Hasta La Ideas

Today we welcome back Unclutterer programmer, Gary DuVall. In the first and second posts in this series, he discussed how to prepare yourself and your home in case of a disaster and what to do if it unfortunately happens. He is writing for us based on his personal experience of losing everything he owned in a fire on June 27, 2008.

After having spent the prior three weeks trying to process what had happened, it was nice for life to slow down a bit. My wife and I found a temporary sublet north of the city to live in for a couple of months, and we tried to regain some sense of a “normal” life. While it wasn’t the most comfortable situation -— nothing in our furnished sublet belonged to us and we were 15 miles from our neighborhood -— it was still a place we could call home.

The next step in the process was to build an inventory of what we lost. Between the photographs my wife Stephanie had taken and many hours of trying to remember what we owned, we constructed an inventory we felt good about and sent it off to the insurance adjuster.

Now would be a good time to point out a vital distinction in your policy when it comes to how much money you’ll receive for the items you’ve lost: Actual Cash Value (ACV) vs. Replacement Cost (RCV). Under ACV, your items are subject to depreciation and as such you’ll only receive enough money to replace the item at that depreciated price. Under RCV, you receive the full amount necessary to purchase an item of like quality without a depreciation in value. While your first check under a policy that contains a RCV rider is likely to cover actual cash value only, it’ll be up to you to repurchase the items you’ve lost and send in the receipts to recoup the difference. (Learn more.) Needless to say, we were both thankful we purchased a RCV rider.

The hardest part after submitting the initial inventory was waiting for that first check. Come September, when we finally moved into a new apartment, we still hadn’t seen anything but excuses from both the insurance and claims adjusters. In the meantime, my wife and I ended up having to sacrifice the savings and credit we’d built up in order to buy the essentials. In our case, it ended up taking over three months -— October 2008 -— to obtain the completed appraisal document and our ACV check.

Considerations:

1. Compile your inventory before a disaster occurs and keep it updated quarterly. Had we done this before the fire, it wouldn’t have been necessary to spend 40+ hours compiling an inventory. While a video inventory provides you with visual evidence of the items you own, a spreadsheet containing the purchase price, date of purchase, and the store where purchased (along with receipts when possible) will serve as hard evidence. Ask your insurance provider for a copy of their inventory spreadsheet; in most cases, they’ll be more than happy to oblige.
2. Consider a Replacement Cost Value (RCV) rider. While it may come at a premium, it’s worth it. The difference in what you receive may be thousands of dollars. Some providers (such as USAA) now default to this type of coverage in order to ensure policyholders aren’t left at a disadvantage with very little money to rebuild.
3. A tip from the many insurance adjusters I spoke to while roaming the building after the fire: When calculating the replacement cost of an item for your inventory, use the MSRP. Relying on a sales price is likely to result in you receiving a check far below the value of what’s necessary to rebuild.
4. Think about your options. In our case, we found “starting from zero” to be a liberating experience of sorts; we could chart exactly how we wanted to rebuild without, ironically, the process of having to sell or get rid of existing furniture and items. Once the initial shock of having lost everything fades, you’re left with what we considered to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
5. If you’re financially able, don’t wait for that first check to arrive before making purchases. You may be left waiting months and, in the end, could end up moving into a completely empty home. It’ll be up to you and your family to take action and prepare your new home with furnishing and essentials whether you have a check in hand or not. If you’ve purchased a RCV rider, organize your receipts, match them to your inventory, and have them ready to submit as quickly as possible after the first check arrives.
6. Take charge, and don’t be afraid to press for action when every side seems to have an excuse and you’re caught in the middle. Many people end up waiting considerably longer than three months for results because they don’t want to rock the boat.
7. Your initial inventory isn’t the end-all-be-all when it comes to making your claims. Should you discover additional items that were lost, you can make subsequent claims. In our case, we ended up making three separate claims: The initial inventory and two more addendum inventories.

In the final part of the series, I’ll discuss how the experience has affected us in the long-term.

Today, we welcome Gregory Go. He is one of the personal finance and frugal living bloggers at Wise Bread, and a contributor to the new book 10,001 Ways to Live Large on a Small Budget (available this May).

I come from a long line of packrats on my dad’s side of the family, and I definitely have a tendency to hold on to too much crap. But keeping my inner packrat in check is easier when I remember these 7 benefits of uncluttering.

1. Save money.

What if it only cost you $2 to read a brand new book that costs $24.95? Pretty good deal, right? Trent at The Simple Dollar shares his secret to reading brand new books for cheap (or sometimes even for a small profit). The key? Sell them as soon as you’re done reading to capitalize on the still-hot demand.

If you get rid of stuff you don’t need quickly, you can recover some portion of what you paid for the item. It’s like getting a discount on your purchase price. The faster you dump it, the bigger your “discount”.

Uncluttering (physically and emotionally) also makes a huge impact on your financial health, as Erin explains in this guest post at The Simple Dollar:

You will stop making impulse purchases because you can consciously evaluate a product and ask yourself if you really need it. You don’t operate on automatic pilot. You can easily foil retail marketing efforts. You don’t approach shopping with a “some day I might need this” attitude. You can better evaluate products because you’re aware of their components and inspect their quality. You are a mindful consumer, which is beneficial to your wallet and your commitment to simple living.

2. Make beer money.

In addition to books, electronics like cellphones, CDs, televisions, and computers are other items that retain more of their value the sooner you sell it. Dump it as soon as you don’t need it anymore. More money and less clutter for 30 minutes of eBay time? That’s a good deal.

Here’s a quick tip from The Digerati Life on how she cashes in on her clutter:

Post photos of your items on craigslist or some other web classifieds site for your local area. Ebay or other online auctions should work too if you’re able to ship the item. Amazon is great for used books, CDs and DVDs. Price your item well. I do this by checking what the going rate is for the item then knocking off 5%. Rules would obviously be different for auctions – try no reserve.

You probably won’t get what you want for your stuff, but anything is more than what you get if that crap stayed in your closet. Here’s an active discussion on Wise Bread about the kind of stuff you can offload on eBay. For example, Lynnae of Being Frugal shares in that thread:

I’ve sold “gently used” children’s clothing with some success. It does better in big lots according to size, and it helps if the clothes are name brand. Mostly I sell books, though. I’m a book-a-holic, and I always have extra books to get rid of. My books don’t fetch high prices, but every little bit adds up.

3. Get more space. Afford more house.

What percentage of your home is used for clutter storage? You may be shocked to learn the percentage of your rent or mortgage payments being used to store that old TV, extra couch, and broken coffee maker.

All I can afford here in Los Angeles are small apartments far away from the beach. If left to my packrat ways, half (or more!) of my rented space would be used to store crap. By purging regularly, I’m getting twice the apartment. I can also move a little closer to the beach because my rental budget doesn’t have to buy as much space.

4. Help others.

Why horde that second blender when your college-bound nephew could use it for mixing margaritas? Or how about all those clothes you never wear anymore?

The stuff you don’t need anymore might be useful for someone else. Donating your unused stuff is a fine way to up your charitable budget without using cash.

Bonus: Giving your stuff away helps the environment. If old toasters, hair dryers, and books are handed around to different people, less stuff would need to be produced. Give your old stuff a new lease on life with a new owner, and save the planet at the same time!

5. Save time.

Without all that clutter, it wouldn’t take so much time to prep your home for guests. Regular household chores (vacuuming, dusting) will be faster and easier without so much stuff lying around. Having less stuff piled up on your desk also makes it easier to find that important piece of paper when you need it.

6. Be more productive.

What is your current R.O.O. (return on organization)? Being more organized will provide a positive return in time (and we all know that time is money). The returns can be quite significant.

It is estimated that increased R.O.O. can yield up to an extra two hours of productive time a week.

Decluttering is so powerful it actually creates time! Get things done by getting rid of clutter.

7. Reduce stress.

Eliminating clutter reduces your stress level. Instead of your home being a sanctuary from the stress of work and real life, it adds to your stress level. It’s a terrible feeling when home is more stressful than the workplace.

Ready to purge?

Here are more helpful posts on how to unclutter:

• Instructions for Decluttering Your Home in 5 Easy Steps (Unclutterer) – Alex Fayle explains in less than 500 words the thought-process of organizing your home.
• 10 Ways to Declutter and Put Cash In Your Pocket (The Simple Dollar) – All of that stuff stored in the closet is money just sitting there gathering dust. Here are tactics to use to clear out a lot of your unused stuff (freeing up space in your home) while also putting some cash in your pocket.
• 9 Tips for Decluttering (Zen Habits) – Zen master Leo Babauta offers his best tips for getting and keeping your space clutter-free.
• How to Get Rid of All Your Crap (Wise Bread) — “Professional Hobo” Nora Dunn explains what she did with all her stuff when she left her cushy Canadian life for the adventure of vagabonding.

Good luck, fellow packrats! If I can part ways with my crap, you can definitely do it too.

Today we welcome back Unclutterer programmer, Gary DuVall. In the first post in this series, he discussed how to prepare yourself and your home in case of a disaster. He is writing for us based on his personal experience of losing everything he owned in a fire last June.

After the fire was declared extinguished, we were allowed back into the building to survey the damage. We walked up three flights of stairs through noxious air, flooded floors, and dripping ceilings to get to our unit. The fire started in the unit immediately above ours -— which was now just a giant hole -— and the enormous amount of water, soot, chemicals, and smoke that had made their way down had left nearly everything in our place unsalvageable. Luckily enough, our important documents, which I had been in the process of organizing days before and included our insurance policies, were still mostly untouched in their airtight container. Though we tried, there wasn’t much we could do to mitigate any further damage to our things as water was still raining everywhere through the exposed timber ceiling. We grabbed our records, as many valuables as we could find, our waterproof Mag-Lite flashlight, and a digital camera that had been partially soaked but stored away from the brunt of the damage. And then we left for the night.

The first order of business was to begin our claim with the insurance company, at which time we were told to find a hotel and wait to hear back the next day from a “floating” claims adjuster. After we found a hotel and settled in with our cats, the first things we did were:

1. Air out the camera in hopes of using it to document the damage
2. Purchase emergency clothing and supplies, all of which would be covered under our policy
3. Re-read through our policy, organize our priorities, and consult with family members with prior experience in the industry.

Despite the day’s events, it was surprisingly easy to sleep that night.

We received the call we were expecting the next day from the “floating” insurance adjuster and were told to stay at the hotel until Monday. Staying at the hotel until Monday turned out to only made things worse, as we were asked on Monday why we didn’t do more to mitigate the damage. This particular conversation was awkward for both sides and for entirely different reasons.

It wasn’t until Tuesday, after heated discussions with our claims adjuster, that they finally assigned us an on-site adjuster to survey the damage so we could start the process of remediation. As my wife finished snapping a few hundred photos of the damage, the on-site adjuster almost immediately deemed it a “total loss” and left it to the remediation/mitigation crew we hired to clear out the unit and help us file our property claim. It would be another week of prodding, phone calls, and unanticipated project management to make sure all sides were in sync before everything was finally removed from our unit and what little could be salvaged was taken by the remediation crew.

It was strange on that last day to look down from my office window and find almost everything we owned filling the dumpster below, but it meant we could finally concentrate on the most important part of the process: rebuilding.

These are some important tips to keep in mind after an emergency:

1. Your first priority is to make the claim. During this call, if you don’t have a copy of your policy, demand that one be sent overnight to the address where you’re staying. Ask about the company’s obligation to have an adjuster sent out as soon as possible, your “Loss of Use” provisions, and your responsibilities as dictated by the policy.
2. Beginning with your first call, write down and keep records of every single contact you have with anyone related to the insurance company, the on-site adjuster, the mitigation process — and in the case of renters, the landlord. Include times, dates, names, numbers, and a detailed account of what transpired, even down to the mood of all sides involved. Save all e-mail contacts in a special inbox folder if you have access to a computer. If you have problems down the road on any front, you’ll have a lot of information to reference.
3. If you have access to your residence afterward, pull your records and valuables first, including your hard drives if possible. While some insurance companies advise heavily against moving anything and add that you may not be able to claim these items after removal, it’s better to be safe than sorry. (In some cases, you still can so long as you inform the insurance company of what’s been removed.) If you find items that could directly help you sort through what’s left, such as a heavy flashlight and/or a camera that survived, their immediate usefulness in recording evidence of the damage (and building an inventory in the absence of one) will vastly outweigh your need to claim them.
4. Read your policy again thoroughly. Compare what’s in the policy against your logbook and don’t be afraid to ask questions. Have a copy with you at all times (along with the logbook) when going back to the premises.
5. Take stock financially. Your insurance may cover you immediately, but you may not see that money for days or even weeks. During that time, save every single receipt, no matter how small. You’ll be required to turn them in as part of your policy’s “Loss of Use” claim. We used zip-top sandwich bags to sort receipts by type and keep them safe at the same time.
6. Be prepared to assert yourself. Being non-confrontational after losing nearly everything won’t do any good if a company that’s supposed to be on your side tells you X and your policy or contract states Y. Although the squeaky wheel generally gets the grease, remember to be polite but firm when you state your case.
7. Breathe. You’ll come across irreplaceable mementos and be in contact with various people bordering on infuriating at times -— all the while bearing the heavy burden of uncertainty — but it’s essential to keep your thoughts as uncluttered as possible and concentrate on what needs to be done. Maintain your composure when working directly with the situation at hand, and find ways of coping during the downtime. We went to a local town festival for a day during some well-needed downtime, and it helped us greatly.

In Part III of this series, I’ll discuss the process of rebuilding your home from nothing.

Today, I want to introduce you to Unclutterer programmer Gary DuVall. This post is the first in a series that he has agreed to write for us based on his personal experience of losing everything he owned.

June 27, 2008, was like any other day. It was early afternoon, the sun was out, I was working from home, and I was on a conference call with a client. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a plume of smoke coming from what seemed to be our building’s roof.

As the plume grew larger, I began to realize the smoke wasn’t an afternoon pre-Cubs-game barbeque on the rooftop by a couple of guys playing hooky from work — this was a real fire. I ran up the stairs toward the rooftop deck to check things out. By the time I got to the door leading outside, the fire had grown large enough that I could hear it blazing, and I knew there were a half-dozen propane grills on the other side of the metal.

It was most certainly time to go.

Luckily, before the fire had spread downward through the floors, I was able to herd our two cats into the carrier, pack up my work laptop in the bag I always had close by, and make it down the smoke-filled stairway and out the building with a couple of minutes to spare. Unfortunately, in the end, we lost almost everything — but we had our pets, our safety, and an emergency line of communication.

Months before, when my wife and I first moved into the building, I insisted that vital items like our cat carrier be stored in easily accessible places in our apartment (rather than the basement storage area) in the — we thought — unlikely case of just such a situation. Only a couple of minutes of planning for what could happen made that split-second decision-making much easier when it did.

This is the crux of what I like to call “disaster uncluttering”: Being prepared for the unlikely, in case it happens. It takes but a little time and thoughtful review to prevent mind clutter from getting in the way of your safety when you have very little time to spare.

Here’s a checklist of questions to ask yourself and suggestions of what can be done to prevent both mind and physical clutter should a disaster strike you out-of-the-blue:

1. Consider where you store things. You should have almost immediate access to the following items: Pet carrier(s), an emergency line of communication (preferably a laptop, netbook, or advanced PDA), a cell phone, your car keys, a rugged flashlight, and, if at all possible, a copy of your renters or homeowners insurance policy.
2. Have an escape route ready, and cover your bases. Being on the third level and without a fire escape, our elevator was out and one stairwell had already become dangerously consumed by smoke. Become familiar with every pathway that leads out of your home ahead of time.
3. If you have pets, consider putting Pet Safety Alert decals on external windows and your front door to alert neighbors and authorities you have animals (in case you aren’t at home when an emergency happens).
4. Spend the time, and take inventory of your belongings. Even if you don’t use an automated system, a video of everything in your home can help spur your memory. Be sure to backup the video so you can still access it if your home is destroyed.
5. Are your vital documents protected and organized? Ideally, you’ll want to store them in a fireproof safe and keep a backup copy online. Check out our series on fireproof safes for more information on this subject.
6. Consider where you’ll temporarily live if you’re unable to inhabit your home. Will you need to stay in a hotel, or will you have access to the home of a friend or relative?

In an upcoming post, I’ll discuss what happened after the fire. In many ways, the aftermath was far worse than the fire itself.

The image above is what was left of our oak bedroom floor. In addition to soot, it took only a few hours for mold to begin to grow in the water that helped put out the fire.

When two people live together and have different standards for cleanliness, frustration often ensues. Redbook magazine addresses this subject in this month’s issue in the article “We’re Constantly at War Over Chores.”

The article follows the couple Sally Cumberland and Paul Schmidt as they argue over when and how to do household chores. Expert Tina B. Tessina, Ph.D., offers the couple sage advice throughout the article. Most of her advice is based on improving their communication:

“Sally and Paul have to sit down after the kids are put to bed and talk about what needs to get done,” Tessina explains. “For example, Paul should say, ‘Let’s create a solution about the pileup of newspapers in the front hall,’ and Sally needs to add, ‘I need you to appreciate all the things I did while you were at work instead of needling me for the things I didn’t do.’ This will ultimately take the criticism and accusations away and replace on-the-spot reactive fighting with a calm conversation.”

…

Sally and Paul will never quite see eye-to-eye about housework, but if they can learn to respect each other’s perspective, their marriage — and their house — will keep running smoothly for years to come.

At the end of the article, the couple admits that things have been better since they met with Dr. Tessina. Sally said:

“I feel relieved. We’ve always been too busy to talk to an expert, but it’s nice to hear a third party tell us that our issues aren’t so unusual.”

I agree that talking to a professional who can see the issues from a caring and outside perspective can do wonders for partners who are struggling with clutter issues in the home. Check out our previous articles for even more advice. And be sure to give the whole of the Redbook article a read!

Photo by Greg Ruffing for Redbook.