Andy Hough

How Much Does Individual Health Insurance Cost?

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One of the main worries people have about being self-employed is the cost of obtaining private health insurance.  I have my individual health insurance policy with and my monthly cost is cheap.  This is for a temporary policy with a high deductible though so it can’t be compared to a typical group health insurance policy.  My health insurance is to keep a catastrophic health event from bankrupting me rather than providing me with access to routine health care.  I also save a little money on my health insurance by being an affiliate for eHealthInsurance.

A better comparison of my policy is to other individual health policies.  According to the ‘Cost & Benefits of Individual and Family Health Insurance Plans’ report the average premium paid for individual health insurance coverage in the United States in 2011 was $2,196 per year ($183 per month); families paid an average annual premium of $4,968 ($414 per month). The report also found that the average deductible for individually-purchased health insurance plans in 2011 was $2,935 for individuals and $3,879 for families.

My current health insurance cost is under $50 a month with a $5,000 dollar deductible.  That is for a temporary policy though, if I had a regular policy I’d be paying about $80 a month for health insurance with a $5,000 deductible or about $100 a month for insurance with a $2500 deductible. Either one is still quite a bit less than the report shows for the average.   It looks like I can upgrade my health insurance once my temporary policy is done and still have health insurance that is quite reasonable in cost.  This for a 44 year-old, overweight male if you are younger and thinner you should get a better rate.

The point is that private health insurance doesn’t cost as much as many people are afraid it costs.  If you’re considering self-employment or need your own health insurance policy for any reason I encourage you to check out the eHealthInsurance site.  It is easy to get a quote and determine how much health insurance would cost you.

Online Income Report – November 2011

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Here is a breakdown of my online income for November 2011.

Google Adsense – $317.92

Affiliate Income – $367.75

Brokered Ads – $58.26

Direct Ads- $2866.85

Total – $3610.78

My online income was down a bit from the previous month but it is still pretty strong.  I’m trying to increase my affiliate income so I’m not so dependent on direct advertising.  I did make a little progress on that in November but I need to put a lot more work into it.  The amount of time I spend to make this income isn’t much, I need to start putting in forty-hour weeks to really increase my online income.  And I also need to develop some more sources of alternative income and invest some of the proceeds of my online income to increase my passive income.

November Income – $3713.69

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Here is a breakdown of my income for November.

Online Income

 $3610.78

Interest

$7.11

Stock Dividends

$32.45

Cash Back/Surveys

$63.35

Total

$3713.69

November was another great month for income.  My online income was only $100 less than my record month the month before.  I will be happy if I can maintain that level this month.  My long-term goal is to increase it even more though.

I’ve been concentrating on my online income and therefore I didn’t have any income in November from mystery shopping, bank bonuses, or selling stuff.  I know that I could always ramp those back up if my online income drops off.  I’d prefer to increase my passive income but that takes a little more time.  I plan on adding to my dividend stocks next year but right now I’m building up my cash.

There will also be income from our offline business this month but I don’t include that in my income totals.

An online income report breaking down my sources of online income will be posted on Friday.

November Expenses – $1838.86

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Here is a breakdown of our expenses for November.

Household

$620.83
Entertainment

$68.75

Transportation

 $324.80

Food

$416.25
Cable/Internet

$66.86
Phone

$99.90
Electric

$59.20
Gifts

$129.84
Health

$52.43

Total

 $1838.86

Expenses in November were lower than October and below my goal of $2000.  Since we made that goal fairly easily I am going to bring back my old goal of $1750 in expenses for the month.  Other than needing to buy Christmas presents and a slightly higher electric bill all our expenses should be lower in December.

Our food expense was slightly lower than October but still well above the level I’d like.  We have spent over $400 on food each of the past two months which makes me think that my goal of $300 might be a stretch therefore I’m setting a goal of $350 for the month.

The transportation expense is the other area we can save money on.  We have had a car repair every month for the last few months plus insurance and registration the past couple of months.  This month I have to replace the turn signal lens that was broken in our car accident but am hoping there won’t be any other repairs. We also shouldn’t have to travel much and should be able to save on gas.

We will see how things turned out next month.

 

My Black Friday Experience

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We were wanting to get a new flat screen TV on Black Friday to replace our old tube TV. I knew Best Buy had a really good deal on 40″ TV but I also knew it would be almost impossible to actually get the deal. Although I don’t like Wal-Mart they had a couple of good deals on TVs so I decided I’d get a 32″ TV there. They advertised that most of their stuff would go on sale at 10pm and the electronics would go on sale at midnight. I didn’t plan on getting there until a half hour or so before midnight. My son-in-law went there at ten to get some of the other deals and checked on the electronics. You needed a ticket to get the TVs and they had already given out all of the tickets.

I had to make other plans. A quick search online showed me that Target had a 32″ TV available online for only $20 more than Wal-Mart. I went ahead and ordered that. We have to wait a few days for it to be shipped but I am okay with that since it kept me from having to get to Wal-Mart hours earlier to get a ticket to get a TV.

Despite ordering the TV online I still ended up at Wal-Mart for Black Friday. My stepdaughter had been looking forward to going to Wal-Mart with me to get the TV so we ended up going anyway. I ended up waiting around a hour and a half to save $30 on an all-in-one printer. I guess that isn’t too bad of an hourly rate for standing around but I don’t think I’d do it again unless I could sit because my knees can’t take standing around.

I don’t think we did too bad for Black Friday since we bought what we were planning to buy at a good price. We didn’t have to have the all-in-one printer but since it was on sale for less than the price of the included ink we will come out ahead on the deal.

What did you buy for Black Friday and Cyber Monday? Or did you just stay home?