Center for Excellent Living
Holistic Living: Family & Finance Coaching and Quality LifestyleAn Excellent Life is a Healthy Life!
** Friday is Healthy Living Day **
My husband and I have always enjoyed growing our own food. We’ve been blessed with enough land in an area where we can raise our own beef, pork, and eggs. Our freezers are full of meat right now, the chickens went to a friend when we were doing some home construction, and during that time the garden went dormant.
This year were revitalizing everything. Without livestock, the pasture has to be mown, so were consider
ing sheep in the spring to maintain the pasture. The original chicken coop had turned into a garden shed, so we’ve just finished building a new one is mobile. (Move it around and fertilize the lawn for free!) The garden has turned into a Square Foot Garden and has doubled in size. Finally, we’ve just taken on the project of building a “barrelponic” system; a surprisingly simple process for creating a self-contained ecosystem that provides fresh fish to eat and uses the fish water to hydroponically and aquaponically grow garden vegetables.
All hail the garden!
The benefits of raising your own food can’t be understated. While the cost is not much different than that of the grocery store after you consider labor, materials, and supplies; the flavor and quality are unsurpassed. We don’t fear salmonella, E. coli or over-processing. We know what a tomato really tastes like. We know that our food is organic and as nutritious as food can be.
While most people can’t and probably shouldn’t raise their own cattle or pigs, most people with a yard can grow food in the garden. A basic barrelponic system takes less than six feet square (36sf) and can provide all the fish and your primary vegetables, without having to worry about fertilizer, soil, or weeds. Put it inside of a simple tarp greenhouse, and it can sustain you all year. The cost can run less than $100 if you’re good scavenger, and $200 if you buy the materials to build it yourself. Of course you can spend more for pre-built systems, if you want.
Are you wanting something simpler to start with? Start a traditional garden. I strongly recommend raised beds using the Square Foot Garden technique. While more expensive to start up, it’s nearly cost and maintenance free. A basic square foot garden takes only four feet square (16sf)!
Excuses, excuses!
I’ve heard many people say that they barely have time to go to the grocery store let alone garden. Yet they spend much of their time and money running children to sports and enrichment programs. Quite often they spend many hours in front of the TV. Consider this: a wholesome life feeds children well, both physically and environmentally, and most of what’s on TV does quite the opposite! Even the educational programs use passive learning, which is always inferior to active (participatory) learning. Gardening build skills, teaches children that successes come after failures, teaches them patience, and creates permanent memories of success for your children. Oh, by the way, it does the same for adults!
Get a move on!
It’s winter now and here in the Arizona desert the weather’s wonderful and we have an active garden growing. But in most parts of the states it’s anything but gardening season. This is the perfect time to plan for spring! Research options, decide what’s best for you and your family, and take on the challenge! Grow your own and enjoy the fruits of your labor, literally!
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Links
Hydroponics (growing plants in water)
Aquaponics (growing plants in water, using fish water for nutrients)
Barrelponics (an aquaponic system using 55 gal barrels)
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Verses
Ecclesiastes 5:18 Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given him, for this is his lot (reward).
Consider this: There’s a reason the metaphor about bearing fruit is so prevalent in the Bible. A garden is a great way to teach children about God’s desire for our lives.
Square Foot Gardening
Whole Life vs Term Life Insurance
Life insurance is confusing!
We know we should have life insurance because we want our dependents to be protected should we die. We get inundated with ads for special insurance programs telling us how we must, as responsible people, insure ourselves. We hear terms like, “whole life,” “term life,”and “cash value life.” What does it all mean, and what choice is best? 
Whole life, aka cash value, is a low-interest savings account. It continues until you die or cash out. If you die, it pays out a set amount to your beneficiaries, sometimes with a little interest, and you lose your investment. If you cash out, you get your principle back plus a little interest. I say “a little interest” because these policies typically pay interest that is less than the inflation rate.
Term life is far less expensive and it has a specific duration. Your premiums are not refundable, and if you die, it pays out a set amount to your beneficiaries. You can’t cash out term life; it’s like auto insurance. On the surface it sounds worse than whole life, but here’s the catch:
Term life premiums are a fraction of the cost of whole life, so this policy frees up funds for investment. Since you only need life insurance for a set amount of time, it’s not a good idea to throw money into a low interest rate policy once your financially stable enough to be self-insured (meaning you can cover the cost of emergencies through savings), or when you’re older and need the money that’s going to premiums each month.
Here’s an example: A friend wants life insurance for the next 20 years, after which his house will be paid off, he’ll be totally out of debt, his kids will be grown and his investments will cover all needs for himself & his dependents.
He is able to get a whole life policy for $500/month that would give him a
$500,000 settlement should he die. If he waited 20 years and then cashed out, he’d have about $132,000. Sounds nice, doesn’t it?
He could also choose a 20-year, $1,000,000 term life policy for $100/month. This would allow him to put the $400 difference in monthly premiums ($500 for whole life vs. $100 for term life) into mutual funds, and earn 12% interest, which is reasonable for long-term investments. In 20 years his policy would end and there would be no cash value…but his mutual fund investment would be worth just under $400,000! He’s a winner! He can double the coverage for 20 years, and he can receive three times the final cash-in-hand if he survives! If he dies, his beneficiaries receive both the settlement and the investment–nearly three times that received through whole life!
Which would you choose?
Entrepreneurialism-Pt 4: Insurance
Insurance protects you from major emergencies. When considering insurance, it’s very important to rationally (without emotion) evaluate what is needed–not too much, not too little. Many people under-insure themselves and their businesses because “it won’t happen to me.” Or they over-insure out of fear. Here are some questions you should ask:
- What types of events could occur that may justify insurance?
This should be anything that would impact your ability to perform your business substantially enough to cause you damage. Typically, losing a day’s wages would not be significant enough, but losing a month’s wages would. - What are the chances of that event occuring?
The higher the chance, the higher the insurance rates. - How would it affect your business?
- Can you continue in business in most situations, or is your business sensitive to certain events?
- What financial needs would you have to stay afloat and move forward?
Do you have a payroll that has to continue? How about regular expenses, like rent, internet service, and auto registrations? - Would a it require a catastrophe to put you out of business, or would it only take a small health problem?
Consider not just the cost of the problem, but all associated costs as well. For example, if you have a manufacturing business in a flood zone, and a flood could destroy your equipment, you want your equipment to be covered. But you shouldn’t stop there. You also have to survive until new equipment is installed. Do you need to rent equipment? Outsource the work? Eat?
Every business is different & has different needs. It would be wisest to talk to people already in the business or in similar businesses to see what they do. Talk to insurance companies as well, but remember that they are in the business of selling insurance, so don’t be sold on anything you aren’t absolutely sure about! Question everything they suggest and get multiple opinions.
This is a list of the types of insurance you should consider:
- Liability (general, product, and professional) – to protect you from lawsuits
- Commercial property insurance – If you lease or own property for your business
- Home-based business – If you run your business out of your home
- Fire – only needed if you have a building
- Auto – if you have any form of private transportation
- Life – if you want to provide this through your company. Offer term life, not whole life. Have enough to cover expenses for the family should you die
- Disability – particularly if your business has physical risks for you or your employees
Becoming Self Insured
The ideal situation would be to have enough money in savings to support yourself and your business for an extended period of time. In a family budget, we recommend enough money to cover 3-6 months of expenses. More if you are self-employed. For a business, you should have enough to cover “normal emergencies.” “Normal emergencies” would include a fleet truck engine throwing a rod, a chemical tank leaking, a server crashing, or an essential employee being out sick for two months. If you put aside that money in a relatively liquid account, you will be able to cover nearly any issue that comes your way.
We attended a church for a time that was hard hit by the economic downturn. They had an amount in savings that sounded pretty large on a personal scale, but when compared to their monthly expenses, it was only enough to survive for a few weeks. Had they planned wisely and “saved for a rainy day,” instead of spending nearly all the funds that came in, they would have had six-month’s to prepare for hard times. Instead, needless to say, they went through some pretty frantic hard times before the adjusted to the decreased giving.
With a proper emergency fund, businesses only need insurance for catastrophic emergencies, like floods and fires. Some businesses may need to be concerned with lawsuits. (These businesses should be incorporated, too.) By limiting your insurance to catastrophic insurance, you reduce the cost of insurance significantly. Even in a business, it pays to save!
