Andy Hough

Healthcare.gov Finally Worked for Me (Mostly)

by

healthcare With the deadline to sign up for a new health care plan through Healthcare.gov approaching a couple weeks ago, I decided to give the web site one more try.  After signing in I saw that there was an option to discard my previous application.  Since that application never let me finish I scrapped it and started a new application.  I was pleasantly surprised that the new application worked and I was able to sign up for a new health insurance plan.  This is how the site should have worked when it first went live.

The only glitch was that when I finished the application there was a link to pay for my health insurance.  That link didn’t work.  I was able to contact the health insurance provider on my own and pay for the insurance.  The health insurance company also left me a voice message and mailed me a bill although I’d already paid my premium by the time those arrived.

After deducting my subsidy amount I will be paying $56 a month for health insurance.  That is $9 cheaper than I am currently paying, but the new plan would be $215 without the subsidy.  If I make more money than I predicted I’ll have to pay back some or all of the subsidy.   If I end up going full-time at my employer and receiving health insurance from them I’ll also have to pay back the subsidy.  On the other hand, if I end up making less than I predicted I could receive an additional subsidy amount when I pay my taxes.

The new plan does have a much smaller maximum out of pocket cap of $6000 compared to the $13,000 of my current plan.  That doesn’t seem like much of an improvement for a plan that costs $150 more a month.   It doesn’t matter much if my maximum out of pocket is $6,000 or $13,000.  Either way I have to pay out of pocket for doctor’s visits which means I won’t be going to the doctor and I won’t actually be receiving any health care for my money.  Either plan only helps me if I become seriously ill or injured.  I’m hoping someday the government can come up with a better solution to health care, but I’m doubtful that will happen.

 

 

November Savings Rate – 0%

by

November was not a good month for savings as I didn’t save any money during November.  Since I thought I was going to have to raid my savings during December, I didn’t bother putting any money in savings during the month.  As it turned out, I did get a job at the beginning of this month and won’t have to raid my savings and could have made at least a token contribution to my savings during November.  I’ll save as much money as I can this month, but it looks like I won’t meet my goal of saving 50% of my income.

My SWR went up to 49.15% from 47.67% the month before. I haven’t been able to make consistent progress on my SWR since my tax job ended in April.  The 4% SWR translates into having 25x your annual expenses in savings or 300 months of expenses in savings. Once I reach that point I will consider myself financially independent. The tax job is starting back up in January and the job I am working now will overlap that job for a couple of weeks so I’ll be making a decent income for the next few months and should start making progress on my SWR again.  I have 24.41 months of expenses saved, compared to 25.17 months the month before.  I went slightly backwards on that measure as well.  I’m looking forward to getting my savings back in gear and making significant progress towards my savings goals again.

November Income – $1004.13

by

Here is a breakdown of my income for November.

Online Income

 $428.96
Interest

$2.06

Dividends

$19.76

Cash Back

$42.10

Mystery Shop

 $74.00

Job

 $437.25

Total

$1004.13

November was not a great month for income.  I did have a three day document review job which kept my income from being completely terrible. December will be a much better month for income since I now have a full time job.  I won’t receive two full paychecks this month so January should be even better.

Cash back is a nice extra source of income that mainly comes from Mr. Rebates. The cash back income should go up a little as more people are doing their Christmas shopping.  I’m not worrying too much about my alternative and passive sources of income this month.  I’m focusing on making money from my job since that is currently the easiest way to make money right now.

 

Document Review Job

by

I have started working a new document review job.  On a document review job you basically spend all day sitting at a computer looking at electronically scanned documents and tagging whether they are responsive to a particular discovery request and whether the document should be privileged.  My first document review job was the one I did from July to September.  Having experience doing document review from that job and using a particular type of document review software allowed me to land this job.  I’m hoping that it will be easier for me to land future document review jobs in the future as I gain more experience.

Many people don’t like working document review jobs since it can be boring sitting at a computer looking at documents all day.  I actually mostly like doing document review.   I get to work pretty much autonomously and only have a minimal need to interact with other people.  For the most part I’m just looking at the computer all day.  Also, I can listen to music or podcasts on my phone which keeps the work from getting too boring.

The work schedule is another thing I like about the job.  The office is open 12 or more hours a day and as long as you get at least 40 hours in during the week it doesn’t matter what hours you work.  Since I’m not much of a morning person I usually arrive a little later in the morning and leave a little later at night.

The job I’m currently working is allowing people to work as many hours as they want.  There is no overtime for working over 40 hours in a week, but more hours is still more money so I’m working more than 40 hours.  I only managed 42.5 hours this week, but I plan to work more hours for the rest of the project.  Since the job is temporary I might as well make money while I can.  Plus, if I work a few extra hours at work I don’t feel as bad about being lazy when I get home.

I’m not sure how the paydays for this job will fall, but I’m hoping that I’ll get a couple of checks this month so I’ll have a shot at meeting my goal of saving 50% of my income for the year.  Since I’m concentrating on working my job blog posts will continue to be sporadic.  My plan for now is to do my blogging on the weekend and just worry about working my job during the week.

Have you ever had a job that allowed you to work as many hours as you want?  How many hours did you work?

 

November Expenses – $1320.78

by

Here is a breakdown of my expenses for November.

Household $486.01
Entertainment

$93.92

Transportation

 $108.12

Food

$131.58
Phone

$26.81
Health

$106.94
Travel

$367.40

Total

 $1320.78

My November expenses were not bad considering I paid for $367.40 of my cruise vacation expenses during the month. My expenses would have been under my stretch goal of $1000 if I didn’t have the cruise vacation expenses.  I haven’t done the math, but I’m pretty sure I’m still on target to meet my goal of having my annual expenses be less than a minimum wage income.

The rest of the cost of the cruise will be paid this month. Since my travel rewards card will pay some of that expense for me the remaining cost of the cruise will not be too much.

Food cost was a little high in November, but it was low in October so those balanced out.  The food total should be around $100 this month.

I’ve started a new job that is a thirty minute commute each way so my transportation cost will go up, everything else should be about the same.  It is unlikely I can get my expenses down to the $1000 level this month, but they should be at least a little less than in November.