A Life Insurance Mad Lib!

I don’t know if I mentioned this, but that Best Man’s speech I gave the other weekend included a pretty epic Mad Lib in the middle of it.

One which greatly helped me overcome my nerves and complete the mission 🙂

I’ll tell you how it applies to today’s topic in a bit, but first – the mad lib (with the help of my kids who provided the important nouns/adjectives/etc!):

A Wedding Day Mad Lib

Hello! My name is Sponge Bob SquarePants, and I’ve known today’s couple for a million years. I doggie paddled all the way from Dinosaur World to get here, and I am beyond stinky that [groom] & [bride] are tying the knot! There has never been a more naked couple than those two, and I hope they have 13 slimy babies together. My Best Advice? Don’t forget to kick the green burritos before going to bed every night! And [groom], always tickle [bride]’s belly button after a long fight. You may be scared, but true soccer balls last forever. Now ladies and hedgehogs, please raise your light sabers for the slippery couple, and may they have a lifetime of health, happiness, and everlasting ninja turtles!

[Entire toast can be found here if you want to steal it.
It included the required sappiness and prodding of the groom too, of course ;)]

It was a fun way to tackle something I really didn’t want to do, and surprisingly went over really well. Which tells me either everyone was already drunk by that point (99% probability), or all these years of writing has finally paid off 😉

In any event, I can’t tell you how great it felt afterwards, and immediately proceeded to the dance floor to celebrate my victory. Not unlike knocking out << get ready for the slick transition! >> personal finance matters that we really don’t want to deal with either! Whether out of fear, lack of knowledge, or just being completely bored by it!

Which leads us to today’s main topic: LIFE INSURANCE!!!

I’m a little late to the party here (we’ll call it fashionably late), but in case you weren’t in the know either, September is officially Life Insurance Awareness Month, so my job today is to tell you all the reasons you should have some, and then hopefully motivate you to go out and make it happen afterwards.

We’ll start with the reasons:

When you die, it’s going to cost money! Why not help cover the costs of your own death?
The money can also be used to pay off mortgages, debts, or even full rides to college for your kids (or those who claim to be your kids ;))
It’s good to give your family and loved ones much better peace of mind
It’s good to give YOURSELF much better peace of mind! (While you’re still alive and can enjoy it!)
And most importantly, it’s one less thing for your favorite financial blogger or parents to harp on you about 😉

Fact is, when you die your entire family is going to be crushed and the last thing on their mind will be money. But when it all sinks in and they’re thinking clearer, leaving them with hundreds of thousands of dollars to play with will make your death a teensie bit better. You might even say a blessing? At the very least it’ll be harder for them to forget about you 😉

And picking up life insurance doesn’t have to be super complicated, or even expensive for that matter. Here’s what we’ve got going on for about 10 years now – and I honestly haven’t thought about it much since, except to check in every now and then and see if it still makes sense (which I think it does?).

Me: $350,000 of Term Life Insurance (30 years @ $30.99/mo)
Mrs. Money: $350,000 of Term Life Insurance (30 years @ $24.57/mo)

It’s all through USAA – my go-to company for all financial products (thanks dad!), and the money should be more than enough padding to secure the future of our finances. Whether that’s fully paying for a house down the road, funding our 3 boys’ tuitions, or just investing it for another 18 years so my wife can retire like a BOSS when the kids are finally out of the house.

Not like I’ll have much say in it after I’m gone 😉

(BTW – you don’t need to have a military connection to get USAA’s life insurance)

Why TERM LIFE over the other more “exotic” types of insurances? Because it was simply the most straightforward policy you can get, with monthly premiums that won’t kill you. (Zing!)

If you die your beneficiary gets the pay out, and if you don’t die your beneficiary gets to keep on loving you! Win-Win! 😉

You’ll want to do your own research of course to see what’s best for *you* and your situation (the others, like Whole Life, have their place, I’m sure), but as a reader of this site once said, “buying whole life is like going to Subway for lunch and giving them extra money to invest for me. Sammiches are good. Investing is good. But they have nothing to do with each other” Haha… “Buy insurance (term) for when you need insurance and invest when you need to invest. Keeping them separate allows you to go to the best provider for each, rather than get sub-par products just for the ease of buying them together.”

So yeah, we like Term here. Particularly for those who are relatively young and healthy.

Now onto the part of me trying to get you to take action if you haven’t already!

And staying on theme here, I’d like to do that by making you channel your own inner-child today and fill out a Mad Lib 🙂 The first one’s for those who don’t already have insurance, and the 2nd one is for those who do – in hopes the insight you share might help the others to finally pull the trigger!

Fill it out, copy and paste it in the comments, then print off and get busy!

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A Mad Lib For Those Without Life Insurance

Hello! My name is [name] and I haven’t looked into life insurance yet because of [excuse]. I vow to change that today though because I’m [adjective], and I promise all my [net worth number] that I will look into it as soon as I finish filling out this [adjective] Mad Lib. If I don’t, J. Money gets all my money and future naming rights to my [plural noun].

Signed, in blood, [name].

You like that one? 😉

Now a Lib for those already insured… Fill out as much as you can so it helps others get a better idea of this stuff and make the unknown a little less scary.

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A Mad Lib For Those Sexy & Insured

Hello! My name is [name] and I picked up [type of life insurance] over [years] ago when I was [age] years old. I currently pay [amount] a month for it through [name of insurance company], and I am relatively [healthy or not healthy]. I chose them because [reason], and so far I am pretty [adjective] with them. If I had one piece of advice to give to anyone shopping for life insurance today, it would be [advice].

Your friend in finance, [adjective] [name].

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Drop your answers in the comments below, and let’s see if this works as well as my toast!

Bonus points if people stop you in the street and say they love your insurance plan 😉

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This post was in partnership with USAA for Life Insurance Awareness Month, a company I’ve proudly been a member of for almost 20 years now. But we’ll see how proud of *me* they are after reading all these Mad Libs today, haha…

[Photo cred: Craig Story // possibly altered by J. Money]

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[For more $$$ nuggets, head over to Budgets Are Sexy!]

from Finance http://www.budgetsaresexy.com/life-insurance-mad-lib/