Today is Friday, Good Friday actually … which is a Holiday for most public offices and Capital Markets…
Our office is closed as well!
Happy Friday and Good Friday!
John A. Kvale CFA, CFP
Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.
A Dallas Texas based fee only
Financial Planning Total Wealth
Management firm.
Knowing your credit score and your credit report has become increasingly important. With updates in technology and increases of consumer related fraud, we all need to keep an eye on our credit and our credit score for protection.
While you may not owe anyone, anything i.e. have a loan with anyone … well done by the way….. A bad credit score can still affect items such as your automobile and your homeowners premiums… no kidding (see this Forbes article.) We cannot blame them, there is data to check and it is their responsibility and ability to review it.
Bottom line a bad credit score or report may be costing you more money.
After you get your score, you may want to get a detailed copy of your credit report. Go to www.annualcreditreport.com, which is a free service offered for your own protection by the three agencies. There are tons of sites out there that are not free and try to seduce you into paying an unnecessary monthly fee, this site has been checked and is safe.
You may request all three services or just use one and keep the other two available at a later time. This may be handy as you only get one free report per agency per year. If you stagger the reports you can inquire at different times, keep later dates open for inquiry.
If your report is good, there is likely no reason to get more than one agency report. If your report has deficiencies you may protest from the site as it is reported.
Taking time to review your credit and credit score is easy and may save you angst and money!
Have a great “Safe Credit” day!
John A. Kvale CFA, CFP
Posted in Investing/Financial Planning, John Kvale, Personal, Why
Tagged annualcreditreport.com, credit, credit score
In a “You Cannot Make This Up Moment” those followers that noticed our challenging week last week, including the actual sighting of a exploding pipe in real time as mentioned here… when Temperatures touched low single digits and wind chills went well into the negative territory … an update! Only in Texas!
Knowing a great number of you do not live in Texas – so neat we can all communicate easily together…digressing…….
Last weeks Winter’s cold not only froze the afore mentioned pipe, but several others also in the building AND our Air Conditioner which resides on the roof ….which is to be completely replaced tomorrow… Huge Crane alert to move the unit from ground to top of building…
Without an Air Conditioner, there was no where to hide on Tuesday and especially Wednesday when temperatures hit 80 degrees…
Yes, so a low single digit temperature froze the Air Conditioner only to be followed by high 70 and low a-80’s in less than a week!
In a way funny…. Hope you enjoyed!
Have a Great Friday and Super Weekend!
John A. Kvale CFA, CFP
Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.
A Dallas Texas based fee only
Financial Planning Total Wealth
Management firm.
While at the Perot Museum putting the final details on our November 14th upcoming event … this text hit Jen’s Cell …
Water is leaking in the kitchen and has covered the rug ….
followed shortly by…
Building people are here and have stopped the leak ….
Not even knowing each suite at our building had a small water heater for hot water, we were surprised to find our little friend had given up existence after what seems to be several decades of light use at most:
Just by coincidence we were reviewing our Insurance Coverage as the annual bill was in our hands for payment, AND the Perot Museum was asking for coverage as well.
In knee jerk reaction …NOT thinking of our own earlier-written article (see following) the phone number to the insurance company was found, but never dialed…. thankfully …
For the record, we are paying out of our own pocket, a very reasonable rate to have the baby water heater replaced as it is mandated by our lease, but we never created a CLUE report…
Original Post – See Below:
A few years back, Credit.com came to us and asked to write articles occasionally. With good feelings and spreading the better Financial Planning word in mind, we accepted and our first article hit the printers. The following is from the original post here at Street-cents.com AFTER the article had run in the appropriate channels.
On Monday, August 3, USA Today ran our Insurance claim related article… that originated from YOU, the best friends and clients in the world.
After originally being published by credit.com and having ABC News run our article, we thought surely we were done … Nope…
Thanks USA Today, we enjoy your publication very much … even more now!
One of the main reasons for having insurance is to offset risk, especially major risks and losses. We pay many insurance premiums throughout our lives to various carriers for a multitude of different risks. When a possible claim occurs, an initial thought might be “I am finally cashing in on some of those premiums!”
Not only do you want to strategize before filing your possible claim, you might want to hold off on even calling your insurance company. The premiums paid in our lifetimes reflect an amortization of the possibility of the risk occurring. The greater the risk, the greater the premium. If you are a constant “claimer,” your premiums will reflect this.
Various carriers have been known to treat calls as a claim without the insured’s knowledge. Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange, CLUE, is a database that keeps records of claims. LexisNexis offers a handy service that allows easy research of five years of claims data. It is a terrific service as a buyer but not a database you want to land on accidentally from an inquisitive phone call.
The easiest defense against this problem is to know your coverages and your deductible amounts. With the knowledge of what your insurance covers and the amount (i.e. ring, roof or fender) you are armed with the power to make your own decisions and not put yourself in a possible accidental or unworthy claim.
Speaking of deductibles, if at all possible, carrying a high deductible will likely save you money over the long term. Most insurances can be looked at as a defense for a major event. Not reaching to your insurance to cover minor or lower cost repairs or replacements is a terrific defense against higher long term premiums. If you are a claimer with lower deductibles, it is highly likely you will have higher than necessary premiums in your lifetime. One important planning tip is that it is critical to have adequate emergency funds available to cover all of your deductibles.
The easiest example is a car accident that is just barely over your deductible. It is likely that a $1,500 or even $2,000 claim against a deductible of $1,000, through eventual higher insurance premiums, may quickly turn your claim into a negative financial transaction over the longer period of time. Thinking of your premiums again as an amortization of your claims will help you in determining if you should file a claim or not.
Filing a claim against an asset that has been depreciated in coverage to a small dollar amount may not only hit your CLUE report but could also result in higher immediate premiums, plus put you on the list for being dropped should you have several other claims in a short period of time. If you are dropped by a carrier, your new carrier with this knowledge may adjust your NEW premiums accordingly, as a higher risk. Not all carriers will even offer coverage to someone who has been dropped. That’s another reason to think twice before filing that claim.
Your cherished ring was lost accidentally. Your deductible is $1,000 and you think the ring is worth $3,000 but you have not had it appraised, was not itemized on your policy and have no way of proving the value. It is highly likely you will get little, if any, by claiming this loss and your file will be marked with a claim.
Automobile accidents that involve an injury, personal liability or severe damage to another vehicle, even though your car was not harmed are cause to pick up the phone and bring your insurance company up to speed with the situation. Tell your story first, directly to your carrier, in order to protect yourself and arm your carrier with as much information to help defend in the situation.
Catastrophic damage to your asset is clearly cause for notification and in most cases, the sooner the better. Major geographic damage often causes a large backlog of claims all at once, making it better to be at the front of the line.
Lastly, another money saving tip, if you decide to pay out of your pocket for your repair or replacement, be sure to let the service company know this. There are often different prices for insurance related and out of pocket services.
Have a great “No CLUE Report” Day !
John A. Kvale CFA, CFP
What follows is a personal story from the week!
The small things in life, like running water are frequently taken for granted…. at least in our homestead….
Monday morning at 9 am, the running water at the Kvale homestead suddenly gave up the ghost and froze! Been living in the same place for 20 years, first time ever ….. Home built in 1928, not its first rodeo, but fingers crossed for strong pipes and no unwanted sprinkles.
Break In – Water back on at noon yesterday! No leaks so far!
Thankfully the Electricity at the house never missed a beat… so far.
With power grids going down across the city, the decision was made to head over to relative’s for a water break, from there just a short walk to the office to check things out and power down all the equipment…
With the 16 year old’s dog in tow on a leash … as we entered the very empty building (we were the only ones there) the noise coming from the building became clear …
“Please exit the building, do not take the elevator!”
Just as the Brain is processing this repeating message, two of the sprinkler covers in the front lobby portion of the the building, blow off … crash to the floor … garnering our collective attention followed by what sounded like and explosion as the sprinkler pipe about 10 feet away let go …
Here is a carefully taken picture:
Building manager probably does not appreciate this, so shhh don’t tell anyone!
The reason “Carefully” was mentioned above when taking the picture, just to the left – out of the picture area, where the water is seeping, is the entire building electrical closet….. water and electricity really work well together….
For the record, a frantic call was made to the building manager who originally thought the break was “Outside” the first floor due to a spotty cell connection… cannot make this up… third call after being disconnected…
No this is inside the lobby, but only on the first floor lobby area and not in the bank also on the first floor!
About 20 minutes later, an engineer shows up and we wait, again just trying to get to our floor to shut down important electrical devises from experiencing rolling electrical outages….
Help is on the way, will be there in 15!
30 minutes later, help is again on the way will be here in 15…
Dog picked up by relatives! She was freezing…
Let’s check the emergency stairwell closest to our office and on the opposite side of the leak….. looks great but there is ANOTHER small leak that is squirting across the exit near the office emergency door…. of course freezing almost immediately….
Around 5 pm, the engineer, a buddy at the office and myself agree the farthest elevator from the still spewing water pipe would be safe to go up 5 and 6 floors…. Finally, the machines will be safely shut down….
Office door open, the shutdown commences…. but not fast enough…
Entire three block grid goes down…. and it is Dark Dark…back up generator for office had already exhausted all gasoline from earlier black out…
All machines on battery back up commence beeping, of course no monitors are plugged into the battery back up…
Two desktops softly shut down, server goes down on its own due to a battery backup system… luckily…
Deep breath, time to head down the emergency stairwell… again, pitch dark… very Poltergeist feeling…
With only cell phone light in hand…. a slow walk turned into a faster and even slow run as the creepiness increased !
Emergency door in sight on bottom floor, the sprinkle is felt from the smaller leak… slip slide to the exit and boom the light from outside….
Today we intend to turn our machines back on if the Electricity stabilizes…. yesterday was still sputtering….
Next week we talk interest rates… but thought you might appreciate the adventures from the week! Thanks again for all the well wishes…much appreciated!
John A. Kvale CFA, CFP
Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.
A Dallas Texas based fee only
Financial Planning Total Wealth
Management firm.
This time of the year garners, new years resolutions, new goals, and all kinds of wonderful ideas for improvement in ourselves ….
Over the years, we have used huge, almost unlimited goals (you can insert New Year’s Resolutions here if you want) worksheets, templates, questionnaires and the like… only to be disappointed in short order, because they were so overwhelming, we couldn’t possibly meet the challenge….
KISS – Keep it Simple Silly
Shhh, don’t tell anyone, we have found a simple secret that has been working for us ….
Everyone at the office and the homestead have to participate… yes even the 13 year old…
So simple, but effective…
Tell me the at least three items you are most proud of in the past year and at least three that need improvements…
At the office we do a professional and personal version… do as many as you like, but the simplicity and positive tone seems to give it legs… at least for us!
Have a Great “Easy Goal Setting” Day!
John A. Kvale CFA, CFP
Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.
A Dallas Texas based fee only
Financial Planning Total Wealth
Management firm.
These observations, collected throughout the year … were intended for Wednesday of this week, but with the new Stimulus Bill being approved, and action items associated with it, that post took precedent and these were moved to today…. making for a heavier post than intended.
We wanted to get them to you before we get too far from last year.
Our hair, when uncut, gets very fluffy
Negative information is much easier to find than positive
Extended mask wearing can cause the ears to hurt
On-line school sounds fun and cool, but can be REALLY hard for many
Confinement causes the days of the week to blur
We are people that like to interact with other people
Still don’t understand the rush to Toilet paper
While technology is great, it doesn’t replace human personal service and touch
My hearing is not near as good and I thought
Casual is more casual now (Happily!)
Capital Markets can move faster than previously thought
I like seeing people’s smile’s
A big hug from a friend is irreplaceable
Fear and greed can change fast
I like traveling, especially by plane
A small house can feel really small when everyone is confined to it
Pets are one of the biggest beneficiary of lockdowns
It’s fun to not shave every day
The office doesn’t have to be that big
Outdoor chairs are invaluable
Slowing down and embracing and enjoying the moment is very rewarding
Getting away on vacation or the like helps relieve stress
Masks are like socks – the either disappear or congregate all together- but not in your car, where you really need them
Sweats can be dressy too
Big flatscreen TVs can be invaluable
I read lips a lot more than I thought
Baseball hats hide disorder
Even after months of mandatory mask wearing, you will still forget and have to walk back to the car
You really can do a lot of different exercises with dumb bells and a soft floor
A good Laptop is invaluable
Thank goodness for streaming services
Going out to eat at a Restaurant is more fun than we thought
There you have it…. thoughts collected in 2020 – So long year!
Have a Great “Thoughts from the Year” Day and Happy New Year!
John A. Kvale CFA, CFP
Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.
A Dallas Texas based fee only
Financial Planning Total Wealth
Management firm.
During the down time of the Holiday Season we begin our annual “Cleaning” of the Inbox…
The key is persistency, as many emails are not easily cancelled… frequently it takes more than one and up to five tries…
Give it a try, you will be very surprised at how fast you can knock those pesky (especially the daily ones) emails down!
We are happy to report that this technique is working much better this year, than in years past … and from our sample size has a better than 50% work rate!
You can first try with the Cell “Unsubscribe” button shown on the screen shot below… this resides at the top of your email in many cases is by far the fastest way to attempt the cancel….
After the first week, you should be down to those pesky ones that do not work the easy way… so on to step two…
Again, using our sample size we find that about 90% of the remaining emails have an “unsubscribe” link at the very bottom of the email…
Be very careful when using this technique as this technique usually involves a second pop up window from the source, and it is super easy to opt into all emails from the source rather than removing you from the list…
Some sources mandate you tell them why you are removing yourself from the list or the request will not be accepted…
Some even mandate you hand type something, usually just a correct word like “The” or “And” will do the trick…
So now you should be down to the rag tags of the really pesky recurring emails…
With the last few, we recommend you move from the cell to a regular PC, not an IPad, as the cell features are very similar to the IPad features due to similar operating systems….
On the last step, with a regular PC you will most likely need to click “More” which opens your browser from the email and then let the hunt begin…. We find that somewhere, usually way at the bottom of the page there will be a “Preferences” button, that will then open ANOTHER window that you can finally remove yourself from future emails.
While we crowed about the wonderful virtual summits (rather than travels across the country and weeks out of the office) that provided tons of data for our Newsletters, blog posts here, and some awesome slide decks for future use… a small downside was our email addresses were shared.
Somewhere in the fine print, we likely agreed… but this year’s “Unsubscribe” two week venture is paying greater dividends than in years past….
Hopefully you will have as much luck as we have and you find less unwanted emails than before you started your endeavors…
Remember not too long ago when you said to yourself “Oh look, I have a new email!”
Not anymore!!!!
Have a Great “Leaner In Box” Day!
John A. Kvale. CFA, CFP
Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.
A Dallas Texas based fee only
Financial Planning Total Wealth
Management firm.
Happy Holidays, Seasons Greetings, Be Well, Be Safe!
John Kvale
Posted in Donald Capone, Jen Hill, John Kvale, Personal
Tagged 2020, Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Pam Kvale, Pierce Kvale, Sophia Kvale
Over the next two weeks, with staggered schedules, our office, which our building manager is still continuing to ask us not to have guests, will be open sporadically. We will collectively be working remotely or out of the office on various family holiday getaways.
Donald “The Brain” is happily in a warmer climate near water, loosely connected to the office for some much needed and much earned R&R this week after a full spring, summer, and fall, of lock downs.
My time actually occurs next week after Christmas and through New Year’s.
Jen will be in and out remotely connected with a few official bookend days for holidays and long weekends throughout the next two weeks.
One big positive of the events of this year is the ease of pivot to remote for all of us!
While in recent years we’ve seen this agreement violated, look no further than some of the sharp drop offs during this time just a year ago, generally there is an unwritten gentleman‘s agreement to “do no harm” during this time of the year. Meaning capital markets usually do not trade upward or downward in dramatic fashion throughout the remainder of the year.
Under normal circumstances the next two weeks, partial trading weeks …with closures on each Friday and half a day before the holiday trading would be BORING and very low volume….trying not to jinx ourselves here!
With a newsletter chocked full of great Financial Planning, Income Tax, and Personal reminders, and being non-market related, the Newsletter is complete and we hope to have it to you during the holidays for some possible fun reading that you may have during down time.
We think it came out fantastic, and tribute the great bulk of subject matter to you guys for the experiences, reminders, and techniques that we did this year.
Our posts here at Street-Cents will likely not be as regular and much lighter over the next two weeks as well!
Remember, as mentioned here in this urgent reminder post, Financial Institutions in every area of service are greatly overloaded for some reason this year, and as such MONEY IS MOVING SLOW…. do not wait until the last minute for a Financial Transaction, especially if it is personal!
Happy Holidays, Be Well, Be Safe, and Happy New Years!
John A. Kvale CFA, CFP
Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.
A Dallas Texas based fee only
Financial Planning Total Wealth
Management firm.
