thinking ahead

Disclaimer: this post is weird. But consider this: when people have kids, parents make sure that they will be taken care of if anything happens. Ares and Luna are my babies. I feel that same need.

I'm young - only 26 years old, but a couple of years back, my dad decided to gift me with the start of a Roth IRA account for my birthday (he's just as practical as I am). He opened my account and put $100 in it and left it to me to continue to build it up. At the time, I made both of my parents my primary beneficiary, with the money in the account being split 50/50 if something were to happen to me.

About a month or so ago, I read an article about things that people should consider before getting a pet. One of the points that were brought up was that you should make a plan for what will happen to your pets if something happened to you which got me to thinking what would happen to Ares and Luna. Now obviously, Mike would take the dogs - but if the worst were to happen to both of us? Then what? At the time, I didn't know how to go about setting up a fund for Ares and Luna's care - finances are tight as it is then I suddenly remembered my IRA!

It was really easy for me to go online and change things. I have no idea who will care for the dogs although I do know that the dogs will stay in the family - they know how much Ares and Luna mean to me and I know they would never allow them to go to a shelter. I was able to set up a contingency plan so that if something were to happen to Mike and me, whomever assumes ownership of the dogs will get the money to put toward their care.

Ares is only one year old and Luna is only four months old, but I already cry about the thought of losing them and the idea of me going before them hurts even more - Ares is so attached to me, I don't know what he would do without me. I feel so much better knowing that there's a way for me to take care of them if something DOES happen.

I fully admit that I'm probably really strange to be thinking about all of this at my age. In this economy, it's a good idea to have something set up for my retirement. I'd rather not work the rest of my life, thankyouverymuch. I'm just taking this a step further by providing a safety net for ALL of the loved ones in my life instead of just the human ones.