Money Blue Book

This post is for people like me who used to live life without even the most basic of health insurance coverage. Did you know one of the major and perhaps number one cause of bankruptcy in the United States is unanticipated medical bills caused by inadequate or even complete lack of health insurance coverage? Currently, unpaid medical bills due to unforeseen and catastrophic medical related ailments compete with debt mismanagement and credit card bills as the number one contributor to personal bankruptcy.

We all make many important financial investments in our lives, but believe it or not, health insurance might be one of the most important. It’s a silent safety net that will catch you in the event the worst happens and will prevent you from completely falling into the financial abyss. Without at least basic coverage, having to fully pay all of the medical costs out of pocket can be very expensive and difficult. Just a single night’s stay at a hospital for emergency care can cost upwards of thousands of dollars. Without at least basic coverage, you are one appendix or broken leg away from a pile of insurmountable medical bills.

While today’s basic entry level premiums do not offer full financial protection from serious illnesses, having basic coverage will at least cushion the burden to a more manageable degree. It’s important to maintain a healthy lifestyle by eating your fruits and vegetables and exercising regularly, but sickness and physical accidents are inevitable in life. You might get lucky for a long time but eventually the odds will turn against you when you least expect it.

Apply For Health Insurance Coverage That Fits Your Age, Health Condition, and Family Size

The amount of health insurance coverage needed depends on many factors including the age of the person, overall health status, as well as the number of family members and other dependents relying on the person for financial support. While many people have health insurance coverage through their employers, not all of us are that fortunate, myself included. I performed contract work in the past so during those periods of time I didn’t always have employer coverage. However, I always made sure I purchased my own basic plan.

Perhaps you are self employed, a college student, a recent graduate, or maybe you are working for a company that doesn’t offer a discounted group policy. Whatever the reason, it’s imperative that everyone at least go out and obtain a basic level of coverage. Medical disasters can strike when you least expect it and financially wipe out your existing savings. Don’t gamble with your family’s health and financial livelihood. Basic coverage is easily available, particularly if you are willing to settle for a higher out-of-pocket deductible plan. We all have enough on our minds everyday to worry about – don’t let your lack of basic health insurance coverage be an issue.

Buying Basic Health Insurance Coverage On Your Own

When I did contract work (essentially temping), I was not insured by my employer, so I went out and purchased health coverage on my own. Fortunately, coverage for a healthy person in his late 20’s was reasonable, so long as I was willing to take on a high deductible plan with a higher out-of-pocket requirement. The insurance plan I purchased was through Care First Blue Cross Blue Shield with a deductible of $5,000, total out of pocket expense requirement of $6,000, co-insurance of 20%, with a monthly premium of $49.00 a month. Yes my deductible was high, but for a healthy, relatively young person like myself, it was more than adequate to protect myself from possible financial catastrophe and even bankruptcy risk.

There are many ways to buy health insurance, but the easiest way is to do it online through an insurance broker such as eHealthInsurance or InsureMe. I requested quotes from many sources, but ultimately chose to obtain my health insurance package through eHealthInsurance. Their prices were affordable and adequate to suit my basic coverage needs.

Open A Health Savings Account To Cover Unreimbursed Expenses Of Your Basic Health Insurance Policy

For those with high deductibles, I also suggest opening a tax advantaged Health Savings Account (HSA) to compliment your insurance plan. Your tax free contributions towards your HSA are either pre-tax or you can make deductions when you file your taxes. The amount you contribute can be accumulated and rolled over from year to year and be used to pay for qualified medical expenses as well as unreimbursed medical costs like deductibles, co-payments, and other services not covered by insurance.

For those who haven’t seen it before, MTV’s “My Super Sweet 16” is one of the many things in television pop culture today that is seriously messing up the minds of kids today, leading them down the path of excessive consumerism and obsession with wealth and entitlement. The MTV reality TV show follows and documents the 16th birthday celebrations of upper class teenagers. Now these are no ordinary birthday parties. We’re not talking about a day at Dave and Busters or the bowling alley. On this program we have stretch Hummers, horses, live dancers, famous rap stars, decked out ballrooms, and budget rolls in excess of $300,000. Everything is paid for in cash or with quick obligatory swipes of the parents’ trusty Amex Black Cards or Visa Black Cards, indispensable and exclusive tools of the trade. You won’t see any “paltry presents” like Apple iPods or Gap clothing here. Instead, the doting parents of these spoiled rotten kids prefer to give them top of the line BMW’s and Land Rover’s, capped with red bows on top to quench their material thirst. The show, although quite entertaining, proclaims the non-stop need to spend, spend, and spend to the utter collective delight of all luxury car dealerships and luxury boutiques everywhere.

Spoiled Bratty Kids Come In All Sizes

The show features spoiled teens of all race, nationality, and even sex – black, white, Persian, and even shockingly, a few teenage boys among the mostly teenage girls. The show follows the same template, tracing the excitement and expectation of throwing a “sky’s the limit” 16th birthday bash. We get to know the teen as she brags about her wonderful lifestyle and how much she owns in the way of material possessions. The majority of these “daddy’s little girls” stomp their feet and pout until their rich dads buy them the dream party that they want. The mothers that usually accompany these prissy little girls are no different – encouraging and stoking their behavior. In one episode, one mother even ended up trying on the same expensive dress that her daughter was trying out, sending the daughter into an angry and competitive tail spin tizzy of materialistic proportions.

The Excessive Lavishness Knows No Bounds

The show always starts with an elaborate ceremony usually complete with stretch limos and servants to hand out the official decorative invitations to chosen members of the teen’s high school in a manner befitting a royal coronation. The party usually takes up an entire decked out ballroom, with servers, dancers, and show-stopping celebrity singers. $75,000 jewelry and dresses line their wardrobes, adding to the excessive opulence. Throughout each episode, the birthday girl’s teenage guests scream and “woohoo” about the historical nature of the event and how it will go down in history as the best party ever and how everyone will always remember this – to the collective eye rolling of every single television viewer in the United States, myself included.

The end of each episode is never complete without the mandatory birthday girl walking outside with her guests in faux both-hands-to-the-cheek amazement at the ridiculously expensive luxury car awaiting her. While the girl drives away in her birthday present, her throng of friends and guests are left hollering and cheering her on with lavish love, admiration, and envy at her fortune.

It’s Really Entertaining But Also Really Sad

The alarming thing is not that these teeny boppers expect to be thrown lavish over-the-top birthday parties, but it’s that their wealthy parents are so boastful and encouraging of such a superficial lifestyle. The show proudly shows off the birthday teen’s opulence and extravagance, seemingly suggesting that such actions are perfectly normal. There are never glimpses of the ordinary masses, as the birthday teen’s friends and guests are almost always all filthy rich as well, with material throngs and possessions of their own. We never see any bitterness or ridicule by the guests or outside observers as the critics have all been effectively filtered out.

The show is admittedly quite entertaining, but not for necessarily the right reasons. It instills the wrong values in children and younger viewers today, particularly those approaching their 16th birthdays. Rather than preaching hard work and dedication, the show encourages feelings of material entitlement in the nature of “if you loved me you’d buy this for me”.

However I must admit, My Super Sweet 16 is terribly funny and interesting to watch. But when I laugh at the foot stomping, pouty girls in the show, I am doing so in the same manner that I would while watching a celebrity train wreck such as the salacious paparazzi antics of Britney Spears or Paris Hilton. I laugh because it’s so stupidly funny, but at the same time I feel sad for them – for the type of persons their own parents have groomed them into one day becoming.

As for my own 16th birthday way back when, I got an ice cream cake custom baked by my mom. I rented a few Nintendo games from Blockbuster, invited 4 close friends over for a video game sleepover party, and partied like a rock star at home. I grew up just fine, although getting a luxury sports car as a present would have been nice.

Hey, I see lots of nice freebies currently available out there at the start of this new year so here’s another big freebie post. Grab them all while they are still hot! As always, the items listed below are available as of the date of this posting, but keep in mind that some may not last too long once people get a wind of them. Here they are:

1. FREE 2008 AT&T Alascom Calendar
2. FREE Bally’s Total Fitness Center 8-Week Trial Membership
3. FREE Cadillac Eyeglass Case
4. FREE Digital Converter TV Coupons – For those of you still using rabbit ear antennas, you’ll need a digital converter to watch TV after midnight on February 17, 2009 because televisions in the United States will stop broadcasting in analog and switch to 100% digital programming. But if you already have cable, satellite, or any other paid TV service, you won’t need the converters because they are already digital.
5. FREE Duracell 4-Pack Of EasyTab Hearing Aid Batteries
6. FREE Garnier Fructis Shampoo and Conditioner Sample
7. FREE Head & Shoulders Shampoo and Conditioner Sample
8. FREE Intimately Beckham Fragrance – You might not be able to bend it like the L.A. Galaxy star, but at least you can smell like him.
9. FREE K-Y Intrigue Personal Lubricant – Heh. Yes, it is what you think it is. Click “enter”, then click “connect” on the top right.
10. FREE Lactaid Fast Act Dietary Supplements
11. FREE Meal At Old Country Buffet
12. FREE Pedometer – A pedometer is a personal device that encourages walking as an exercise by recording the number of steps you take throughout the day. Register, then on the next page click on the link to take the survey for the pedometer.
13. FREE Perfume Vials From Moblae
14. FREE South Beach Granola Clusters
15. FREE Subscription To Shape Magazine
16. FREE Tax Preparation – TaxAct Online claims there are no income restrictions, rebates, or gimmicks!
17. FREE Travel Mug From Guardian Vaccine – Answers to the questions: (1. A), (2. C), (3. C), (4. D), (5. B).
18. FREE Vaseline Intensive Rescue Lotion
19. FREE Vietnamese Original Pho Rice Noodle Soup
    

Remember to check out past Freebies if you haven’t already done so. Hopefully the other offers haven’t expired yet.

Is it just me or is there something very wrong when you have to spend money to buy what is essentially the some denomination as money? Because that’s basically what people are doing when they buy gift cards and are required to pay a purchase fee.

Personally, I have no problem with buying or giving gift cards as a presents. Gift cards are more flexible than the usual pre-chosen gift since the recipient theoretically has the option to determine how best to spend it. But therein lies the limitation and fallacy of the flexibility of gift cards. They’re actually not as versatile and unrestricted as people may think they are. Since most gift cards are only good towards the particular store they were purchased for, they are limited to that one location.

Gift Cards Impose Limits and Purchase Fees

If I receive a Starbucks gift card for example, I am limited to using it at a Starbucks store, even if I prefer the coffee drinks served at the Caribou coffee shop next door. What if I’m not even a coffee drinker? Then what am I supposed to do with this extra card? End up selling it on eBay for a price less than face value like so many gift card holders end up doing? Truthfully, having the gift card actually limits my options.

One of the most frustrating aspects of gift cards is the upfront purchase expense required. If you want to buy a $25 gift card for your friend, think you’re paying $25 for it? Think again! You’ll likely be paying $25 along with an extra processing fee on top of that. Even with a universally accepted American Express gift card, you’ll be required to pay a $3.95 charge just to purchase it, along with an extra $2.00 monthly fee that drains the card after the first 12 months.

Retailers Love Profiting From Gift Card Overspending and Lack Of Use

Retailers giggle like little school girls when customers buy gift cards. Since gift card sales are made at the point of purchase and not when they are actually redeemed for merchandise, retailers profit immediately from the card’s face value and the purchase fees when the cards are bought. Retailers are well aware that recipients of gift cards frequently end up spending more than the value of the cards and that any remaining amount can be chalked up as extra profit.

Consumer statistics indicate that after one year, nearly 27% of gift card recipients haven’t used their cards, with 7% of consumers never redeeming their cards. Common reasons why gift cards go unused include: not having the time to go out to use them, not finding anything worthy of purchasing, forgetting that you even had it (I’m guilty of this one), and losing the card and having it ultimately expire. My advice is, if you’re going to give someone a gift card, you should also hand them the gift receipt for the card. While many retailers won’t allow the gift card to be returned, at the very least they can replace it if it gets lost, damaged, or stolen. While many states now outlaw gift card expiration dates, not all consumers are protected from such diabolically hidden practices.

Best Solution – Adopt The Chinese Practice Of Giving Out Red Envelopes Stuffed With Cash

The most versatile gift is really just plain old cash, which gives you a perfect 1:1 exchange rate without the extra and unnecessary charges. The Chinese really have the concept of cash gifting all figured out and ingrained in their culture. For special events like birthdays, New Years, and graduations – red envelopes containing hard cash are offered as gifts. What a liberating gifting practice!

In Chinese culture, it’s tradition for the older generation to give children and the younger folks red envelopes for special events as a sign of encouragement and love. For kids, getting cash is the best type of present to receive. Cash gifts can even be immediately deposited into high yield saving accounts, thereby serving another important teaching tool of the importance of saving for the future.

I wish we can adopt this type of stigma-free cash gifting in this country. With the diversification and permeation of different cultures, perhaps one day such a custom will be more universally accepted here.