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Entry bubble Life’s Critical Records, Chapter 1

By: Joanne | January 08, 2008 | Category: Money

I recently attended a retirement planning seminar. Retirement is many, many years away but the seminar was a real eye-opening Brown Leather Wallet With Cash, And Credit Cards.experience. I came out of the seminar feeling motivated to get some financial planning done, but the hustle and bustle of everyday life quickly pulled my attention away from the plan. One of my New Year’s resolutions is to go back to the seminar materials and take small steps forward. Hooray! I’ve accomplished my first step: the binder is open on my desk!

I’m starting by getting my records in order. The instructor gave us a list of critical records and papers (CRAP) we should keep in a binder in a safe location. Creating the binder will be my first goal. Since the binder will be in sections, I’m going to focus on one section at a time and hopefully that will make the task less daunting.

The first section of my binder is an inventory of what’s in my wallet. You don’t think of this stuff until your wallet is lost, stolen or you’re the victim of identity theft, but there are definitely times when you don’t have your wallet and you need to know what’s in there. Years ago my wallet was stolen. I quickly called my credit card companies to let them know, but I didn’t have a list of everything in my wallet and I forgot about one card. The robber didn’t have any trouble figuring out which card worked and charged hundreds and hundreds of dollars at area gas stations. From what I saw on the card statement, he took all his friends to the gas station, filled up their car and then bought them lots of cigarettes and snacks.

I finished my wallet inventory in about 15 minutes and now it’s ready to go into my CRAP binder. You never know when you’re going to need to know what’s in your wallet; don’t wait until it’s too late!

| Comments [1] | envelope Email This Entry | Tags: financial   joanne   money   plan   records   retirement   saving  

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I was researching for assistance for myself in the V/A miles of paperwork that reach from here to Mars. I came across paperwork related to spouses of servicemen during their time in the service even though they might be divorced at a later time. My mother actually paid for my fathers service insurance even though they were divorced. What happened to that insurance after he passed away? It was given to the wife that was not a dependent during the span of time that my father was in the service. This next wife did not pay a dime of time or money for the services that were janked away from my mother, who was blind. In 2004, the regulation changed and my mother would have been allowed benifits from her career as a serviceman wife. She did not get these benifits. Why? Because no one told her and she could not read to get the information. She died in poverty although not in neglect due to the fact that her children bore the burden that the service of the government should have bourne.
What was I looking into at the time of this discovery? My own benifits that would have come from my being a service wife during the whole of my past husbands service. I am disabled and was looking for a way to collect disability, which I have been denied because I supposedly did not pay in enough to S.S. to receive these benifits. However, since my work history is sketchy and intermittant due to my husband's frequent transfers and TDYs and other government ordered moves, I don't think I should be neglected or punished because I was assisting a service to my country by assisting my past husband's ability to serve fully in wartime. If I had known that my sacrifice would have been ignored as my work history became irratic, while my husband moved and changed jobs and positions per orders of the government were considered honorable. I do believe that what was shared income at the full time of his service and the full payment into the S.S. from his paycheck should be considered in the light of my disability being denied because I did not pay in enough to be considered an honorable person due the priviledge of being respected for what I gave up while another person was giving time to this country.
When I go through the paperwork that the government keeps to be sure that legal fairness is intact in our world today, I see a hodge podge of threads that run into dead ends.
Is the paper chase worth the time and energy that I really don't have to give to this endeavor? I don't know. I would rather work than have to apply for disability time and time again, only to be told I did not do enough in my lifetime to qualify for the disability that comes to the retired serciveman with honor and without hesitation.
Ni

Posted by ni on January 10, 2008 at 03:23 AM EST #

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