Jane Blaufus, author of With the Stroke of a Pen, Claim Your Life, shares her very personal story this week about a tragedy in her life and how an effective insurance plan helped her cope with a time of great need. She’ll give you her viewpoint on insurance coverages, how frequently to examine your need, what to look for, the relationship between workplace coverage and personal policies, and more.
Matt Becker from MomandDadMoney.com joins Paula Pant from Afford Anything in our round table discussion of investments. We tackle Paula’s post The Zen of Investing. Not sure where to start with investments or who to talk to about your investing strategy? They share their tips on these subjects, active vs. passive investments, how to learn about investing, and more.
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Of course, Joe & OG review recent financial news, work to give something away, and review two films (Prisoners and The Incredible Now).
Show notes, as always, will be filled in during the morning Monday. If you’re looking for links, stop by Monday afternoon or later.
SHOW NOTES
<> Open
<> Hotels.com – Save up to 50% off the published rate on a hotel room while helping out the podcast. Use this link to reach Hotels.com and let them know you’re listening.
<> Joe & OG – Investment News
Links to topics discussed:
– Calpers going passive?: Details here
– New possible law – financial advisors required to share bonuses for switching firms:Â Advisor bonus disclosure rule requirements
– Think tank argument – ditch current workplace plans like the 401k:Â Think Tank proposal
<> Jane Blaufus, author of With the Stroke of a Pen, Claim Your Life
Jane’s Website: JaneBlaufus.com
Jane’s Book on Amazon.ca: With the Stroke of a Pen, Claim Your Life
Jane’s Book on Her Website: Books Page
<> Let’s Give Something Away
This month’s chance to enter the race to the coin flip of death is over! Tune in to episode 24 for another opportunity.
<> Shortwave Roundtable
The piece we discuss this week: The Zen of Investing
Matt Becker, MomandDadMoney.com
From Matt’s site: How to Do An Oil Change For Your Car
Paula Pant, Afford Anything
The latest on Paula’s site: How I Bought a House at a Foreclosure Auction
<> End Show – Films
– OG: Prisoners
– Joe: The Spectacular Now
Done by Forty
Great podcast guys. I especially liked the discussion on mandatory retirement savings. While I agree that making such savings compulsory is going too far, I think a law making the default selection for a 401k/403b to be opt-in (into an index fund or low fee target fun), as well as making an annual 1-2% increase the default, would have great impacts and would preserve individual’s ability to freely opt out or invest in other options. This idea came from Nudge. I agree that we can’t legislate good behavior, but there’s nothing wrong with gently pointing people in the (generally accepted) prudent direction. The average worker would benefit from these nudges, given plethora of investment choices and strategies.
AvgJoeMoney
Cool solution! I think that’s a fantastic idea. Sadly, most people are so lazy they’d rather keep the savings number cranked up only because they won’t want to fill out the forms to opt out. We’d all be better off, then.
Lance@MoneyLife&More
Great episode today. I felt bad for Jane but she’s doing a great job getting the word out so others don’t have to deal with the same should something horrible happen.
Steve Hayer
Making better decisions about money has been the name of the game for me this year and I’m really glad that I’ve started to really buckle down and take care of business the way I should have been all along. I really enjoyed that Zen of investing talk and recognize through it that I’m going to have to become more active in ensuring that I diversify more. I also have my own blog over at The Dream Team, where I like to talk on the sort of subjects that they did here. I think I’ll do a post soon related purely to passive investments after seeing their awesome talking points about their importance.