Do You Believe in Financial Preparedness?

Financial Preparedness and Good Friday

Seven and a half years ago I was sitting in church on Good Friday.  Dutiful Mom that I was, I had all four of my little ‘ducklings’ in a row (#5 was still in the middle of brewing) because my husband was in front of the congregation.  I was pleased.  Then of all the silly things that could happen, someone’s phone went off in the MIDDLE of the GOOD FRIDAY service – the somber service remembering Christ’s death on the cross.

Oh, wait……Um, that was MY cell phone.  I scrambled for it frantically while of course trying to NOT distract the rest of my children who were doing so well sitting there.  The service was just about over, but not quite.  I opened my phone and ended the call without looking at who called.   Thinking it was done, I set my phone down.  Well, the person had the gall to call back right at the climax of the end of the service!  I couldn’t turn my phone off fast enough, so I just sat on it until it stopped ringing and then I actually turned the silly thing off.

Oops

Less than five minutes later, I checked to see who in the world would interrupt our Good Friday service.   Oops.  It was my Mom!  Love ya, Mom!  So I called her back intended to apologize profusely for cutting her off and not answering – talk about gall!  I was the one who had some gall.  As soon as my mom’s phone rang, she answered it, and almost hysterically, she yelped out, “Are you okay?!?”

Now, yes, we had just finished a somber service, I was feeling a bit discombobulated by the two call interruptions, but if it was my Mom calling, she had a very good reason……but why did she think I wasn’t okay?  “Um, yea.  We’re fine Mom.  Steve just finished our Good Friday service.”  I paused for a moment.  “Why?”

“Karen, your house was just hit by a tornado!”  Then thoughts, emotions, and words started pouring out of me all at once.  “What?  Hit by a tornado?  What happened?  Are YOU okay?”

A Tornado?

Well, while my husband led a Good Friday service in a little country town an hour and a half from where we lived, our house was terribly damaged by the tornado.  We found out that we wouldn’t be able to go home that night, and came to the realization that we only had the clothes on our backs with us.   We couldn’t stay with my parents because they also lived in the area that the police cordoned off.  Some generous friends put six of us (one 6 months pregnant) up for the night.

The next morning, we headed back to our house to find this.  Before this day, financial preparedness wasn’t even on our radar.

To say that life was hard for a while would be an understatement.  Our life was physically affected by the tornado for around nine months after we were hit by it.  In small ways that I would never have guessed, we are still being affected financially by this tornado.

But seven and a half years ago

We couldn’t live in the house in its current state.  We would be displaced twice for a considerable amount of time each time.  I had food in our storage room, so that wasn’t an issue.    Our first larger issue included was our house safe to enter.  We had lost a very tall tree right next to our house.  It caused damage to our foundation, and since we had a floating curved staircase (Yes, we lived in a beautiful old Victorian house), we needed to know were the stairs safe to ascend to get food from our storage room and to gather clothes for us to wear as we were displaced.

Once a structural engineer made sure it was safe for our family, we gathered what we would need to make sure that our family was cared for, but I also had to find our insurance papers.  Papers are generally fairly easy for me to find, but over the years as I’ve amassed more and more important papers, sometimes finding that *one* paper that I needed was much more difficult.

Financial Preparedness

Financial Preparedness starts here in the simplest of places.  Gather all your important documents.  And I mean A-L-L all.  If all your papers are on ONE binder, this will put you ahead of everyone else.  If you ever have to evacuate for any reason, one binder is very easy to grab quickly!  And even if you don’t need to evacuate, you know where all your important papers are.  You’ll be able to put your finger’s on them at any moment for any reason.

Papers to put together include:

1. Mortgage Contract or Rental agreement (more than once when we rented over the past three-plus years, I’ve had to reference our rental agreement.
2. Deeds
3. Bank Account Information
4. Copies of all Investment Accounts
5. Copies of all the cards in your wallet both FRONT and BACK.
6. Homeowners or renter’s insurance policy
7. Car insurance policies
8. Life insurance policies you took out
9. Life insurance policies in which you are the beneficiary
10. Marriage license
11. Divorce Papers
12. Legal papers (adoption, legal guardianship, foreclosure, etc)
13. Copies of all the birth certificates for you, your spouse and your children
14. Copies of all vaccination records
15. High school diplomas (or copies)
16. If you’re a homeschooling parent – a copy of your children’s school transcript
17. College diplomas (or copies)
18. Copies of your college transcripts
19. Information Sheets on all Children
20. Copies of all passports
21. Up to the year pictures of all family members and pets
22. Income Tax Returns (for 7 years)
23. Car Titles
24. Receipts for large purchases – especially those with warranties
25. Home Owner’s Warranty Policy
26. Will / Living will
27. Medical and Burial instructions
28. Pension Plan/ Retirement plan Records
29. Medical Records
30. Information sheets with

• Doctor’s names and phone numbers and most used pharmacy names and phone numbers
• Utility Company account numbers and phone numbers for each
• The non-emergency phone number for the police
• Child’s current clothing sizes (if you experience a fire, you will be so glad you had this and don’t have to guess!)
• Most Important Family and Friend’s numbers – for emergencies

How to put papers together

1.) Find a large binder – I use this one.

2.)  Populate your binder with sheet protectors.  I HIGHLY suggest you use heavy duty ones.  I’ll explain in a sec.

3.) As you gather and copy your information – put them into your sheet protectors.  I put a whole year’s income tax returns/records into ONE sheet protector.  I do the same with insurance policies, investment records, Home warranty information etc.  Because you might be putting 30+ pages into one sheet protector, that’s why I suggest heavy duty ones.

4.)  Keep all the information up to date yearly.  Maybe choose the beginning of the school year – when a lot of moms take their kids pictures anyway.

What About You?

Do you already have a binder put together?  If you do, do you have everything in it you need to?  Are there any items that I’ve missed here that you feel are integral to keeping with your other documents.  I’d love to hear!  Please leave a comment below or if you got this by e-mail, hit “reply” and let me know.

Remember, knowledge isn’t knowing something, it’s living it!

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