<\/p>\n
There are essential items you probably put on your grocery list every week\u2014including bread, eggs and paper towels. There are also financial planning staples every family needs. Here\u2019s a breadwinner\u2019s checklist of seven financial essentials:<\/p>\n
This is where you name a guardian for your children and direct how your assets should be distributed when you die. If you don\u2019t have a will, state law decides who gets your estate, and it can often take years for it all to wind its way through the legal system.<\/p>\n
This can create problems for your survivors. In many states, for example, your surviving husband or wife would get only one-third to one-half of the assets that were in your name alone. Your children would get the rest. But if they\u2019re minors, their share is administered by a court-appointed attorney until they turn 18 or 21, depending on when your state\u2019s law says they\u2019re adults.<\/p>\n
If you don\u2019t want to hire a lawyer to write your will, Quicken WillMaker<\/a> can help you create the legal documents you need to protect your family and assets.<\/p>\n This is money you\u2019ll need if you\u2019re laid off from work or confronted with unexpected home repair or medical bills. Your priority for this money is safety! It belongs in a bank account or a money market fund, not in the stock market. Your emergency account should be big enough to cover at least six months of living expenses.<\/p>\n If you have access to an employer-sponsored retirement account, it should be your first choice for your savings. Your company may also match your contribution\u2014or part of it. The most common plans are the 401(k), the 403(b), which is used by nonprofit organizations like churches, schools and hospitals, and the 457, used by governments and municipalities.<\/p>\n You owe no taxes on your contributions or on their earnings until you withdraw them. Every plan has its own rules on what percentage of your salary you\u2019re allowed to save each year. Federal law limits the dollar amount of your contributions. In 2010, this limit is $16,500 ($22,000 if you\u2019re age 50 or older.)<\/p>\n The maximum 2010 contribution you can make to either one (or to both together) is $5,000; $6,000 if you\u2019re age 50 or older. Your traditional IRA contributions may be tax-deductible, depending on your income and on whether you (or your spouse) are covered by a retirement plan at work.<\/p>\n Roth IRA contributions are never tax-deductible, but your withdrawals will be tax-free after you\u2019re age 59-1\/2 and have owned the Roth IRA for at least five years. You’ll find more information on both types of IRAs here<\/a>.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re a home owner, your policy should cover the cost of rebuilding your house if it burns down. That\u2019s its replacement value, which isn\u2019t the same as its market value.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re a renter, your policy should cover your possessions for their replacement value, not their \u201cactual cash value.\u201d The two sound alike, but their meaning is very different. For example, if you sold your living room couch, you\u2019d get its actual cash value. But that\u2019s probably a small fraction of what it would cost you to replace it with a new couch.<\/p>\n Whether you own or rent, make sure your policy includes adequate \u201closs of use\u201d coverage. This reimburses you for your hotel and restaurant bills and other living expenses if you\u2019re forced out of your home by an uninsured event, such as a fire.<\/p>\n Group coverage is less costly than an individual policy. So if you’re not covered at work, your first step should be to find out if you’re eligible for a group plan through a trade or professional association.<\/p>\n Until recently, the cost and availability of individual coverage has depended on where you live. In some states, you can’t be turned down for health insurance. In others, you may be uninsurable if you have serious health problems. But with the enactment of federal health care reform on March 23, 2010, this is a rapidly changing landscape. Within six months, insurers will no longer be able to exclude children from coverage due to pre-existing conditions and dependent children will be able to stay on their parents\u2019 policy until age 26. (Under state laws, children had usually been eligible for coverage as dependents only until age 18 or 21.)<\/p>\n The new law won\u2019t require insurers to accept adults with pre-existing conditions until 2014. But between now and then, it requires the establishment of temporary \u2018high risk pools\u2019 to insure people with pre-existing conditions who can\u2019t find coverage elsewhere. These \u2018high risk\u2019 pools won\u2019t be permitted to charge more than standard insurance rates. You’ll find more information about the health care changes that will be phased in over the next four years at newyorktimes.com<\/a>, ehealthinsurance.com<\/a> and insure.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n If you have dependents, this is a must. For the biggest policy at the smallest cost, buy term insurance. It\u2019s pure coverage, with no investment component.<\/p>\n How much life insurance do you need? A commonly used rule of thumb is that your policy should be five to ten times your annual income. More precisely, it should be big enough to generate sufficient income for your survivors when they invest the proceeds. If you assume they can earn 4% a year after taxes, a $500,000 policy, for example, generates $20,000 a year. (Remember, your insurance need is reduced by any sources of income your family will have from your savings, investments, spouse\u2019s salary and Social Security survivors\u2019 benefits.)<\/p>\n You can comparison shop online for a term policy at sites like selectquote.com<\/a>, accuquote.com<\/a> and efinancial.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n If you\u2019ve taken care of everything on this list, congratulations! Your financial house is in good order.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There are essential items you probably put on your grocery list every week\u2014including bread, eggs and paper towels. There are also financial planning staples every family needs. Here\u2019s a breadwinner\u2019s checklist of seven financial essentials: 1. A will This is where you name a guardian…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"A Checklist of Financial Planning Staples | Quicken","_seopress_titles_desc":"There are essential items you probably put on your grocery list every week\u2014including bread, eggs and paper towels. There are also financial planning staples every family needs. Here\u2019s a breadwinner\u2019s checklist of seven financial essentials:","_seopress_robots_index":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-investing-retirement"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quicken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quicken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quicken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quicken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quicken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2134"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.quicken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2757,"href":"https:\/\/www.quicken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2134\/revisions\/2757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quicken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quicken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quicken.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}2. An emergency savings account<\/h2>\n
3. An employer-sponsored retirement account<\/h2>\n
4. An Individual Retirement Account (IRA)<\/h2>\n
5. Homeowner’s or renter’s insurance<\/h2>\n
6. Health insurance<\/h2>\n
7. Life insurance<\/h2>\n