wishes? Does he know yours? Do either of you have a will? I'm in the military, so it's kind of frowned upon if we don't have a will. Mr. Sushi doesn't have one yet though.

If you live in an apartment, do you have renter's insurance? Did you know that if your apartment were to catch fire, your apartment complex's insurance will not pay for items lost? We own (well, the bank owns), we have home owners insurance.

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3 years ago

Member

2,469 posts

Buzzing bee

Janna19 June 7, 2008 New York

Do you have a savings? If you or your spouse (or both) were laid off, are you able to provide for yourselves for 6 months? Yes, my husband was laid off and we have living expenses for well over 6 months

Do you and your spouse have life insurance? I do, he probably doesn't anymore. But there is no need for it right now.

If something happened to your spouse and might have to be put on life support, do you know their wishes? Does he know yours? Do either of you have a will? No

If you live in an apartment, do you have renter's insurance? Did you know that if your apartment were to catch fire, your apartment complex's insurance will not pay for items lost? Yes, we have renter's insurance and a rider for my ring

3 years ago

Bee

1,973 posts

Buzzing bee

maryjane September 9, 2009 Grand Forks, ND

We have/are working on all of those things, except the will. We really ought to have the will - we'll have to get our butts in gear and get it done, unpleasant as it is to think about.

3 years ago

Member

2,168 posts

Buzzing bee

cannotwait February 1, 2009 TX

We just got married & are talking about getting a will. I have my basic wishes in an informal printout in my fire box. Neither of us has kids yet, and we both own houses.

Unless 2 out of the following 3 things happens, we are OK:

1) he is laid off

2) I'm laid off

3) my renters break their lease

With renting out my house, we are able to live off one of our 2 incomes, so we feel pretty safe but know the value of saving up an emergency fund. Right now our main emergency fund is about $5k in matured bonds that I have, but I know that's not PERFECT. Luckily we do not have CC debt, so that helps, too. Now that the wedding is over, we should have "extra" $ that we plan to pay off my car in the next couple mos & then start paying down my student loan and doing some home improvements.

3 years ago

Member

844 posts

Busy bee

chicagowife

Do you have a savings? If you or your spouse (or both) were laid off, are you able to provide for yourselves for 6 months? We have a lot of savings and we would be fine for a couple of years if we were both laid off.
Do you and your spouse have life insurance? No, but since both of us have a large independent earning capacity, we decided it wasn't needed at this point.
If something happened to your spouse and might have to be put on life support, do you know their wishes? Does he know yours? Do either of you have a will? We both know each other's wishes and we're currently writing our wills.
If you live in an apartment, do you have renter's insurance? Did you know that if your apartment were to catch fire, your apartment complex's insurance will not pay for items lost? We have renter's insurance.

Great questions! Very interesting to see everyone's answers.

3 years ago

Hostess

751 posts

Busy bee

Niki 05/31/2008

Since I first posted this thread, we have been making some changes. We now have a savings account and I now have life insurance, a small policy of $5K, but it is something.

3 years ago

Bee

469 posts

Helper bee

snowpea August 1, 2007 Philly/NJ/NYC

Along the lines of life insurance, I thought I would add a few tidbits that I learned recently having to do my own life insurance forms and discussing the future with Mr. Snow Pea.

Get multiple policies, different increments (max and what you can afford), through different companies - Years and years down the line, things change. You don't want to put all your eggs in one basket and risk getting nothing for one reason or another.
Do you want to leave your parents something? Asian families often depend on their children. You can get another policy or specify a % of the same policy to go to them.
If you're NOT already married, don't forget to go back and include your spouse (and children)! This happened to a friend of mine and it was very sad.
When considering the amount of coverage, don't forget to include: the balance of your mortgage, AND childcare, home maintenance, etc...all the things that your spouse helped you with (ie. child rearing, maintenance) will now fall on one person's shoulders. You don't even realize.
In addition, I was once advised NOT to consolidate student loans together with your spouse's student loans.
Reminder: Read the fine print on you/your credit cards. Student loans die with you (unless you/your spouse cosigned it), but credit card debt may get passed to next of kin.

3 years ago