Disaster-Proof Your Finances: What to Do Before Crisis Hits with Susan Olson

Mary Beth [00:00:02]:

Welcome to the If Money Were Easy

Mary Beth [00:00:03]:

Podcast, the show where we teach you how to expand what’s possible with your money. We’re your hosts, Mary Beth Storjohann and Neela Hummel, certified financial planners & Co CEOs of Abacus Wealth Partners. Today on the show we’re talking about financial preparedness for natural disasters.

Neela [00:00:22]:

So today on the show we are delighted to welcome back Susan Olson. Susan is a certified financial planner, has a master’s degree in both geography and human resources design, organizational psychology. She is a financial advisor and partner at Abacus Wealth Partners, a fee only fiduciary investment management and financial advisory firm. That sounds very familiar. Susan’s based in Sebastopol, California. Susan enjoys helping her clients experience financial freedom through comprehensive financial planning and values aligned investing. She also hosts women’s circles, dedicates time to pro bono financial planning and is a contributing author to the Abacus blog. Outside of work, Susan’s passions include gardening, fiber arts, which.

Neela [00:01:06]:

I’m not sure what that is, but I can’t wait to hear about it.

Mary Beth [00:01:08]:

I know, I know what it is. I know.

Neela [00:01:10]:

Hiking and traveling. Susan also has done so much work in some of the wildfire issues that have come up, which is why she’s really kind of our go to person for this content. So we’re really excited to have Susan. Susan, welcome back.

Mary Beth [00:01:24]:

Welcome back.

Susan [00:01:25]:

Thank you. Great to be here.

Mary Beth [00:01:27]:

Should we hit the fiber arts right away?

Neela [00:01:28]:

Yeah, fiber arts.

Mary Beth [00:01:29]:

Okay, Susan, go ahead.

Susan [00:01:30]:

So really it just means stuff with yarn.

Mary Beth [00:01:32]:

Yeah.

Neela [00:01:32]:

Okay.

Susan [00:01:34]:

Or like weaving. Spinning. I don’t do a lot of weaving anymore, but I spin yarn and knit. I’m pretty passionate knitter, so I, I’m pretty much knitting a couple hours every day.

Neela [00:01:45]:

Oh, love it. So the nerd in me is like, it has nothing to do with fiber optics. So I’m just going to put that aside.

Mary Beth [00:01:51]:

I was like, it’s yarn.

Susan [00:01:52]:

Last summer I went to Ireland and I got to see a sheep demonstration. Now it’s all about wool and sheep and stuff in western Ireland. And so I got to see a sheepdog demonstration. Was so fun.

Neela [00:02:02]:

Oh, that’s so cool.

Mary Beth [00:02:03]:

Very cool.

Mary Beth [00:02:04]:

I remember seeing that video on your social media. Cool.

Mary Beth [00:02:09]:

Okay.

Mary Beth [00:02:10]:

I know a lot of this episode was prompted based off of the most recent fires in Los Angeles. I know, Susan, you have lived through a variety of fires being in Northern California yourself in terms of, you know, helping clients and your experiences. Kicking off this episode. First, I think the most important thing obviously is having empathy for anybody who’s gone through a situation like this, there’s a lot of emotions that come up. And so knowing it’s a very sensitive topic from feelings. But today we’re going to hit on, you know, what you can do before disaster does strike to make sure if it does hit you, you know, that you are prepared in some way to make it a little less painful.

Susan [00:02:47]:

Yeah. So I actually grew up in Minnesota. I started out with tornadoes, hiding in basements, stuff like that, and then kind of moved to California and discovered earthquakes. And now living in Northern California, you know, I have not been personally affected by the fires that we have had and fires, plural, many really significant wildfires over the last eight years in Sonoma County. I used to live in Altadena, so our old neighborhood, the school I ever ran and my school my kids went to, is gone, you know, so just for me, it’s. While I haven’t personally had experienced that degree of loss, just been really close to a lot of people who have and done financial planning for people who have had experienced disasters. And yeah, it’s just. It’s hard to take in all the things that they are going through.

Susan [00:03:34]:

And I keep seeing, you know, as I work with people, there’s things that you can do in advance. And the problem is, you know, we don’t always do them unless, you know, in a disaster and then you’re, oh, I should have done the thing.

Neela [00:03:46]:

Yeah.

Susan [00:03:47]:

So none of these things are exciting to do and they’re always easy to put off. It’s sort of like estate planning. It’s like. Well, I’ll get to that. I would just emphasize that if what we talk about today is. Seems overwhelming to people, just do one. Just do one thing.

Neela [00:04:02]:

Yeah.

Mary Beth [00:04:03]:

Yeah, I think that really hits home.

Neela [00:04:05]:

The analogy of estate planning or insurance or this. They all just kind of. I mean, this is. Insurance is in here. But they all circle around that same concept of really bad things that you don’t want to happen. And so we don’t want to really think about it. Even if just a little bit of work on the front end can go a really long way should you be impacted?

Susan [00:04:23]:

Well, most of the things I thought of in advance that would be helpful for folks are important for everybody. Even if you don’t in an area prone to disasters or you don’t think you do, because I didn’t think we did either. So it’s just good things to have in place if anything happened to you personally.

Mary Beth [00:04:39]:

Right.

Mary Beth [00:04:40]:

One of the things that came up, we just interviewed Mark Maurer on an episode talking about insurance. And just if Anything, you know, you’re paying for life insurance and ideally, if it all works out, you’ve wasted that money.

Mary Beth [00:04:50]:

That’s a wasted money and similar to.

Mary Beth [00:04:52]:

What we’re talking about here in terms of the preparedness of ideally, you know.

Mary Beth [00:04:56]:

This works out in a way like you’re wasting your time.

Mary Beth [00:04:58]:

You don’t need to execute on any of this.

Mary Beth [00:04:59]:

You’ve done the preparations, but you never.

Mary Beth [00:05:01]:

Need to actually use it. Right. That’s the best case scenario. But it’s still investing the time will give you peace of mind should you need to.

Susan [00:05:08]:

A hundred percent true. And I feel like, like we were talking about. It’s funny, I’m a financial advisor. I’m really good at helping my clients get this stuff done right. But it’s hard. And I only recently took pictures of all my own stuff two and a half years ago. And even though I’m not that close to la, the LA fires prompted me to go, okay, would you just spend 15 minutes and walk around your house with a video camera? Like literally it took me 15, 20 minutes and I was done and I uploaded it all and it’s like, good.

Mary Beth [00:05:33]:

Yeah, see, you got further than I did. I. There was the fires over here. I could see them in the hills out my window. Ran around my house taking the videos and now they’re still sitting on my phone. I haven’t done anything with him. I was like, Brian doesn’t have them. I haven’t put them anywhere yet, but I have them.

Mary Beth [00:05:46]:

So this is again, this is a do as we say and we’re here to support you and hold you accountable.

Susan [00:05:50]:

Clients and toddlers, children, children have no shoes.

Neela [00:05:54]:

100%. So where do you begin, Susan? If somebody’s like, okay, where should I even get started? What’s like the first few things that I can look at?

Susan [00:06:01]:

I would say number one, home insurance. Because for many people it’s your biggest or one of your biggest assets. And of the hundreds of insurance policies I’ve reviewed over the years, I think I’ve seen two or three that had enough insurance. So usually we think of insurance as a per square foot rebuilding cost thing. And most companies, nationwide, insurance companies, regardless of where you live, whether you live in a place in the middle of the country where it might be a little less expensive in terms of labor costs or material costs, whatever they figure it takes something like $350, maybe $400 a square foot to rebuild your house. Well, in reality it’s double that, maybe triple. And that’s not for a fancy ass house It’s a regular house, just a house, you know, a nice house, but nothing super over the top. So figuring out what your coverage is and having your financial advisor and or your insurance person look at it and say, hey, the thing to say to your insurance person is I want to be insured for $800 a square foot or whatever you think is appropriate for your area.

Susan [00:07:07]:

But that’s kind of a good number if you really have no idea. And just say, how much do I need for coverage to get to this place? They’re going to go, you don’t need that. It’ll cost you a lot and they’ll push back. And my person pushed back. When I adjusted my own insurance up, it would actually cost more to rebuild my house than we paid for it two years ago. So when they start saying, oh, but it’s not worth that, or it’s like, well, it’s worth it to you.

Neela [00:07:31]:

Right.

Susan [00:07:32]:

My insurance cost doubled. I don’t care. It’s a really a big asset and so I just feel like it’s so important. So getting that coverage per square foot number to the right place is number one priority, I would say.

Neela [00:07:46]:

Okay.

Susan [00:07:46]:

There’s also loss of use. So some people don’t have. Some states like California require 24 months loss of use. So you have a. You can pay rent somewhere while you’re rebuilding your house, which by the way, you still need to be paying your mortgage on the house that isn’t there. You need that loss of use coverage. And do you have flood or flood water, slash water damage coverage? Do you have sewer backup if you have a public sewer system? I didn’t have that. I won’t tell you the really gross story about we should have had that.

Susan [00:08:19]:

Oops, I thought, I’m so good at this.

Neela [00:08:21]:

It got both gross and expensive.

Susan [00:08:23]:

Yeah. So I think just that insurance thing is the number one thing. And then I mentioned it earlier about taking pictures, but I tell my clients, like, just walk around your house and take video or pictures of everything inside, everything outside, then go through again, open up all the doors and cupboards and do it again.

Mary Beth [00:08:39]:

Yeah.

Susan [00:08:40]:

And you just have that store that in the cloud. Store it on a hard drive somewhere off site, whatever your system is. But that will help you immensely. Work with the insurance company if you have loss.

Neela [00:08:53]:

Okay. So you hit three areas of home insurance. You hit the dwelling coverage. Right. Which is like the big kahuna. You’ve got loss of use, which is your housing is effectively going to double. Right. Because you’ve got this property that you’re paying a mortgage on generally, which is so painful because you’re literally not there.

Neela [00:09:10]:

But you have to pay rent, rent somewhere while that’s happening. And then the third piece is personal property. So the reason that you would be taking a video is to capture all the contents of your home. So that should you have a partial or a total loss, you’re able to kind of remember what you had. And you also can show that to the insurance company to get the full coverage on your personal property.

Susan [00:09:31]:

Exactly. And insurance companies are getting better about not making people do itemized coverage for absolutely everything, down to the last potato peeler. But some of them still do. And if you want 100% of your personal property, you have to prove that you get need first. A hundred percent. Otherwise they’ll give you just say we’ll give you 80%. If you really want 100% of what.

Susan [00:09:51]:

You’re covered for, you have to prove it.

Neela [00:09:53]:

You’re going to work for it.

Susan [00:09:53]:

Pretty easy to prove it if you’ve got pictures.

Neela [00:09:55]:

Do you have a recommendation for how much as a good starting point for personal property?

Susan [00:10:00]:

You know, I don’t. It’s pretty formulaic the way the insurance companies write that coverage. And so if you have more than what they offer you, usually it’s pretty generous. But if you think you have more than what they offer you because you have some valuable items like jewelry or antique rugs or art or things like that antique car, like those are things you need to talk to them about additionally and making sure those are additionally insured. And safes, by the way, fireproof safes. Yeah. Great to have one for security reasons, but some of them just don’t really hold up to the fire.

Mary Beth [00:10:32]:

Yeah, you don’t know, right? You got it. You’re hoping. I always talk to my husband.

Mary Beth [00:10:35]:

How do we know?

Mary Beth [00:10:36]:

Like it said on the box, but like we don’t actually know, do we? And all those documents come with us. Yeah, the stuff that we have in there, I mean that’s the stuff that.

Mary Beth [00:10:44]:

We’re grabbing and taking for the most part.

Mary Beth [00:10:46]:

We’re not like, hey, let’s leave those passports, honey. And you know, that’s the stuff that’s going.

Susan [00:10:49]:

Yeah, that’s a good segue. Evacuation list. So I have a good friend in Altadena who lost her home in the Eaton fire. And she is one of the most organized people I know. She is on it. She had her 15 minute evacuation list, her one hour list in California for fires. Like this is what you need to grab, like the Very essentials. You only have 15 minutes.

Susan [00:11:11]:

You only have an hour. Well, her 15 minute list took her an hour.

Mary Beth [00:11:16]:

Oh.

Susan [00:11:16]:

So that was kind of a role something that she just went, oh, my gosh. I didn’t expect it to take so long. Partly because you’re running around distracted about, oh, what about that thing? And it might be dark, you might have no power and all of that. So making an evacuation list, a couple of them. Like, If I have 15 minutes, if I have an hour, if I have more time than that. Ready.gov has some great lists. So it’s just easy. Just go there, download a list and.

Susan [00:11:43]:

And then make it your own.

Mary Beth [00:11:44]:

Oh, that’s great.

Susan [00:11:45]:

Scribble on it. I just printed mine. I just did that too. And I put mine in a little plastic sleeve thingy and I’m trying to figure out where I can put it. So it’s not really taped to my front door, but kind of sort of. So it’s sort of nearby, like easy to remember where it is.

Mary Beth [00:11:59]:

I will say it was interesting. Just like on the evacuation list. So when we had the fire down here in January, you had the list of all of the essentials. Right. And then you have kids who want to bring 15 stuffed animals. Right. And so then you.

Susan [00:12:10]:

Which might be really important.

Mary Beth [00:12:11]:

Might be really important to them. Right. And so it was just. And we did not have. We had the essentials in our minds, but we didn’t have a list. I mean, this was just. It was so sudden and haphazard and it was. I think that’s like an interesting thing of like parents with young kids too, like, trying to explain to them of like, here’s like the essentials.

Mary Beth [00:12:25]:

Looks at my stuffies and my. Like, these are the things.

Susan [00:12:29]:

That’s ok, yeah. You know, and this is where involving your kids in finance, in a way, it’s like helping them to be mature and take care of themselves and so have them help figure out the 15 minute list.

Mary Beth [00:12:40]:

Yeah, right.

Susan [00:12:41]:

And yeah. If there’s some stuffies on that list. Okay.

Mary Beth [00:12:43]:

Yep.

Susan [00:12:44]:

If they lost everything and you’re trying to parent, like yay.

Mary Beth [00:12:46]:

That’s it.

Mary Beth [00:12:47]:

Yeah.

Susan [00:12:47]:

Keep the favorite blanket or whatever. Same with pets. Like, how are you going to evacuate pets? What if you have a horse? What do you do? You know?

Mary Beth [00:12:54]:

Yeah.

Susan [00:12:54]:

All these things that you have to really consider. You know, in Sonoma county, people have backyard chickens and backyard goats and stuff like. And so it’s kind of sad and hilarious to see what people evacuate in their minivan.

Neela [00:13:06]:

Yeah, right.

Mary Beth [00:13:07]:

Yeah.

Mary Beth [00:13:08]:

How do you prioritize? Like what are you taking?

Susan [00:13:10]:

They’re important. You know, these are family.

Mary Beth [00:13:12]:

Yeah.

Neela [00:13:13]:

Oh, my God. I love the idea of involving the kids in making their own list because I think it also takes a topic that’s very scary. Very scary. For the kids, if they see images, it feels very out of control. And so for them to be involved in this premeditated, like, hey, we’re going to go through our lists, and if it’s got stuffies. I mean, my daughter’s backpack, because we went away for the weekend, we. We thought we were pretty safe, but we just also wanted to get out from an air quality standpoint. My daughter, I kid you not, packed a giant pink tutu and two stuffies.

Neela [00:13:44]:

That was her backpack. It was like, okay, I need, you know, I’ve got, like, jewelry, I’ve got birth certificates. She’s got a tutu. And I was like, that’s what she wanted.

Susan [00:13:54]:

Their tip along those lines is for people with tweens and teens, if that whole take photos of everything is just making you go ugh, they love doing that. Give them the phone and say, here’s your job. And have them go around and take the pictures. And the, you know, kids, I would, I don’t know, 11, 12 and up. They’re probably better at a lot of stuff than we are. So let them do it. Let them. That’s a really great chore to outsource to teens.

Mary Beth [00:14:18]:

That’s a great idea.

Neela [00:14:19]:

What about, like, a family emergency plan? So, as you know, you mentioned some people have, you know, horses, some people have kids. Like, when I look at my situation, I was like, we’ve got a lot of complication. We’ve got three kids at two different schools. We’ve got two dogs. We’ve got jobs in different places, you know, and like you said, you might only have 15 minutes. And so, you know, do you recommend putting a. A plan together? Like, if we only have this much time, who’s going to get this kid? Who’s going to do that? Like, do you kind of delegate that beforehand?

Susan [00:14:49]:

Yeah, I think practicing is really important. So back to the planning thing. I mean, a lot of people in California have a go bag in their car. I finally did that, too, after the fire sniff. It’s a big backpack that I don’ use very often, and it has clothes, food, water, medication, just stuff I might need and a pair of shoes and socks, because what if I’m not wearing walking socks and I. There’s an earthquake and I’m stuck 30 miles away, you know, that’s how I’m going To get home. So just having that go bag in the car and helping people do that and then practicing – practice leaving your house and evacuating, it might mean that you have to find a second exit, you know, and this is again great thing to de stress or take away the fear as a family and feel like they feel empowered. You know, what if the kids are at school and there’s an earthquake? What if both parents are off to meetings an hour from home and they’re going to have to get home not in their car because a bridge fell down or something? How will you communicate? Where will you meet? Practicing having a plan, but also just practicing, you know, in our office.

Susan [00:15:52]:

Probably most people have done this at schools and offices. We evacuated from our office and we met a block down the street at a parking lot pre designated space. Do that with your family and then talk to them about, okay, this is what’s going to happen at school. The school will take care of you till I can come get you safely and you’re only going with me, no one else is picking you up. You know, practice all those talk about those things and so kind of thinking of scenarios that could be happening. What if the grandparents are babysitting when you’re gone? What if, what if, what if. Just think of those and think through and maybe the kids will have. Older kids will have great ideas about how to solve some of those problems and how to communicate.

Susan [00:16:30]:

Typical any kind of event, disaster where all the cell towers may go down in a fire, earthquake, things like that. Having an out of state contact is always recommended. People from California pretty much know this. So but you know, practice that. Call grandma in Oregon. Everyone’s going to call grandma in Oregon and you’re going to memorize her number. So if you’re at school and somebody else can help you, call and say I’m safe or text grandma or whatever it is. Like communicate somehow with an out of state person.

Susan [00:17:00]:

If local networks are so sort of practicing those things. You guys have younger children than I do. So do you have other ideas of what people could do to practice and make this less scary?

Mary Beth [00:17:12]:

I think this is all really great. The only thing I would say, so we have like Brian is designated like emergency person. Like he kind of like leads it. Like there’s a leader in our house who’s responsible for like if there’s an earthquake. Like he’s like here’s the plan. Kind of like talking about like preparedness, like where the fire extinguisher is like directing the kids through, I guess the family through Those things. So having one designated like person to kind of like lead that in the house is helpful. Now as we’re talking I’m like, well obviously if something happens to Brian, he’s not here.

Mary Beth [00:17:39]:

Like I have to step in. You know, there’s, there’s the stepping in but from like the practicing and making sure we know how to evacuate and talking through those things, like that’s where we’ve designated kind of a household leader in those areas.

Neela [00:17:49]:

The only thing I would add to it is not adding to things you can do, but recognizing how long some of this stuff might take. And so when things were really tenuous in the LA situation I was like, I’m pretty sure based on where our house is that we’re like safe. That like if our house is threatened, like LA is gone essentially because we’re just like in a concrete jungle part of la. But I was also like, you know, if things turn it’s going to take a lot to get this whole circus moving. And so I want to be way advanced as much as I can so that we can get three kids, all of their stuff, the dogs and just like the pieces to it. Knowing that like we’re not as nimble as others and so building that time in wherever we could. And again like preparation, preparation, preparation because we’re kind of a big, you know, pair of overalls and it takes a lot to get us moving.

Susan [00:18:42]:

My husband and I once we were impending evacuation and we have a camping trailer. So we hooked his truck up to the trailer. It was all hooked up, ready to drive out. We packed up the stuff in it. We never did evacuate. We could have at a one minute notice. We took all the valuable stuff and we actually didn’t have power in the house. So we sat in the trailer and drank our best bottle of wine.

Susan [00:19:03]:

Then we thought, well if it burns we might as well drink it now. I love it that in the camping trailer just in case. It was a really terrifying. It was a way to de stress that in the evening but feel prepared and just what if we have to go?

Mary Beth [00:19:18]:

You know, I think this is so just on that like the de-stressing.

Mary Beth [00:19:21]:

From the financial aspect, like what’s the

Mary Beth [00:19:23]:

comedown period after this like for those that do experience disaster? Like is there like the costs involved from like a mental health self care? Like I mean not just the, like the logistics but what’s that like?

Susan [00:19:33]:

I mean I think it depends on people’s situations and how well they were prepared. Did they have family support, therapy support, support from professionals, like financial Advisors, insurance agents, things like that, I think the more support you have and the more, you know, your people and your team and your plan, I would imagine that the stress level you could, there’s certainly certain things you control in that stress level thing, but there are some. And I think, I would imagine that helps, but you know, it takes years. The people I’ve talked to who lost their home in Sonoma county, it took years for them a to rebuild like it was three, four years before they moved back in. The idea that you’re just going to have magically your house back in a year is just really rarely the case. There’s two or three houses in Lahaina in Hawaii that have their foundations up now. I mean it’s really, this is a year and a half ago, so. And it’s not like there’s any homes rebuilt yet fully.

Susan [00:20:29]:

So it takes a long time. And so that’s, I think the piece that’s probably, I imagine, is just really rough.

Neela [00:20:36]:

Yeah, it’s, you know, as we talked about, what can we do from an organization standpoint? You know, we’re offering a bunch of pro bono sessions, but we realize that like, like we’re probably not the best equipped to help people in a very acute stage. We’re not able to get them clothing, we’re not able to advise on some areas like that. But we’re really helpful as you’re navigating the insurance process and working with proceeds and making the decision, do I rebuild, do I move? Like that’s where we can be helpful. But you’re almost talking about there’s like a couple of phases. There’s like acute short term, there’s like midterm and there’s long term. And what you mentioned, Mary Beth, like there’s long term impacts to this from a psychology standpoint, from a mental health standpoint. And you need different resources all along the way.

Susan [00:21:21]:

Yeah, your neighborhood’s going to change. Coffee park in Sonoma County burned in 2017. Now when you drive by, all the houses are rebuilt. But I was trying to putting my finger on, you know, just felt like children playing in cars and bikes, you know, felt like a real neighborhood again. And that was in 2017. But there was something funny about it. I was like, oh, all the trees are small, you know, so it’s just a little different. So I was like, wow, I’ll not mature trees because they rebuilt and the homes look great and everything feels like back to normal.

Susan [00:21:52]:

But you know, that’s the kind of time span you’re talking about. For things to feel different. So I think one of you know this, we always talk about this as financial advisors. But one of the things that I think is really important for people to have every person who’s listening to this have an emergency fund. You need six to 12 months of basic living expenses on hand. Everyone does. In a high yield savings account somewhere you can get at it fast. It helps you respond to any unforeseen need.

Susan [00:22:22]:

Your car’s transmission dies, your, you know, whatever. But in an emergency situation you might need immediate money and the insurance company money, some of it’s immediate, some of it trickles in and it, you know, just, you might not be able to do your job for a while for emotional reasons or the place where you worked isn’t there. So having that six to 12 months prevents you from selling things in your investment portfolio that you, you know, really didn’t want to touch. Or worse, having to raid your retirement accounts to respond to an emergency, which people in a fire, an extreme fire situation where they’re underinsured have faced that decision. And so really it’s important to have that emergency funds.

Mary Beth [00:23:05]:

Yeah, I love that you said, you know, six to 12 months as opposed to the, the three that’s you know, generally recommended out there. Six to 12 is definitely more.

Susan [00:23:13]:

Yeah, if you’re self employed that kind of like go towards the 12 month end. Somebody has a super secure jobs. Maybe six is good enough. And that’s just basic. It’s not going to concerts and going out to eat. It’s just basic living. Yeah, living doesn’t have to be huge, you know, include all the optional,

Mary Beth [00:23:29]:

Your trip to Italy for example doesn’t need to be in there.

Neela [00:23:32]:

Yeah, might feel like an emergency, but it’s not. I do want to make sure we hit on preparing your home. I think as stories have started to come out about the LA fires and certain houses that made it. My parents almost lost their house, but one of the reasons they didn’t is that the kind of first house that would have gone did like an amazing job of clearing the brush and kind of getting all this stuff out of the way. So are there other things that you can do to prepare your physical home outside of, I mean, fire extinguishers, that sort of a thing?

Susan [00:24:05]:

Yeah, I mean basic home maintenance, making sure, I mean there’s, there’s lists online by fire experts. I think the absolute gold standard would be to hire somebody to come who specializes in fire preparedness and look at your house and say. And they’re going to tell you hard stuff to hear you’re going to have to take out your tree. It’s touching the house. That tree can’t be there. And even if you implement half the things they talk about, 18 inch or less screen on all vents, most houses burn because embers get into the gutters or the vents. Potentially the chimney can go or single pane windows are in a heat situation, are more likely to break. There’s all kind.

Susan [00:24:44]:

There’s lists of these things. And so having somebody look at it or just going through yourself with an online list of that I think is really important. Those are some of the harder things. Some of them are easy to do and some of them are really like kind of painful. Like, oh, cut away all the bushes that are touching my house. I like those bushes.

Neela [00:25:01]:

Right.

Susan [00:25:02]:

I really like the privacy. So you really have to think through those things. Some of them you have to cooperate with your neighbors on. Because if you do everything you can do and your neighbors didn’t do it, you know, so kind of coordinating with neighbors as possible to deal with. How are we going to deal with this really big tree that hangs over both our house? Let’s talk about it.

Neela [00:25:17]:

And the insurance is going to check. I got a notification from our insurance company. They sent a drone to check on the trees to just make sure. And they were like, there’s a tree issue. And I cut a bunch of trees back and they were like, nope, still an issue. Because there was a tree that was touching like our back shed slightly. So I got rid of like eight trees and they were like, yep, that wasn’t actually the issue. It’s this little one over here.

Neela [00:25:40]:

They were like, something’s wrong with your house and you have to guess what it is.

Mary Beth [00:25:45]:

Sounds about right. Yeah. 

Susan:

I read a lot of things recently that insurance companies are going to start doing inspections. They’re going to require, like, if you have water and flood damage insurance coverage, then you’re going to have to have a leak detection system that kind of. Which cost $1,000. So stuff like that, it’s more and more.

Neela [00:26:01]:

Yeah.

Susan [00:26:02]:

But you know, I think one last thing I wanted to touch on was just also adding to your list of stuff to do. But it’s getting organized and having good cybersecurity habits can really help you in an emergency. So having electronic files rather than paper, like if you’re getting your whatever your Schwab or Vanguard statements, you know, by paper every month, that’s a cybersecurity issue. Mail gets lost, stuff happens. Get them online, you’ll have less of that stuff you need to worry about grabbing if everything’s online, pay electronically instead of checks. Some of this doesn’t sound like, wait, how is this disaster related? But just having good hygiene around your practices and how you pay your bills, how you keep your records, getting rid of as much paper stuff as you can so that if you lose stuff, use a password manager. Because you know, if you have your password list under your keyboard and your house is destroyed, oops, that’s going to just add a layer of to your life.

Susan [00:27:00]:

So having those kind of good things in place, we can maybe we can link it to the blog, but the we have this, the PDF called My Financial Life in a Binder. It can be a physical binder or it can be like a virtual folder where you just have kind of like a copy of every bill, copy of every statement, a copy of every credit card. You know, just so if something happened to you temporarily and you’re asked to figure stuff out, they can do it. You know where everything is and it’s either a easy to grab or easy to find online so that you just feel organized because your life after disaster is going to have very little sense of organization and so the more things that you aren’t fighting. The friend who said her 15 minute list took an hour, she said, I left the house with my laptop, I left the house with my phone, I forgot all the chargers. Now could she go out and buy chargers? Of course she could. Was that really how she wanted to spend her time the first few days of just living in a hotel? And so just, you know, really thinking through your, your list, your plan. And again, all of this seems like kind of overwhelming when you’re trying to do it all.

Susan [00:28:05]:

But yeah, tackle it bit at a time.

Neela [00:28:08]:

So to maybe summarize, Susan said you could just pick one to start, right? Susan said of those things, we’ve got, take a look at your insurance, make sure you have the right coverage. Two, take a video of the contents of your home. Three, generally get organized, create a plan, make sure you have good digital hygiene, practice whatever you just determine, but basically just generally get organized and plan in advance. How’s that sound?

Mary Beth [00:28:34]:

And number four was have an emergency fund.

Neela [00:28:36]:

And an emergency fund, start building that. Yeah.

Mary Beth [00:28:38]:

Anything else?

Susan [00:28:39]:

Well, I love that you said Mary Beth at the beginning about hopefully we do all this stuff and we never need it. Yeah, it’s like the old, you know, that adage of, well, if you bring your umbrella, it won’t rain. So I think it will give you peace of mind that if you did have to deal with this kind of situation, you’re more prepared. But yeah, if you’re superstitious, maybe just doing some of these things will make it so nothing bad happens.

Mary Beth [00:29:00]:

There you go.

Neela [00:29:01]:

Control is an illusion, but feeling like you have a tiny bit of control in a crappy situation can go a long way.

Mary Beth [00:29:08]:

Totally agree.

Neela [00:29:09]:

Yeah.

Mary Beth [00:29:10]:

Thank you Susan.

Neela [00:29:11]:

Thank you Susan. So helpful.

Susan [00:29:12]:

You’re so welcome.

Mary Beth [00:29:13]:

I’ve got my list.

Neela [00:29:14]:

I know, me too.

Neela [00:29:16]:

I’ve got my work to do. I’m taking tomorrow off. Bye. Good idea. Thank you for joining us for another episode of if Money Were Easy. We hope you’re walking away with some fresh insights, maybe some inspiration and some ideas to apply to your finances, life, etc.

Mary Beth [00:29:32]:

If you’re excited about these conversations, we would love for you to follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and YouTube.

Mary Beth [00:29:40]:

It’s one of the best ways for.

Mary Beth [00:29:41]:

You to support the show and that way you will never miss the latest from us.

Neela [00:29:44]:

We’re also turning if Money Were Easy into a community and we’d love your help building support. So leave us a review. Share your favorite episode with a friend and we’d be super grateful.

Mary Beth [00:29:54]:

We are also launching a newsletter. There you will get the episode updates, behind the scenes content, all of the bloopers from Neela and I and what we are reading, watching and listening. You will find the sign up link in our profiles.

Neela [00:30:08]:

Please connect with us on Instagram. We’re @marybstorj and @neelahummelcfp.

Mary Beth [00:30:14]:

Thanks so much.

Neela [00:30:15]:

Thank you.

Mary Beth [00:30:17]:

Abacus Wealth Partners is an SEC Registered Investment Advisor. SEC registration does not constitute an endorsement of Abacus Wealth Partners by the sec, nor does it indicate that Abacus Wealth Partners has attained a particular level of skill or ability. This material, prepared by Abacus Wealth Partners, is for informational purposes only. It is not intended to serve as a substitute for personalized investment advice or as a recommendation or solicitation of any particular security strategy or investment product. Opinions expressed by Abacus Wealth Partners are based on economic or market conditions at the time this material was written. Facts presented have been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Abacus Wealth Partners, however, cannot guarantee the accuracy or completeness of such information, and certain information presented here may have been condensed or summarized from its original source. Abacus Wealth Partners does not provide tax or legal advice, and nothing contained in these materials should be taken as tax or legal advice.

Mary Beth [00:31:11]:

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