We all have imagined what we would do if faced with the unimaginable: losing everything in a house fire. What would we grab? How would we cope? Who would we turn to for support?
For Patrick L. Riley, he lived that reality, having woken up to his entire home engulfed in flame, fleeing without even having shoes on. But that was just the beginning of his hardship. Riley was faced with 'rock and a hard place' kinds of decisions, having lost work during the pandemic and needing to pick which bills got paid and which didn't. His home insurance didn't make the cut, so rebuilding was almost insurmountable.
"Now I'm fully insured. I'm insured on the insurance," he said with laughter, to Living Not So Fabulously hosts, David & John Auten-Schneider. After being able to rely on the built-in insurance of his co-op, he focuses on staying positive; an experience we can all learn from.
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We definitely want to shoot for everybody to have anywhere from three to six months worth of living expenses. That's the standard recommendation to cover an emergency. But, unfortunately, for LGBTQ+ folks, our advice is to maybe lean into having six to twelve months, as hard as that may be because we face, as a community, much more adversity, right? It's easier for us to lose a job, and we have other headwinds that we're facing, especially right now. And having that extra cushion that the general population doesn't necessarily need to have, is probably a good thing. So with that, we're going to return to the second part of Patrick's interview where he advocates for more of us having more in emergency savings.
I think a key takeaway there financially is what your father said. That make sure you go line by line, and don't just take everything that they give you. Something I'm not clear on, so that was the co-op insurance?
Yes. Um so you at least had some coverage but were you supposed to have your own homeowners or renter's insurance.
Oh I was supposed to and that is what elapsed inside the pandemic. So that, I had hit a mark having pushed through those savings where some, I had to sort of make those decisions. Do I not pay this this month? Do I not pay? So, this fire, you know when you, when you think I'll be, I'm okay not to pay this, this month. I'll double it up next month. All of that, that looks like Yeah. Yeah. the fire happened as I, I joke with my pants down literally. Yeah. Yeah. And so that could have been the end of the road for me had I not loving advisors around me to tell me uh, okay. That didn't work then let's go here. Yeah. Now I'm fully insured. Right. I'm insured on the insurance, okay. Like it's a whole thing. Thank you Allstate. I love you. And was the lapse because of like one missed payment or.
It was two. I I was, I was on the, I was within the two months of lapse. Yeah. Okay. Right, okay. Whereas I'm like, okay I'm going to, I'm going to catch up figure this out when that next check comes in. You know we're working a little not regularly because we're in a pandemic. Yeah. All of those things were on the table at the point where this happened.
This content was not intended to be financial advice and should not be used as a substitute for professional financial services.
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