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I'm a Minnesota Girl, living in the south. I tell my friends I try not to talk and think like a Yankee, but sometimes I slip up!

Saturday, January 31, 2009

Uninsured... What to Do?




It's February (almost), but I'm just now putting together a personal budget for 2009. The times, they are a'changin', and I want to be in a more secure financial position than my someone "spendiness" has often left me.


One of the things I was contemplating was renters' insurance. I'll still look into it next week, but we did have a devastating corporate wrinkle this week:


~~~~~~~~~~


State Farm Insurance withdrawing from Florida property market


1.2 million will be forced to find property insurance somewhere else. A hurricane? No. State Farm applied to hike its property insurance rates by 47% and Tallahassee turned them down.


~~~~~~~~~~


Sigh.

I was revisiting why in the heck I ever dropped my renter's insurance, which I'd obtained, like a good independent woman, when I got my first post-divorce apartment in 2004. Looking back, I stumbled across this entry I made for a couple of internet sites. It answered the question of why, gave me a good laugh in thinking about my second ramshackle single-girl abode, and came complete with one of the favorite poems I'd written. Here it is:




Uninsured, but I have untold wealth in family pictures...Jun 24 '06


OK, so I'm renting now. A small house, 2 bedroom, charming, 25 years old and a little the worse for wear. Yard is the worst in the neighborhood. Landlords (friends of mine, never rent from friends) are do-it-yourselfers. A small twist of wire will make the air conditioner work again, that decrepit old water heater will still work if we put a doohickey on it and turn the temperature down. That 60 foot dying tree...we'll cut it down one of these weekends, I'm sure we'll get to it before hurricane season.


As I begin my second year in my snug little nest, I've been billed a scandalous amount for renters insurance. The cost went up 300%. That's 300%. I could shop around, but I'm not a veteran and USAA is the only reasonably priced game in town. Everyone else feels the backlash of hurricanes, whether you own, whether you rent. I decided not to afford the insurance. My worldly possessions are more of comfort than expense.


I have located all of the boxes of photographs on the highest shelf....and they will be easy to load into the back seat of the car if I need to run for it. Many of the most precious have been scanned onto a share website, so I will never lose them, no matter what. And while I was at, it I recalled a poem from last year...


A Walk Through the Photographs


A task I dread and yet as I wander

Through the pictures of our lives

Now a birthday, now a trip to a place unknown…

Some unfocused, some duplicates

Some that make me laugh

Some that make me remember

What we all were, our family.
~


I try not to take the best of moments for myself

As I go through the albums and boxes

The record of those years
Some happier than others

Some years of change

Some years of sorrow and loss

The memories, the days of our growth.
~


I can’t help but smile and yearn

For the ability to travel through time

To recapture what once was and yet…

Some things are best left undone

Sometimes nothing seems to hold as much joy as

Some of what we all have now.
~


And so, I spend a moment giving thanks.

For all that we experienced, for all that it meant

And still means…for the texture of those times

For the four of us and the four of us

Some still here and living life

Some just a fond memory

Some the very fiber of my existence

Now, and until the end of time.
~


Photographs just don’t do it justice.


~ quidrock, 2005
That's Andrea and Tom, with Snuffy... 1992

6 comments:

Kelly said...

Love the picture AND the poem!!

Pam said...

Same here....picture and poem! The kids are adorable! I can almost guess the decade. I have similar photos among my many packed away photos.

One thing I always kept when renting was my renter's insurance. I had a horror of something happening and losing everything due to another person's stupidity. This was especially true when I lived in apartments.

These are lean and scary times around here, too.

MarionL said...

Great poem, Lynne. You're right---our true treasures have nothing to do with money.

That picture is adorable. You have beautiful children. I guess we're all in the same boat, fiscally. Ray and I were figuring up our assets for his Medicare and I told him....we're rich! Ha! It's all on paper, though, and won't pay the house insurance, which like yours, keeps going up and up. I hate that about your renter's insurance. It's a catch-22 for everyone.

I gave up peanut butter because of the salmonella scare and my jelly sandwich is lonely!!! I just thank God we're all hanging in and holding on. Hugs and Encouragement from the swamps...

quid said...

I hung in there with my peanut butter, ML. All of the snack foods using peanut butter are suspect, but the big PB companies did not use the "second run" peanut butter for their main product. Theirs are all right. Peanut butter is an important part of a diabetic's diet; but you have to be careful of WHAT you buy. It has to be one of the "natural" types. Skippy natural is pretty good at only 6 carbs and 7g of protein. The best high quality brand I've found is Smart Balance Omega, with is all natual, has Omega-3 from flax oil, no trans fats, only 5g of carbs and 8grams of protein. Good for folks with gluten or lactose intolerance, and also vegetarians or vegans.

I hate to see you with only jelly. I may send you a jar from my "stash". Love, Q

Debby said...

Lean and scary times everywhere, it seems like.

Marion L! Make your own peanut butter. It is easy as making a peanut butter/jelly sandwich.

Go to: http://kidshealth.org/kid/recipes/recipes/peanut_butter.html

Debby said...

Don't know why it 'cut off'. I'll try again.

kidshealth.org/kid/recipes/recipes/peanut_butter.html