This has been a year of "getting things taken care of". In February 2009 we became debt-free, minus the mortgage. In February 2010 we had our Emergency Fund fully funded. We'd halted saving for retirement for 2 years as we paid off debt and saved for emergencies. This year we started saving again for retirement. Just 6% going to retirement...I'd like to get it to 15%.
So, what did we work on this year? Planning for our deaths. NOT a fun topic. We worked on our Wills and Life Insurance policies all summer long. It was really a downer, but something that truly needed to get done. I really didn't know ahead of time how depressing it would be to plan these things. For our Life Insurance policies, we're assuming that DH gets hit by a bus today and is gone. How much is needed for us to continue as we are now? Well, more than we realized since our children are still young. It's always been important for us to have me be at home with the kids...this would still be important to us if DH was no longer living. We have a wonderful advisor who really helped us come to an agreement on the size policy that we needed.
The Wills were tough too, but not quite as depressing. It's awful to think about me and DH passing at the same time and trying to decide who would take care of our boys. After quite a bit of praying and thinking, I think we made an absolute wonderful decision. I pray that we never had to use our named guardian, but I certainly will feel better next time DH and I travel together without the kids.
So, while we were not as aggressive with our savings this year as I would have liked to have been, we did get some very important things taken care of. I'm very glad that these things are done and behind us now. And with that, I can sleep much better at night.
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