Anyone have opinions on pet insurance?

My two daschunds are 2 years old, and I don’t have pet insurance. I do have a little emergency fund, and set aside money every 2 weeks to plump it up. My reasoning is that I’ve heard too many horror stories about insurance companies not coming through – negating the claim – and I don’t want to pay into something that may not pay out when I need it!

Plus, daschunds are prone to back problems, and I suspect insurance companies don’t cover this particular issue.

So I’ve been putting money into a savings account instead.

Recently though, a client told me how much she wished she’d had insurance for a multiple-thousand dollar surgery.   Now I’m second guessing my decision.

Anyone have experience with pet insurance? Good? Bad?  Should I get it?

Last night at 18:30, I heard 7 shots. The last time I heard that sound was 2am on a Sunday morning.  I went back to sleep, thinking I’d been dreaming, and later discovered an innocent 19 year old woman had been shot while trying to stop a fight outside the nightclub a half-block away from me.

So I knew what I was hearing last night.

I flipped off all the lights, and crept onto my balcony to see what was going on. Just like we hear about in the news, people simply kept walking by. I don’t think it’s because they were horrible people, but rather, innocent, and it didn’t occur to them that those ‘pow pow pow’s’ really were gunshots.

Within 8 minutes, cop cars were everywhere. I mean: Everywhere.

I threw on a coat and ran outside.

Just down the street the police were setting up police tape – I got there soon enough that I was inside the tape, but I hung far back from the scene.

The scene:

Very nice looking beige van, parked.

Passenger door wide open.

Man (middle aged? caucasian? slightly overweight?) lying dead, face up, on the sidewalk, feet by the passenger door. Blood soaked all over the right side of his chest.

Women with blood on her coat too, weeping.

It was a ‘targetted’ killing. Presumably, he owed drug money.

I ‘get’ why people become addicts, and how that would totally trash a life.

But I don’t really ‘get’ why people become drug dealers — most of the dealers barely earn minimum wage. Then as you survive it for a while and maybe move up — you can buy a van, I guess, and maybe a reasonably nice home? But the price of participating in the ‘industry’ must be so apparent: chronically hiding from the law, the complexity of laundering the money, and the constant fear for your life.

Christ once asked the piercing question: What does it profit you, if you gain the whole world, but lose your own soul?

I just wonder. Why did that man get into the business? Did he get caught into it? Or was he attracted by … by what?

…and a bonus Friday Fun for today: Since it’s Valentine’s week, here’s the fun history of the FreeHugCampaign.

(it beats the bed-ins of the ’60′s don’t ya think?)

Estate Planning

Peter was a single, ugly, pot bellied 45 years old guy living at home
with his father and working in the family business.

When he found out he was going to inherit a fortune when his sickly
father died, he decided he needed a wife with whom to share his fortune.

One evening at an estate planning & investment meeting he spotted the
most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

Her natural beauty took his breath away. “I may look like just an
ordinary man,” he said to her, “but in just a few years, my father will
die, and I’ll inherit 20 million dollars.”

Impressed, the woman obtained his home phone number and three days
later, she became his stepmother.

Women are so much better at estate planning than men.

We all know that loving money isn’t generally a good thing (did anyone else watch cbc’s JPOD episode featuring the woman on the bed… with loads of money…?) but:

Do you LIKE your money?

Here are 3 hot tips to enhance your relationship with your money.

1. Let go of the past. Whatever has gone on for you ’til now no longer matters. Forgive yourself for mistakes you’ve made, forgive your money for not being there for you (said mostly tongue in cheek, but also, sometimes we really do need to forgive life for letting us down) and start your relationship afresh. Believe it can be better for you. Trust yourself again.

2. See your money with fresh eyes. What do you think of money? For years, I ignored it as a necessary evil. Then I begrudgingly acknowledged that money was amoral. Now, I see it this way: money is a powerful energy with which I can nourish myself and the people I love, and bless the world around me. See how that would alter how I behave with my money?

3. Spend time together. Not spending it (although there’s a time to let spending thrill you, for sure), but getting acquainted with it:

• what turns your money on? what makes it work?

• does size matter? how much do you have? how much do you want? how much do you need?

• is it staying home with you, or going places you don’t really know?

Get intimate with your money! After all, you’re in it for life together.

Happy Valentine’s to you, and if you have secrets about a happy, healthy relationship with money, leave a comment for us!