Prevention -- That's Where It's At

Two things have occurred in my life this week that inspired me to encourage you two take some necessary actions.

1) You need a will--and a well-drafted one at that
I have been spending all week trying to figure out what a man's intentions were concerning his dispositions after he passed away. You hear over and over again that you need a will, and while this is often an action we don't like to pursue because of its inherent morbidity, it is wise advice.

Each of us needs a will, but just as important is having a properly-drafted will. I would encourage you to seek the help of a lawyer--note this is not a marketing ploy. There is a certain expertise that exists for a reason. There is a difference between devising or bequeathing a gift and requesting a gift be directed to a certain person.

I am sure that there are options online that are more or less boilerplate forms and while you are young, without a lot of assets, and no children, then those forms MIGHT suffice. But I promise you it isn't worth it. Any money you think you are saving now will be lost on the back end by your heirs when they are trying to figure out what you really wanted to happen.

2) Back up your computer's hard-drive
I apologize from moving from one depressing subject to another, but I accidentally dropped my laptop this week. My hard-drive is completely destroyed; I had to replace it. Thankfully, Walter Mossberg--the techincal guru of the WSJ--suggested a few various computer back-up systems a few months ago and I signed on with one.

Once my computer is back-up-and-running, I can log onto mozy.com and either download my files, or have them shipped to me as a DVD. The great thing about mozy is that I signed up in January, and every day since then at 8:15 in the morning, mozy would automatically back up the files on my computer I specified at sign-up. If more than seven days lapsed since my previous back-up, I would get a warning message, asking me to back them up. The important documents on my computer are safe. Whew!

Mozy only provides so much storage space for free--I had more than enough room to save several pictures and all of my documents. However, I did not choose to pay for the extra space, so any of my purchased music is gone. Fortunately though, I recently transferred several of my purchased songs to cd's in the event I lost my hard drive. I would rather save the extra money and burn a cd.

So those are the lessons learned for the day. Get help in drafting a will--give me a year-and-a-half and I will help you with it (that time I was marketing)--and back up your hard-drive.