HoundsGood: Chronicles of a Virtual Volunteer

When she passed away in 1999, Dusty Springfield, 60s singer and all around ultra cool chick, left a few things in her will.  Specifically, she left a fund so that her beloved feline could  have his very favorite food, baby food imported from the USA)  for the rest of his life.  Also, he was to sleep with one of her nightgowns in his cat bed (in fact it is the gown she died in when she lost her fight with breast cancer).  Every night, his guardian was also to play Ms. Springfield’s music so he could hear her voice. Nicolas the cat was definitely the heir to the Springfield estate.  Nicholas is cared for by a close friend of Dusty’s and has an indoor tree house studded with hearts.  It has carpeting in the “house,” and has a garden with live foliage.

Maybe the rich and famous have left fortunes to their pets and their families, but most of us are not going to have hit songs that able us to not plan as much for the future. We have to worry about dry, boring things like life insurance, versus insuring the future of our loved ones with cat houses so big two grown men could barely lift it into the house. Nicolas, the California Rag Doll cat had it made. Maybe since the exquisite abode was purchased in the Netherlands, the cat now needs more mortgage insurance

Universal life insurance works two ways. If you die, it helps your loved ones with expenses. However, if you live to a ripe old age or outsurvive everybody else, you can use it as retirement money. It grows over the years in an account. They might as well start offering it that way, because most life insurance is betting that you go on living and either cancel before you die, or your contributions far outweigh the payout as you have it for years. If more people took out policies and also saved for retirment in traditional ways, maybe we would see more crazy news stories about what people do with their money, as the surviving spouse would already be taken care of with the life insurance.

Of course, you couldn’t technically give money to your pet, but you could probably appoint a caretaker who would distribute fund and purchase items for the pet.Also, mortgage protection insurance will pay off the mortgage of your home so your surviving family does not lose it, which makes a lot of sense. Well, I always said that the dogs own the house and I am just “allowed” to live there with them. Maybe Dusty Springfield thought the same about her cat.

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