Financial advisory

We met with *Ed last night to go over our finances. Investments, retirement, budget, that sort of thing. Learning the rule of 72 and insurance.

Insurance is a wonky subject with me. Car insurance, well of course I have that. In the state of Michigan no insurance means no tag renewal, so its a matter of obeying the law. No big deal. Its also a 'no fault' state so if some drunk jerk comes tooling out of nowhere and kills my family, It's illegal for me to sue him. Grrrrrrrrrr
I really REALLY do not think that is constitutionally sound law. but thats not the point of my post and I'll leave it at that. All having insurance means is that if your car gets totalled and there was a note on it, the note gets paid off. You can't even sue the guy to replace you car. BAH, anyway

Life insurance. On one hand, as a Christian, I depend on God to take care of me and my family. On the other hand, there is having good stewardship of the things the Lord has blessed you with....so where does insurance as a whole fall into? A typical funeral costs upwards of 10,000$ and if something were to happen, that cost alone would put my family in financial hardship. We are GOING to die one day (barring rapture) so this is a cost that WILL happen. It is irresponsible of me to leave it out there willy nilly. What about the kids? It would be a horrible enough thing on its own to bury a child, but to have incredible funeral costs on top of that? Uhg. There is just something sick about a world where you have to carry life insurance on your child.
So in this train of thought, I find myself in an argument loop in my head. I trust in God to take care of us, but isn't it possible that is why he sent us *Ed so we could have all these things organized and be good stewards?
What about investments? The one servant went and buried his masters money to keep it safe, while the other went and used it to turn a profit and earn more for his master. Isn't that what good financial stewardship is about? Taking what we are blessed with now and trying to make a profit for retirement?
A righteous man leaves enough inheritence for his childrens children......

I dunno. Its all so odd to me. On one hand we are not to worry about tomorrow because it will take care of itself.......but then to be making long term investments almost looks like we don't trust that God is gonna take care of us in our old age. Does that make sense? I know it doesn't....because He gave us the knowledge on how to be with our money and yadda yadda

heh heh

I need more coffee I think.

Anyway, as of now, today, my hubbo and I are more financially sound. Our stock portfolio is working harder and our budget is more in line with our current and long term needs. We have no debt, but our credit is bad BECAUSE we have no debt. Crazy huh? Because we refuse to use credit cards and take loans out on things that we should save for, because we are a family who pays cash, not credit, its going to be difficult when we go to get a loan for a new home.....which actually is fine with me. The subprime lending market is about to go bankrupt, in my opinion, so waiting a year or two will get us a much better deal on a home. We are not so foolish as to buy more than we can afford to upkeep....Which is a very common thing to see in the current market "oh look at how much more you can afford blah blah blah" when you know you can only afford 500$ a month in a mort payment, don't go buying a place that will have you at 1,500$ because the realtor and her mort broker says you can afford it...they are interested in the commission, not in how you pay your bills. This is why over 20% of homes in America are in the process of forclosure. Its also the reason I suspect a huge realty bubble pop in the next year or two.

Still, we ARE in the process of working our credit score now. Want to get it back up to where well established financial groups, like say a REAL bank, is begging us to take their loan instead of us banging on every lenders door in town. Know what I mean?

I need to go knit....knitting helps me organize my brain as well as covering me in knitted goodness. Today feels like a log cabin blankie day. Building my financial house and knitting my cabin. sounds like a brilliant combination.

*grin*