The Savvy Life

Do we really know what possessions we have? If something were to come up missing, how long would it take for us to realize it? If everything went missing, how much of it would we remember when filling out the insurance papers? Even if we have perfect memory, we might not recall everything when dealing with the stress of a disaster. A fire, flood, or hurricane could take everything away from us but we pay for insurance to guard against that disasterous potential. The only way we can get the real value out of our insurance is if we know what value was lost.

RealSimple has an article titled Prepare for the Worst by Creating a Home Inventory detailing how to perform a home inventory.

“Home inventories make it easier to substantiate your claim” in case of fire, natural disaster, or robbery, says Jeanne Salvatore, a senior vice president at the Insurance Information Institute.

An inventory also determines if you have the right type and amount of insurance. You may find that your computer equipment is worth $5,000 but your policy covers only $3,000 worth. You can then increase your coverage. Home cataloging also makes creating wills easier.”

There are several software packages available to assist in the process of taking a home inventory. A few are listed below. Having the inventory in digital form will make it easier to store in a secure location (a cd or dvd of the data in a safe deposit box, with a relative in another state, or stored on a server) and to update. Keeping the inventory up to date will become one of those annoying but necessary tasks. The RealSimple article recommends updating the inventory after each major purchase. For those of us who don’t make many major purchases but several smaller purchases, it may become more difficult to keep the inventory up to date. To address this concern, I recommend doing an inventory once in the spring and once in the fall. Combine the inventory with Stuff Elimination (spring cleaning, etc.) so you are also removing items from the inventory that you no longer own.

http://www.knowyourstuff.org/ – Free
http://www.mycroftcomputing.com/eiown.html – Free 30 day trial
http://www.allmythings.com/ – Free Basic Service

There are some who enjoy a glass of wine once in awhile. There are some who enjoy wine so much they develop a collection of different types to enjoy on different occassions. Then there are some who enjoy wine so much, they have a need to make their own. A select group goes a bit further and have a need to have their own winery.

Amazingly, it isn’t as hard to join that last group as one might think thanks to Crushpad.

The Custom Wine service is designed for non-traditional winemakers who work hand-in-hand with Crushpad staff and consulting winemakers to define and create their wine. You can choose from among our excellent grape sources or identify your own, and are encouraged to participate in the roughly 30 decisions necessary during the process. The end result is the finished product – a world class wine with your brand. Custom Wine customers are encouraged to visit Crushpad frequently and actively participate to gain the full experience – education is a key part of Crushpad.

Cost varies depending upon vineyard with most barrels (25 cases) ranging from $4500 to $9,900 ($15 to $33/bottle).

Crushpad takes care of all the technical and logistical details for their clients, allowing the vintner-to-be to focus on the stylistic elements of the wine. These elements are determined by what the site calls The Crushpad 30, thirty (give or take) decisions that need to be made in regards to the wine.

Some of the decisions include what style of wine will it be, how long will it age, and what type of bottle will the wine be put in when it is ready?

The price range puts this out of the hands of the casual speculator, but a small group of people could quite easily get together and create their own wine – if they can agree what the label will look like.

Being a member of Gen-X, I am fully aware of the financial vise I’ve been put in. The government would really, really (and according to the last piece of mail I got) REALLY like it if I would pay off my student loans. Yet, the jobs I’ve gotten with my vaunted liberal arts degree barely pay for rent.

To be very honest, I didn’t realize the problems I was facing are the problems my entire generation are facing. Gen-X the first generation to earn less than our parents (in terms of inflation adjusted dollars). Gen-X faces some very unique challenges when it comes to finances. Gen-X is the generation social security is going to run out on, yet Gen-X is the generation that has to pay for the long lived retirement of the Baby Boomers.

Linda Stern writes in the article Gen Xer more cynic than slacker about specific advice for Gen-X.

Watch your fees. Hedlund contends that huge fees are a trap for this generation: Bank overdraft fees, which can pile up on debit card exchanges, as well as credit card late and over-limit fees. “These people blame themselves,” assuming they deserve the fees they rack up because they’ve behaved badly. But those myriad fees have been ratcheting up faster than bad financial behavior has.

I am one of those people who ‘blame themselves’ for fees, for parking tickets, for anything institutions stick me with.  The idea of negotiating fees seems a bit absurd to me, yet apparently it is done daily.  Fees are waived all the time.

Gen-X needs to learn how to use the system to its advantage instead of letting the system take advantage of them.

There are many barriers to communication, but one of the most obvious barriers is language. The ability to communicate, even just a little, in a non-native language is a way to open doors in your professional and personal life.

Open Culture has done the tedious work of locating language podcasts in iTunes, giving us the opportunity to just focus on learning the first of many languages.

If anyone has attempted to learn a language using podcasts, I’d like to know about it.  I attempted to learn some Russian via a podcast, but the lessons were slow vocabulary building, teaching one or two words per podcast.  I liked the methodology, I just wanted more.