House Insurance

Our House insurance yearly fee is coming up. Which we have been saving for. It hit me the other day that we have added on to our house but haven't increased the insurance. So I called our state farm agent, and he came out and measured the house.

Last year we had replacement cost insurance and it was to the value of $115,000. It had a $500 deductible and its annual fee was $700 dollars. After he measured the house, the replacement cost was either $220,000 or $236,000, using two different calculation methods. I told the insurance agent to use the $220,000. The increase in the replacement cost caused the annual fee to go up to $1,500. Luckily I remembered the insurance lesson in Financial peace university. More risk equals lower payment.

So I asked how much would the payment be it we raised the deductible to $1000. With a higher deductible the annual fee was only $915. This was definitely a winner. In the first year, if there are no claims, I'll be money ahead.

In the end, my house now has double the insurance amount and it only raised my annual fee $215 dollars.

An April to remember

Well April is over, and it was the highest income month of all. Mostly due to annual bonus and selling my Harley. Our expenses weren't as bad as we thought they'd be. The SUV repair and my son's braces were both less than we expected. Thank god!

We also had my wife's and my son's birthdays. But with our "Gift" Envelope (for birthdays and Christmas) we had more than enough money for both their birthday presents. Two birthdays in the same month, and it wasn't an emergency. All of this saving has really lowered the stress in our household. Just having the money when we need it has given me financial peace.

Overall, for the month of April, we did a lot of saving and paying off debt. We were able to save back a large amount of money for home improvement and future car repairs. We also paid an extra $3936.27 on our debt, and our first debt was paid off. This was definitely our best month yet.