Life Transformations Through Reading

I think sometimes we think there’s one book that just changes your entire life, and you can point to that exact moment that your life shifted. While I think that can be true, what is more likely that reading brings a series of small epiphanies to you, which alter the course of your life by one degree: a seemingly small shift with an enormous long-term impact. I’m sharing here some books and what they brought to me.

This is not so much a reading list, as it is examples of how reading changes us if we continue to ruminate on ideas that we read. This can be true of our lifestyle, or our finances, or our relationships, or how we see ourselves. Moments like this in my life really remind me of the power of reading and what a blessing it has been throughout my life.

In my late twenties I read Rising Strong by Brene Brown, and one of the most memorable things from that book was this phrase, “the story I’m telling myself.” It spoke to something our brain does when we lack information — it makes up a story to fill the gap. What was transformative about this is that it taught me that I don’t have to believe every thought that I have, and it also allowed me to recognize when I’m telling myself a story, and think of other stories that could be equally likely with the information that I actually had. This allowed me to be much more generous with other people, because instead of thinking of the worst story and reacting as if it were true, I learned to pause, and not react until I had more information. It also encouraged me to get curious about the story patterns that I had. Why did those patterns exist? Were they helpful? Could I change them?

I read Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett in my early thirties, when I had a little more money, and thus more freedom in my life to feel like I could design it. One of the takeaways from that book is that the best choice for me might not be the objectively best choice in the situation. So now when I face a difficult decision about my life writ large, I consider what is the best (most rational) choice, vs what is actually the best choice for the life that I want to have. Does the most rational choice also reflect what I value? How do I choose based on those values instead?

Chances are the you also have subtle life transformations that you’ve experienced through reading, even if the last one you had was during your formative years in school. Take a moment to think about the small nudges you’ve experienced throughout your life that have changed things for you.

Planner Hacks for the Modern Girlie*

It’s back-to-school season so for some folks, that means a new planner! If that’s you, I’ve got some planner ideas for you. If it’s not, save this for later! I’m here with the planner hacks for the gworls*.

Get the planner that you will use. This seems obvious, but sometimes it’s not. If you have a physical planner, what do you want it to do? Manage your calendar? Keep track of your notes? Get the planner that’s designed for that. If you take a lot of notes, get a planner with space for that. If you don’t write a lot but you’re on your tablet or ipad or laptop more, get a digital planner! (You could also cobble together stuff using multiple apps, but having things in one dedicated space is likely easier.)

Make it yours. There’s no rule that says you can’t draw or color or use stickers in your planner. If it makes you happy to open your planner when it’s filled with color, then do that! The goal here is to keep your life together, not have random people think that you’re “so mature.” Make that planner look like a thing that is meaningful to you. Use the space in it for what you need. If it says appointments but you use it for your schedule, who’s gonna check you?! Exactly. That’s what I thought.

Make time to plan out your day/week/month. While using your planner to keep track of things on the fly is great, the real hack is to take 5-15 minutes to do some more intentional planning.

• Make sure your appointments are in order.

• Create a task list for the next day/week. Brain dump.

• Write our your thoughts or plans about a specific project.

  One way I use my planner is on Sunday evenings to plan out my week. I set 1-2 goals for the week, and take a look at my upcoming meetings and priorities. That way, on Monday mornings, I don’t feel overwhelmed by the start of the week.

Mutual backups are your friend. By mutual backups I mean things that are duplicated. So putting something in a physical planner and a digital calendar. Physically writing it down can help you remember that something is happening, and the digital backup can reel you in if you’re distracted and lose track of time. Physically writing it down means that you remember to look up the address in advance, while the digital reminder makes it easy to plug directions into your GPS. You don’t always have to choose to be either a physical or digital planner person. Porque no los dos?

If you’re not a planner person, that’s also totally fine! Do the thing that works for you and helps you feel like your life is together.

Wishing you all the best on your planner journey!

*girlie and gworls are gender neutral in this usage.

September Reading List

The Vibe is… Reading Just for Fun

• My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

• Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick by Zora Neale Hurston

• Clean Getaway by Nic Stone

• Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries by Kory Stamper

• The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

• Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

• Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams

• Tallulah the Tooth Fairy CEO by Tamara Pizzoli

Lists available on Bookshop.

We’re reading just for fun this month! No theme or anything, just books that were good reads, for a variety of reasons.

Summer Check-in

As we settle into the last few weeks of summer, let’s do a quick check-in! Here are some questions that you can use to check in with yourself.

• How are you doing? Like, really?

• What has been a surprising thing about this season of your life?

• When was the last time you asked someone for help?

• Have you looked at your annual goals recently? How are they going?

• Have you spent time with loved ones over the past few months?

• What have you learned about yourself recently?

• Where has your life felt dry? Can you do anything to alleviate this?

You can use these questions as journal prompts, or starting points for reflection.

Some Podcast Recommendations!

I’ve been listening to podcasts for a long time, and they have been such a value add to my life! I learn new things, hear people’s stories, get book recommendations and more. This week I’m recommending a few podcasts that I’ve enjoyed for you to check out.

Here are my criteria:

• There must be more than ten episodes, or it’s a series with a defined number of episodes.

• The podcast is currently releasing new episodes.

• I feel comfortable recommending this podcast to others.

If you’re taking steps towards getting your mental health together:

• Therapy for Black Girls

• Mind Ya Mental

If you just want to laugh and have a good time:

• Here’s the Thing

• Normal Gossip

If you want to hear about people behaving badly (but not in a violent crime kinda way):

• Scam Goddess

• Corporate Gossip

If you want to learn about a variety of things:

• Ologies - mostly science

• This Podcast Will Kill You - mostly public health/infectious disease

• Planet Money - mostly economics

If you want thoughtful conversation for your overall personal/professional growth:

• Lead Stories

• justUS

• Brown Ambition

Goals Check-in!

We’re nearing the end of the year, and at the beginning of the academic year, which is a great time to check in on your goals! Here are some things to think about to reflect on how your goals are going.

How are you feeling about your goals? I think I set way too many goals this year, and I can’t even keep track of them, especially once the year got going. Lesson learned for future years!

Do you feel like you’re the same person who set those goals at the beginning of the year? I love the goals that I set, and I’m proud of the version of me that set them. However the version of me that set those goals did not expect the amount of energy it would take to live my life and achieve some of the goals. I just do not have the time for some of these goals and being a functional adult.

Is there a goal (or goals) you’d like to remove from your list? One of the goals I set for this year is to take a swim class refresher. I’m not a strong swimmer, but I think it’s a form of exercise that I’d really enjoy if I were better at it.

Is there something that you’ve done or achieved that isn’t on your goals list for the year? I’ve taken steps to become a library girlie again this year! I’m so excited to spend more time in the library for the rest of this year.

What have your goals taught you so far this year?

August Reading List

The Vibe is…Summertime Reading

• Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson

• Milk Blood Heat by Dantiel Moniz

• Airplane Mode by Shahnaz Habib

• America the Beautiful? by Blythe Roberson

• Seven Days in June by Tia Williams

• Lady Susan by Jane Austen

• How Far You Have Come by Morgan Harper Nichols

Find the complete list at Bookshop.

This month we’re talking about summer reading! Here are some reads to give you different vibes for your summer booklist. If you’d love a family drama, check out Black Cake, which spans two times periods and geographic regions and will keep you turning the pages. Speaking of page-turners, Seven Days in June is a blazing hot romantic novel that you’ll devour and be left wanting more.

Maybe you’d like something that you can read in short bursts as your summer fun allows. Dantiel Moniz’ debut collection of short stores, and Morgan Harper Nichols’ art-filled writing will be perfect for you! If you’re looking for some non-fiction about travel, Airplane Mode and America the Beautiful take on travel on two different scales: adventuring through the United States’ national parks, and traveling across the world.

And finally, if you want to read a quick classic about a very chaotic lady, pick up Jane Austen’s novella about a truly and hilariously unlikeable Lady Susan.

Happy reading!

Showing Up for Your Friends

I’ve been thinking about friendship quite a bit recently, and more specifically, different ways that we can show up for our friends. So many portrayals of friendship can make us think that showing up for friends means something that’s unrealistic for our actual lives. How do we show up for our the friends we actually have in the lives we are currently living? I have some ideas!

Ask your friends what they want or need. You won’t always “just know” what’s the best way to show up for a friend, so ask them. If they’re having surgery, they might want you to visit them in the hospital, or they might prefer you to organize meals for them, or they might need you to pick up their children so that it’s one less thingto coordinate. By asking, you give your friends a chance to express what they want or need, instead of you guessing or assuming.

Keep a list. It might be nice to keep a running list of small things about your friends. Like if they mention something they would like to do, or a small treat they enjoy, or even details about something that they don’t like. This can be really helpful when coming up with ideas for gifts, or ways to celebrate your friends.

Don’t keep score. Here’s the thing, you can’t keep score with your friends. It will hurt your friendships if you keep track of who is doing what all of the time. As long as things are roughly even, and generally reciprocal, go with it. On the other hand

Small things matter. I think media teaches us that the grand gestures are what makes relationships meaningful, but it’s really the small things. Calling people just to say hello, remembering small milestones, spending quality time together can be small things that really matter in sustaining friendships. Things like presence, consistency, and support are the bedrock of solid friendships and they are unquantifiable.

How do you show up for your friends? What are ways that people have shown up for you that have been the most meaningful?

Some Lessons from my Thirties - so far

Today is my half-birthday, and at this point, I’m heading hard toward my late thirties. This decade has been transformational so far, but it a different way from my twenties, so I’d like to share some lessons that I’ve learned so far in this season of my life.

You will continue to blossom, even in this decade. I used to think that after you get through the first blush of adulthood, that was it. In my thirties I’ve continued to grow and blossom in new ways. If my early life was the tree planted and starting to bloom, my thirties have brought me both fruit and new branches.

Throw the script out the window. Whatever plan you had for your life as a child or teen, let it go. Life will bring you things that you could never have imagined, and you may miss them if you’re holding on too tightly to your idea of what you think life should be like.

Your relationships will require intentionality and effort. Life gets so much more complicated in your thirties, for you and your friends and loved ones. Careers vary drastically; people get partnered, or married, or divorced; their parents age and need more care; they have children at very different times. In order to maintain your friendships (especially!) during all of this, it will need more effort. Plan things and schedule things. It will not be helpful to keep score within the relationship to see who is making the most effort. If you are both making effort, that’s enough.

The Truth about Feedback

Feedback should be helpful. Sometimes we’re blind to our own patterns and the effect that they have on people, so getting feedback can help us see ourselves better. But here’s the thing: not all feedback is good feedback, and sometimes you’ll have to parse if there’s any good in the message. To do this, you will probably need some time to sit with the feedback before responding to it, addressing it, or changing your behavior.

Feedback can say more about the person giving it, than the person receiving it. It’s always interesting to get feedback from someone, because it can give you a clear idea of the way they see you, and how their own point of view plays into their perception about you. Next time you get random feedback, think about the person giving it: do they know you? Are they well-intentioned? What assumptions have they made about you in giving this feedback?

Even bad feedback can be helpful. There’s a range of things that can be bad about feedback. It could be that the perspective is simply untrue, or there’s no way for you to respond, or it’s just not helpful. But chew on it for a bit, to see if there’s a hidden gem. Sometimes the gem is: I need to share less about this area of my life with this person.

Feedback is always an opportunity to reflect. Even if the feedback isn’t good or well-intentioned, it can be useful. It could show that you might need to adjust your communication style, or to spend more time with the person giving the feedback. It could be that the message and messenger aren’t great, but there is some truth in there. What can you do about that? If the feedback is good, you could think about how to incorporate it into your life moving forward.

Next time you get some feedback, pause for a minute. Is it true? Is it helpful? Is there anything you can do with it? If it’s none of these things, maybe you can let it go. You can also think about the person giving the feedback. What have you learned about them?

Accommodate Yourself

I read a post on social media recently that talked about doing things to make your life easier, and I want to talk about that for a bit. It’s fine to accommodate yourself, in all the ways that you can. I think sometimes we think that being an adult means we have to do things a certain way because that’s the way other adults in our lives have done them. Or that accommodations are only for people with disabilities. (Don’t get me wrong, these accommodations are necessary and extremely important.) But being your own person means that you can make your own rules for life, and that you don’t have to leave solely to please others.

Here’s what I mean:

• If you don’t have the capacity to go out on Saturday and Sunday, there’s no reason why you can’t stay home one or both days. Being out and miserable is likely feels worse than missing out on good times.

• There’s no rule that says you have to clean your home every Saturday morning because that’s what your family did when you were growing up. Maybe what works best for you is cleaning for thirty minutes in the morning each weekday so that your weekends are entirely your own. Or maybe it’s paying someone else to do it.

• Maybe you realize that you function better as an entrepreneur if you work from 4pm to midnight, because waking up at 5am makes you angry at the world and entirely unproductive. Or you break up your works into two blocks of time instead of one long one.

• Or, you realize that you need twenty minutes of alone time as soon as you get home from work, so you talk it out with your partner and children to make sure that that can happen. It could be an explicit need that you state to your loved ones, or a practice that you institute and allow them to adjust to. (They might not even notice!)

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I think the thing that we often miss is cultivating awareness of our own needs when they differ from what we consider to be “normal.” Additionally, sometimes we need to tell people what we need, because they don’t know if we don’t say.

The truth is, the best version of you can come about in different ways from what society appears to promote. Normal is a range, not a specific person, which means that you have to figure out what your own baseline is for being the best version of yourself.

July Reading List

The Vibe is…Let’s Start Over

• The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson

• I Almost Forgot about You by Terry McMillan

• The Missing American by Kwei Quartey

• A History of What Comes Next by Sylvain Neuvel

• Less by Andrew Sean Greer

• Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

• America is not the Heart by Elaine Castillo

This reading list is available on Bookshop.org

This month’s reading list is all about the ways that we start over. Please note that these are not necessarily meant to be inspirational picks, but more about the difficulties that come with having to make a new start. Sometimes we start over to escape an awkward situation, like the protagonist in Less. Sometimes we are forced into starting over, like the characters in Homegoing, and in a very different way, the women in A History of What Comes Next.

Sometimes your life gets shaken up, like in Terry McMillan’s novel, or in America is Not the Heart. And sometimes a new beginning is because of a new phase of life like baby girl in The Day You Begin, or Emma in The Missing American. These books all explore the ways that life throws fresh starts at us.

Happy reading!

Spring Check-in

We’re nearing the end of the Spring season, so it’s time for a check-in! Here are some questions to reflect on at your leisure as we enter a time of bright sunny days…and also allergies. You can use as many of them as you like as journal prompts or starting points for a reflection.

• How are you really doing?

• Have you set any goals this year? How are they going so far?

• What is one thing that has surprised you so far this year?

• What are you looking forward to in this next season?

• How have you been showing up for yourself recently?

• What’s a new talent or interest you’ve discovered in the past few months?

• Have you gotten enough human contact over the past few months? If not, how can you change that?

A Possibility Model can Transform Your Life

As the name implies, a possibility model is a person whose life and existence show you what is possible. They are the people that we learn about and make us stop and say, “You can do that?” Sometimes it helps if the person is someone that we know, even if it’s because they grew up in our neighborhood, but possibility models can be anyone that you see living a life that you didn’t previously think was possible. They are the answer to the conundrum “You can’t be what you can’t see.”

So how does just knowing that a person exists potentially transform your life?

Possibility models show us that we have more options than we previously thought. When I was a teenager, I chose to major in science in college. But I didn’t know what people did with biological science majors if they weren’t interested in careers in healthcare. In my first semester of college I learned from the professors in my department, and from senior undergrads that there was a thing called research that people do as entire careers! It opened up more options for my career than I thought I’d had. Sometimes we need people to show us that there are more paths available to us than the ones we know.

Possibility models teach us that the world is both bigger and smaller than we think. We learn that there are people doing things that we didn’t know existed, and those people look like us, and come from where we come from, and started out in the same schools as we did. We learn that we can go further than we ever thought, not just to the local community college for an associate’s degree in accounting, but to a four-year accounting degree and opening a business of our own. Not just to dancing in our cramped bedroom, but to dancing as a professional in a theatre or on tour rwith our favorite artist. There is more for us, and it is all possible.

Possibility models give us bigger dreams. If we know that there are people out there who are doing things that we hadn’t thought were possible, it encourages us to think outside the box and imagine what else could potentially exist in this infinite universe. Our dreams grow larger and more elaborate once we know there’s more to life than we thought. We learn that there are women out there who are defining their own lives and traveling all over the world, and our imagination might tell us, not just what if I visited another continent?, but instead, what if I visit all of the continents?

It’s so important for us to know that more is possible. To know that those dreams we had as young children of going to the moon, or performing on a stage, or having a bug named after us could happen. Possibility models are so integral to showing up life beyond our current struggles and limitations, and I’m so grateful that those people exist for me to look to. Where have you been limiting yourself? Can you find someone to show you that something different is possible?

May Reading List

The Vibe is…Feeling Inspired

• Just as I am by Cicely Tyson

• I am a Promise by Shelly Ann Fraser Pryce

• Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert

• Heart Talk by Cleo Wade

• Finding Me by Viola Davis

• Bring on the Blessings by Beverly Jenkins

• Lift as You Climb: The Story of Ella Baker by Patricia Hruby Powell

This reading list is available on Bookshop.org

We’re focusing on feeling inspired with this month’s reading list. There’s a lot of memoir here this time, because I think hearing about the real stories of real people can be more inspiring than fictional events. Cicely Tyson’s incredible eight decade career and here life and chronicled in Just as I am, which was released just before her death in 2021. The foreword for this book is written by Viola Davis, whose memoir Finding Me also is on our list. Both women have incredible stories of their sojourn into life as professional actors, and are true examples of determination and destiny, which is also the theme of Shelly Ann Fraser Pryce’s I am a Promise, a children’s book about her life, focusing on her childhood and sporting career. Powell’s Lift as You Climb is our other children’s book about the life and the work of Civil Rights activist Ella Baker.

If you’re looking for more inspiration as a creative, Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic might be a good place to start. More self-helpy than memoir, this book is about harnessing your creativity to create your art (in her case, writing). If instead you’re looking to be inspired in your relationships with others, Cleo Wade’s book of essays, poets and ephemera is a delight.

Our only fiction book this month inspires us to make the absolute best of some of the worst moments in our lives. The first book in Beverly Jenkins Blessings series introduces us to Bernadine, a woman scorned and done wrong, but who manages to birth something incredible from the ashes of her life.

Happy Reading!

Next Level Adulting Part Three: Advance Directives

This one is about advance directives (and powers of attorney) to give you another introduction to this topic. We will talk about what this all means, and why this should be the part of estate planning that you should put in place soon!

Okay, so what is this exactly? Advance directives are a set of instructions for who is allowed to do what if you become incapacitated in some way, such as being in a coma, suffering brain damage, or experiencing dementia. Most often, this refers to the ability to make medical decisions on your behalf. For the purposes of this blog post, I’m including here powers of attorney, since these also give people the ability to act on your behalf if you become unable to for any reason.

In this post, we’ll talk about all of the various forms of this kind of designation. More specifically, we’ll discuss what is a (financial) power of attorney, and advance healthcare directive, which includes a living will and medical power of attorney.

Financial Power of Attorney is a legal document that allows someone to make financial decisions on your behalf. This could be as simple as doing transactions at the bank or as complex as managing all of your finances. You don’t have to be incapacitated to set one up, these kinds of documents can be helpful if you are abroad, or just need an additional person to be able to make financial decisions for you. Having this kind of power of attorney does not include the ability to make any medical or health decisions on your behalf. The type of financial POA that stays in effect if you become incapacitated is called a durable power of attorney, but that person still cannot make medical decisions for you.

Advance Healthcare Directives comprise two different things. The first is a living will which specifies your preferences for medical decisions. For example, do you want to be put on life support? Are you okay with transfusions or transplants? Do you want to donate your body to science? A very simple form of your living will is signing up to be an organ donor, which in the United States, you can do when you get a driver’s license. The second part is the medical power of attorney, which allows someone that you choose to make medical decisions on your behalf if you should become incapacitated in any way.

I saved this topic for the end, because I think it’s one of the hardest to think about. It’s not just what happens if you die, it also includes what happens if you have permanent brain damage, or if you have a psychotic break, or if you are in a coma. Those are tough things to think about because they can feel like a kind of limbo between life and death, where you are alive, but not living in the sense of the word that you are used to.

You made it to the end of this post, and the end of the series! Congratulations to you, and I hope this helps you make great decisions in your life as you consider your options.

Next Level Adulting Part Two: Estate Planning

This one is all about estate planning, once again, in a very introductory way. Hopefully this post will give you a place to start as you think about what you’d like to happen to your things (and more!) after you die. This post will talk a lot about death, so please brace yourself to think quite a bit about your own mortality for the next few minutes.

Estate planning is simply preparing for what you’d like to happen if you should die or become incapacitated. Today we’re going to focus on the dying part, and part three of this series will be dedicated to the “become incapacitated” part. The main things that fall into this category are: a will, a trust (and power of attorney and advanced directives, which we will cover next week). We’re going to break this into three broad categories for today: what happens to your assets, what happens to your possessions, what happens to your family.

First, let’s answer the question: why do this if you’re not rich? If you don’t have a lot of property, or cash, or people to leave things to, creating an estate plan might seem like a pointless exercise. But here’s the thing, you already have an estate plan: it’s whatever the laws are of the place where you are living when you die. If you’re okay with those laws, then you’re correct, there’s no need to make an estate plan. On the other hand, if you have any kind of specific wishes that you’d like executed upon your death, you should put it in writing. This includes charitable donations, who will get custody of your pets, who will get custody of your children, details about your funeral services and what you’d like done with your body.

We’ve actually covered some of the basics of estate planning in the intro post of this series, when you designated your beneficiaries and make your asset inventory. [You already did this, right?] Honestly speaking, if you’re young, single, childless, with nobody depending on you financially, it might be fine to have just this as your estate plan… for now. However, here’s the thing about estate planning: if you write your wishes down and make them clear, your grieving family members will not also be arguing about what you would have wanted, because they’d have the record of it to refer to.

Okay, let’s get to the actual things…

What happens to your assets: If you have beneficiaries set up on your accounts, the value of those accounts go to the beneficiaries on your death. Make sure that someone, somewhere knows this. It could be as impersonal as the HR office at your employer, or as personal as a parent or sibling. For things that don’t have beneficiaries, like a car, expensive jewelry/art/etc or a home, you can designate in your will (a document dictating and detailing your last wishes) who you’d like to inherit it, or the proceeds if you’d like the asset to be sold.

You can also create a trust which owns your assets, and then have your loved ones be beneficiaries of the trust. This helps avoid some of the expensive court proceedings that can arise with a will. For example, Jane Doe creates the Doe Family Trust, which owns her home, her private jet, and her vacation property. The people who receive these assets through her trust might be designated by name, or as her descendants, or both. A trust is particularly helpful if you have young children, who wouldn’t be able to manage a house or ten million dollars while trying to get through middle school. This vehicle would help them have training wheels on their money as they come of age.

What happens to your possessions: Your will can also detail what you’d like to happen to your possessions. Maybe you want your art collection to go to a local school, or you’d like each of your children to have a specific piece of jewelry, or you want to donate your nicest clothes to a favorite charity. You can write this down, which helps make your desires clear, and helps your loved ones by not making them have to figure out what to do with your stuff when you are gone.

What happens to your family: This one is super important. If you have children, you need to have a will. Your will is the place where you can appoint the legal guardian for your children. In many locales, it’s the only place where you can officially, legally do this. If this is not in place, the courts will decide who is next of kin and should have custody of your children, and you will not be around to dispute this. That person is also likely (not always though) to be responsible for any assets that you leave to your children as their legal guardian. If you have a specific person in mind to serve as legal guardian for your children should you die or become incapacitate, put that in writing (and make sure that they know the full extent of what this would mean).

Similarly, if you have a pet (or pets) and you’d like a specific person to care for them, also write this down. This avoids any confusion once you are gone or unable to care for your beloved companion(s).

Make sure that anyone you plan to give custody to knows this at the time that you create these documents, and they agree. It should not be a surprise to them if you suddenly pass away.

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Okay, you made it to the end! Take a deep breath. This stuff is difficult to think and talk about, but so important to do. Hopefully this has given you somewhere to start the conversation, and start taking action.

Next Level Adulting Part One: Life Insurance

This one is all about life insurance, in a very introductory way. We will talk about what life insurance is, why you might want to have it, the various types, and a tiny bit about how to find a policy.

First of all, what is life insurance? Life insurance is an insurance policy (a contract between the insurance company and the policy owner) which provides a death benefit (payment) to beneficiaries (people the policy owner chooses) when the policy owner dies. It’s like car insurance — but for a person, in that you pay it every month, and you hope to not have to use it. Many of the articles and books that I’ve read suggest your total amount of life insurance be 8-10x your salary (so if you make $100,000 per year, you should have $800,000 - $1,000,000 of life insurance). Depending on your finances or cost of living, this might be too much, or not enough, so plan according to what’s best for your own life! (Just remember that more coverage comes with higher cost and possible complications, like needing to have a physical done first.)

The major reason to have life insurance is so that your surviving loved ones aren’t financially burdened if you pass away. Many financial gurus advise people to think of life insurance as income insurance: if there’s someone who is dependent on your income, you should have it. This could be a spouse, children, other relatives that you may care for or support financially, a business partner, etc. The goal is that your death doesn’t trigger a financial catastrophe for your people who will be already struggling with the grief of losing you. As a result, many people tend to purchase a life insurance policy when they get married, or have children, or even make a big financial shift like buying a house (with a mortgage) or starting a business.

There are two major types of life insurance that you’ll hear folks talk about: term life insurance, and whole (universal) life insurance.

• Term life insurance is life insurance for a defined period, called a term. Usually this can be 10, 20, 30 years, etc. What happens here is that you decide what term you want, and then you pay the premium (monthly/annual fee) to have insurance coverage for that time period. When the time period ends, the policy expires (as long as you don’t die first).

  What some people do as a strategy is layer term policies, according to their changing needs and lifestyles. This is For example, let’s say you get married at 25, and you decide to buy a 30 year term policy for 5x your salary (so $50,000 salary = $250,000 life insurance policy). You’re young, relatively broke, but very healthy so this feels like enough for that moment. Let’s say at 28, you’ve become a parent so at 30 you buy a second term policy for 5x your salary, but for 20 years, so that your child will be taken care of should you pass away before they become an adult (and college graduate). Then maybe at 40 you have 3 children now, so you purchase another 20 year policy because you need more coverage, and also, you make a lot more money now than you did at 25. Continuing on with our analogy, let’s say now that you pass away suddenly at age 45 (very sad). Your family now gets the death benefit from 3 policies: your original 30-year term that you bought as a baby adult, the 20-year term you got as a new parent, and the 20-year term that you bought when you had three children and made way more money. If you died at age 51, the first 20-year policy would have expired but your firstborn would also be an adult, so a bit less in need of intensive financial support. If you died at age 61, all your policies would have expired, but your children would all be adults, and you’d hopefully have amassed other riches to pass on to them, like a hefty retirement account, a (mostly) paid off home, and other things that you will no longer need since you’ve left the mortal plane.

• Universal or whole life insurance is (as the name implies) a life insurance policy that covers you for your whole life. These policies can sometimes have a cash value that you could draw money from while you are alive, as well as the death benefit payout.
  Here’s my quick soapbox: It can be tempting to opt for a whole life policy because the term life policy feels like throwing your money away. However, these policies are expensive and it makes them unsuitable for most people. The premiums are so high that many people let the policy lapse when they face hard times, and then they have no life insurance and have paid much more money than they would have with a similar level of coverage in a term life insurance policy. Brokers (people that sell these kinds of policies) may try to convince you that it’s a good idea, because you can invest money and build wealth, but it would literally be cheaper in most cases to buy a term policy and put the difference in price in a brokerage account to invest yourself. If you want more information, talk to a financial advisor (who does not sell this kind of insurance) to see if it’s a good idea for you.

Let’s say you were interested in getting yourself some life insurance…where do you even find it?

• There are companies who compile lists of policies, such as Ladder (through which you can purchase insurance) or Policy Genius (which lets you compare insurance quotes from multiple providers), and those can be a great place to start.

• Most places that sell any kind of insurance also have some vehicle for you to purchase life insurance as well.

• Your employer may offer some coverage which you can add onto by paying a few dollars (but you’d lose all of it if you left your job).

• If you are a college graduate, or in any other kind of large organization, they may offer term life policies under group coverage as well.

You made it to the end! This was a lot of information, but also just an intro, so I hope it was enough to help you get started!

Next Level Adulting: Introduction to the 3-part series

Are you ready to feel really super adult? Well, we’re here now. The adultiest part of adulting is acknowledging that you will not live forever, and preparing for that eventuality. So for the next few weeks we’ll take a deeper dive into three areas of next-level adulting: life insurance, estate planning, and advance directives. If you don’t know what any of those phrases mean, it’s totally fine! Over the next few weeks, I’ll give you a solid introduction to each of these, so that you know where to start with your own planning, even if you don’t do it for a few more years. (Don’t wait too long though!)

Before we get to the next three weeks though, let’s start with some basics for this topic. In general terms, all of the things here fall under end-of-life planning, because (for the most part) they deal with making plans for when you die. [Advance directives also cover what happens if you are incapacitated too - think coma, life support, etc.] There are a few things you can do now, if you’re not ready to tackle the logistical or emotional load of the aforementioned big three.

Beneficiaries

Any financial account that you have will likely allow you to set up beneficiaries, including bank accounts, retirement accounts, and life insurance policies. Beneficiaries are the people who will receive the assets in that account when you pass away. These designations will override any other document that you create (like a will), so make sure that they are up to date. In some cases, you can set up contingent beneficiaries, which is like a tier two of inheritance: contingent beneficiaries will only receive money if the primary beneficiary has passed away.

If you didn’t do this when you opened the account, log in now, and figure out how to set it up — depending on the institution you might have to call them about it, but chances are you can do it online without having to talk to a real person.

Personal inventory

• Create a list (physical and digital) of all of your assets and liabilities. For the physical list, create a folder with relevant info, for the digital list, you can have links, attachments, etc.

• Some examples might be: a list of financial institutions where you have accounts, account type, and a recent statement.

• If you have a secure place to store things, also include logins for these accounts. You could also include things like the title for your car or deed for your home, copies of important documents (birth certificate, marriage license, insurance info, etc).

• This can be helpful for two reasons: (i) if you die, there’s one place where your loved ones can find everything they need; (ii) if your house is on fire, there’s one thing that you need to grab.

Last Letter

This isn’t a must, but it’s a beautiful thing to do for your loved ones. Write them a last letter. This can be both logistical: here’s where to find all of the things, here’s the passcode for my phone, etc., and also sentimental: here are some words to encourage you, here are some of my final thoughts, here is a reminder of how much I love you.

This might be especially lovely if you have children who may only have these words and their memories of you as they enter adulthood or grow older.

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Here’s what we’ll cover over the next three weeks:

Life Insurance - What is it, exactly? When do you get it? What is it for? What kind to get? How much does it cost?

Estate Planning - What does this even mean? Do I need this if I’m not rich? What’s included? This sounds expensive, is it expensive?

Advance Directives - Girl, what is this? Why does it sound so scary? What documents do I need?

April Reading List

The Vibe is… I don’t Play about Me

• The Sugar Jar by Yasmine Cheyenne

• Ira Crumb Feels the Feels by Naseem Hrab

• Burnout by Emily and Amelia Nagoski

• Everyday Magic by Mattie James

• Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies by Tara Schuster

• Sacred Self-Care by Chanequa Walker-Barnes

• After the Rain by Alex Elle

This reading list is available on Bookshop.org

This month’s reading list is all about being good to yourself. Whether it’s learning to face and feel your feelings like Ira Crumb, or working on your healing through the words of Alex Elle and Yasmine Cheyenne these books offer words to contemplate as you work on being the best version of you.

Mattie James and Tara Schuster remind us about infusing this kind of self-care into our every day, whether it’s by finding the magic or getting yourself the supermarket flowers.

If you’re looking to hear from academics, Emily Nagoski and Chanequa Walker-Barnes offer very accessible approaches to consistent ways to care for yourself through life’s stresses and strains.

Happy reading!