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Finally Finished Paying Off My Medical Bills.
In July, Mrs. Micah issued a personal finance challenge to her readers; to find one step you can take to make your financial system better or more organized. Well, in answer to that challenge, I promised myself I would get my medical bills 100% paid off, and I just finally wrote the last check out for $208.96 for the removal of my stitches. Sure, something else may pop up this year (like my wife needing new glasses), but I have finally paid off all the expenses tied to both my misdiagnoses of leukemia and my real diagnosis of a melanoma skin cancer. Needless to say, I don’t ever want another year like this one until I am about 85 years old.
Let’s take a look at some figures from this year now that I have assembled all of our medical costs for the year. Please note that only about $150 of this total is expenses for my wife - a teeth cleaning and a physical. Amazing.
$4,397 - health insurance premiums
$9,787 - copays, tests not covered, CT Scan, etc.
$112 - RX
Total: $14,296 I paid out $14,296 of our money for healthcare needs this year. I cannot begin to imagine how hard this would be on families that do not make the kind of money we do. Do I feel relieved that I wrote out that last check for $208.96? Yep. Do I feel healthy? Yep. But I also know how lucky I am that I could pay off these bills with cash and not have to go into credit card debt or file for bankruptcy all in the name of my health. When people don’t have health insurance they can afford, they go to the emergency room for treatment of colds and minor issues or they wait until they are even sicker to seek help. This ends up costing us all more money in the long run. The system, no matter what you think will fix it or how we can do it, is truly broken and needs an overhaul.
I feel good, and thank you to everyone who sent their kind emails and left nice comments. Supposedly I am 100% cancer-free and should live a perfectly fine and normal life as long as I get checked every 6 months. I feel great that I no longer have those bills coming in every few weeks. As soon as I thought I was done, something else would show up. But I am done now and we can go back to saving more for a house and working towards our long-term goals. It feels really nice to be out of debt again!
And The Winner Of $1,000 Dollars & An Idea Is…
This month’s giveaway was for a copy of the book “$1,000 Dollars & An Idea” by Sam Wyly. This is a great read if you are interested in how the mind of an entrepreneur works. There were 62 entries for the book this time, but only one lucky winner - Deborah E. Deborah, I will be sending you an email for your mailing address, so please be sure to send that back to me so I can get this book out to you. Congratulations!
For those of you who didn’t win, don’t fret - I will be giving away another book next month. Everyone who is subscribed by RSS feed or Email subscription can enter when they see the code word(s) inside the feed or email next time!
You Cannot Buy Your Way To Happiness, No Matter What You Think.
Americans are pretty depressed people. We are the most medicated and most in debt of all first world countries. We take prescriptions for ailments we make up, we are gaining weight and contracting fatal diseases at an alarming rate, we buy new cars and TV’s at the rate that some people in poor countries go grocery shopping, and we think we are entitled to anything we want no matter the consequence. It’s not only our national debt that is out of control - it is also our personal debt which has spiraled to a whopping $13.8 TRILLION dollars, which is up 20% since 2005. Combine our “need” for the latest and greatest (even when we cannot afford it), keeping up with the Joneses, and the recession we are sitting in right now, and it doesn’t paint a pretty picture. We are doing our best to buy our way to happiness - and it just doesn’t work.
Sure, a new TV is nice - but after a while it is just a TV and it probably does the same thing your last fully-functioning one did when you threw it away. A new car? Smells great, doesn’t rattle - but after a few thousand miles the initial high wears off and it just moves you from Point A to Point B. Believe me, I have been there - buying things that I didn’t need because I was bored or sad or whatever. And all those purchases went on credit cards that then took me YEARS to pay off - at one point I had about $35K in credit card debt. Most of that was useless crap that I didn’t really need, but rather I thought would make me happy. But after the initial rush, it’s just stuff - and stuff cannot make you happy for more than a few minutes. And even then it’s not a true happiness - it’s an external happiness that does nothing for you on the inside.
We Americans always thought that the day would come when we could get a new job and pay off our bills. Or sell our house and pay off the bills. Or worse yet, take out a second mortgage to pay off the bills. That thinking has come home to roost and left us with that $13 trillion in personal debt - with no way to pay it off. Credit was too easy to get - people with barely any income were given home loans and lines of credit that they could not afford. $35,000 cars were allowed to drive off lots with no money down. Well, those days are gone at least for a while - and I think it is a very good thing. Consumers should be forced to save up for what they want and not be given carte blanche with someone else’s money. It’s very easy to blame the banks, but it is also our fault - we are the ones who thought we needed a new plasma TV when our tube TV works perfectly fine. Or that we needed a 5 bedroom house for our 3-member household. Or that we deserved to to buy $500 handbags because we “had a rough week”. Truly, it’s about time the credit crunch came along and people woke up - we as a nation were trying to buy happiness - and hopefully we have learned that it cannot be bought.
It is time for us to BE more and DO more rather than BUY more. Go outside, go for a hike, go camping, take the kids to a baseball game. Start reading, join a club, start a new hobby. Stop watching TV 5 hours a night getting sucked into the newest advertisements for crap you don’t need.
I am not against purchasing items that you want - you work for your money, you should be able to buy things you want with it. We do it as well. In fact, I am buying a new laptop this week. But it is replacing a laptop I have had since I met my wife, which was 6 years ago. But buying when you can afford something goes a long way toward your financial health, and it makes items worth more as you know you really worked hard to be able to afford it. More importantly, you are not buying anything because you are unhappy or just bored - you are planning in advance and saving the cash you need for the item . Not having debt from your purchases can lead to true happiness!
Tax Deductions For Bloggers & The Self-Employed.
Starting looking at my tax situation for 2008, I have begun putting together a spreadsheet of all the expenses I have incurred running my blogging business.
photo credit: Paul KeleherI keep a loose tally throughout the year and have a folder on my computer that holds all my receipts (PDF’s and scanned docs), but this is the time of year that I start adding up actual numbers to see what my deductions might add up to. This is also the time I consider buying any new equipment for my business so I can get that write-off if I need it. In thinking about what I can and cannot deduct from my income, I refer to a bunch of sites and books that offer advice on deductions I have used before and ones I have never even thought of. Since a lot of you either run your own business or are bloggers yourselves, I thought posting a list of some of these deductions would help you in getting ready for tax season. Also, next week I will have a review of a tax book that every self-employed person should have in their bookcase; it is simply a great book. OK, let’s take a look at some of the things that you might be able to deduct on your tax return:
- Health insurance costs
- Web hosting fees
- Domain name expenses
- Design fees
- Application costs
- Bank charges
- Tuition fees
- Library charges
- Business gifts
- Safe deposit box fee
- Equipment rental
- Licensing fees
- Research materials
- Business credit card renewal fees
- Computers
- Computer accessories
- Video & still cameras
- Internet access
- Cellphone costs
- Business cards
- Promo pieces
- Product review expenses
- Advertising costs
- Giveaway prizes
- Percentage of rent/mortgage
- Percentage of utility bills
- Percentage of home insurance
- PO Box fees & postage
- Transportation costs
- Business lunches
- Second business phone line
- Membership dues
- Conference fees
- Charitable donations in the name of the business
- Backup hard drives
- Lawyer/accountant fees
- Software
- Office supplies
- Seminars
- Cable TV
- Magazine subscriptions
- Trademark/copyright filing fees
So for those of you getting ready for tax season, what would you add to this list that I might be missing? Let me know in the comments!
