Jana Says

Living life from cover to cover

Insurance saves (when you have it)

by Jana 27 Comments

A few nights ago, my daughter woke up, screaming and crying. My husband went in to check on her (mainly because he was still awake) and when I arrived on the scene, I was told it was not due to a nightmare (which is what I thought). It was because she was screaming in pain. Apparently, her ear hurt. I thought it was from changing her earrings but she said no, it hurt inside her ear. This? Did not make me happy.

Since it was 11:00PM, there wasn’t much we could do about it. We gave her some Tylenol, put an ice pack on her ear and put her back in bed. The next morning, I called the doctor to schedule an appointment. My daughter is not a complainer so when she says something hurts, I listen. I was able to get her an appointment for that afternoon, talked to my supervisor to get the afternoon off, picked her up from school and off we went to the pediatrician. Sure enough, she had a raging ear infection.  The doctor called in a prescription and a few minutes later, we had an antibiotic in our hand (the pharmacy is at the opposite end of the shopping center where the doctor’s office is located. Yeah, I’m that lazy) and we went home.

This whole event cost me $24.71. That’s it. I knew that I was fortunate because of our insurance and my job but it wasn’t until I started looking more closely at the cost of everything (‘cause I do that) that I realized just how fortunate:

  • The doctor’s visit. My husband’s employer pays the cost of our insurance so there is no employee contribution. The insurance pays the doctor. All we have to pay is a $15 co-pay and the rest takes care of itself. If we didn’t have insurance, we’d be out at least $100 or more just to be seen by the doctor (the visit lasted maybe 10 minutes). Pretty big difference for a nominal amount of time.
  • The antibiotic. Because of our insurance, we paid $9.71 for the antibiotic. Our pharmacy is kind enough to include the actual cost of the prescription on the receipt. For the one my daughter is on, if we didn’t have insurance, we would have been out $96. That’s a ton of money for a 10 day course of antibiotics. Our insurance afford us a huge savings.
  • Paid time off. One of the benefits of my job is paid vacation and sick time. If I have a sick child, I get to use my sick time and, because I have an understanding supervisor, I can pretty much go to him 10 minutes before I need to leave, let him know what’s going on, and I can go. He doesn’t give me a hard time and doesn’t question if I’m being truthful. Given that, I lost absolutely no pay for having to take my daughter to the doctor. If I were paid hourly, I would have lost a substantial amount of money.
  • Transportation. Since I must have a car to get around, I was able to just get in the car and go. I didn’t have to wait for a bus, pay for a cab or anything else.  Not only did it save me money but a ton of time, too.

All in all, the doctor’s visit and prescription pick up took an hour. I wound up taking 3 hours off of work because I didn’t know how long the wait at the pediatrician and the pharmacy would be and I wanted to be safe. For that hour, what I paid out of pocket is pretty reasonable. When I think about what it would have cost me had I not had insurance or paid time off, I would have been really upset that something as small as an ear infection could have cost me 3 hours of pay and over $200.

The intent of this post is not to be an indictment of our health care system or rant about the cost of medical care. Nor is the intent to brag about the fact that I have insurance when so many go without. No. The intent of this post is simply to illustrate what, up until now, I have taken for granted. The only debt I’ve never had is medical debt. But after breaking down what a simple ear infection could have cost me, I now understand how a major illness or injury can financially cripple people.

 

 

Unsupportive friends? Let ’em go.

by Jana 22 Comments

Addie from Life and My Debts recently posted that her friends are completely unsupportive of her desire to become debt free. Their lack of support had her questioning her intentions and left her wondering if she’s bizarre for wanting to eliminate her debt. She started to think that she should just accept her debt and not worry about it for the next 14 years. The whole post made me quite sad. Why? Because, 10 years ago, Addie could have been me.

When I was 25, like Addie is, I didn’t understand the first thing about finances. I didn’t care that I had debt because everyone had debt! I didn’t think twice about using a credit card for things I couldn’t afford in cash and I certainly didn’t care about getting my then-fiancé’s (now husband) student loans paid off (after all, they were his. Not mine). I figured my credit card debt would take care of itself one day and living paycheck to paycheck with no real budget was the way to go. I had a full-time job with benefits, a car, a nice apartment…the works. My friends were all the same way and none of us at anytime ever discussed what it would be like to not have debt.

Come to think of it, we never really discussed money at all. Not in any sort of productive way anyway. When we would talk about money, it was which beers were on tap and what the cover charge was at our favorite bars and how much that really cute shirt cost. In my 20s, I never sat around with my friends discussing the importance of saving for a down payment or investing in our retirement funds or just using cash. For me and my friends, finances weren’t important. As long as we were doing what we wanted, it didn’t matter how we funded it. [Read more…]

Confession: I don’t understand investing

by Jana 45 Comments

This post is a part of Women’s Money Week 2012. For even more posts about savings and investing, visit womensmoneyweek.com.

It’s been a long time since I’ve made a confession. I feel that you’re due. So here goes: I don’t know anything about investing.

For a personal finance blogger, that’s a pretty sad fact. But in my case, it’s true. There’s no good reason for it, either, except for the fact that it bores me to tears. I don’t care about the stock market. I don’t care about figuring out returns. I don’t care to know about bulls and bears unless it’s knowing how to avoid contact with them. And the tickers that run at the bottom of some news networks? Are more confusing than trying to figure out where the

Believe me, I know how awful that sounds. I know how important it is to understand all of that information. It affects my retirement fund, my interest rates (does it?), and so many other aspects of my finances that it actually does me a disservice not to understand it. But I just can’t bring myself to understand it. It’s a problem I’ve had since high school when my economics teacher attempted to teach us about stocks. It was so complicated and so boring to me, I tuned it out. It’s a pattern that’s just stuck.

That doesn’t mean I don’t invest. I do have a retirement account (or two) that are dependent on investing and stocks and all of that. Sadly, I have no clue which companies I’m invested in. I tried to care when I was picking the companies. My husband encouraged me to read portfolios and about long term rates of return and all of that. And I tried. I really did. But after 5 minutes, I stopped, picked the ones that had the most interesting names and went with that. And I haven’t made a single change since I first picked the stocks.

I want to understand investing. I try to read blogs and posts about investing. I follow news stories. I ask questions of people who know what they’re talking about. I’ve been making a concerted effort to learn but unfortunately, the harder I try, the worse it gets. For some reason, my brain will not allow me to absorb the information that’s available, no matter how well written or simplified (it is at the point I feel obligated to say that I believe if I knew less song lyrics and movie lines, there would be more room in my brain for this information).  It’s as if I’ve been sprayed with investing repellant.

Sadly, I’m not alone. While I may be an anomaly in the personal finance world, I’m a statistic in the real world. In my real life, I don’t know a single woman who actually understands investing (or admits to understanding investing). Most of these women say that they leave it to their husbands to understand and take care of it; it’s just not something that they care to be bothered with or even care to comprehend. I think that’s where we differ. While they don’t care to learn or are more than happy to sit back and let their husbands take care of it, I genuinely want to learn. I just struggle more than I’d like.

I believe it’s extremely important for women to understand and learn about investing. It’s part of taking an active role in our finances. Relying on someone else to do it for us is no longer acceptable. And, if you’re willing to teach me about investing, and have an extreme amount of patience, please let me know. I really want to understand my retirement account.

The high cost of low self-confidence

by Jana 15 Comments

So, remember when I wrote that I have little to no self-confidence? It’s still true; nothing’s happened to change that. But since that post, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my lack of self-confidence. Some of that thinking has involved trying to improve upon it. And some of that thinking has revolved around that fact that, over the years, not having any has actually cost me quite a bit of money.

I never realized how much my self-confidence affects my daily life. Every day, I’m faced with situations that are directly impacted by my level of self-confidence.  Let’s examine a few:

  • Customer service. I can’t count how many times I’ve received bad customer service. Whether it’s a restaurant or a bank or dealing with a corporation like my cable company, I am like a bad customer service magnet. I get treated poorly, get accused lying (this actually happened. The company that handles our dependent care account accused us of not using the daycare that we use), or are just plain ignored (this also happened. At several jewelry stores. While engagement ring shopping). Rather than asserting myself and demanding better service or a better deal, I just accept what I’m given. It’s as if I believe that I’m being treated the way I’m supposed to be.
  • At work. Although I received—and believe I earned—a fairly substantial promotion 4 years ago, there were numerous times that I doubted I deserved it (well, this had a lot to do with the horrible woman I worked for). Even though I was hired due to a certain level of expertise, I didn’t believe that I had the authority to exhibit or use that expertise. Additionally, I don’t feel that I deserve a position higher than what I currently have. My supervisor is retiring, and I will not be applying for his position. One of the reasons is that I don’t believe I’ll be a very good supervisor. As a result, I’m losing out on what some would consider a significant pay raise.
  • Freelancing. We’ve already covered that I’m terrified of self-employment and one of the reasons is finding clients. I have an extremely difficult time with self-promotion which, as my freelancing friends can attest to, is a huge part of being a successful freelancer. For some reason, I cannot find it within myself to say that not only am I awesome but I’m totally worth that money you’re willing to pay (and maybe more).  I don’t know how many freelance assignments I’ve missed out on or how underpaid I’ve been for some of them because I just couldn’t ask for more.
  • Relationships. Those of you who know me will contest this, but I am not very outgoing. I am not someone who is comfortable in new situations or around new people. I’m not a big conversation starter and new people make me really, really nervous. As a result, I don’t have a huge group of friends. I don’t get invited to those crazy purse parties (which actually is a really good thing) or to girls’ night out. I’m not part of a book club or have friends to go get mani/pedis with. While these do save me tons of money it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I don’t have many friends because I don’t think I’m worthy of having friends. So I don’t put myself out there to make friends. It’s a pretty awful little cycle.

The only times I will break out of my shell and demand better is when it comes to my daughter and my animals. They cannot speak up for themselves so I must step in and do it for them (like The Lorax, only with children and animals instead of trees). I don’t care what people think of me when they’re involved. Because they deserve the best and I will stop at nothing to make sure that that happens. I will not allow myself to be cheated financially or service-wise when the health and well being of my child and my pets is at stake.

I’m sure there are plenty of other instances where I’ve lost money or spent money as a result of my self-confidence. It’s really a shame that I allow this to happen to myself but I’ve been this way for so long, I genuinely don’t know another way to be. I probably should work on fixing this. Soon.

Readers, have you ever spent or lost money due to low self-confidence? Have you ever made money as a result of being confident? 

Married people need side hustles too

by Jana 17 Comments

(Before reading the post, read the title again but this time, sing it to Samantha Fox’s “Naughty Girls (Need Love Too)”. Makes it better, right?)

The Single Saver recently wrote a post that discussed why single people need a side hustle. I totally agree with her. Having that extra income does make numerous situations facing single people significantly easier.  But I need to add that married people need a side hustle, too.

As one half of a married couple, I’m the first one to admit that married people, overall, have an easier time financially. If both partners are employed, that’s double the income which means more money to cover the bills that single people generally have to absorb on their own. And, if the couple can manage to avoid the lifestyle creep that tends to happen with increased income, it is possible for a family to live on one income and save the other (this hasn’t happened in my house but from what I understand, it can happen). These certainly give a married couple a significant benefit over a single person.

However, married couples do face similar challenges of single people. Married couples still need to pay bills and eat and save. We still need to pay a mortgage or rent. We still have pets and kids to take care of (well, some of us do). But even more than that, having side hustles helps married couples in a number of ways:

  • Debt repayment. Two people sometimes means double the debt, either individual debt that’s brought into a relationship or debt that was accumulated together. In my relationship, we had both. We each entered the marriage with our own debt and then accumulated even more together. The fact that both of us had part-time jobs enabled us to pay down our individual and collective debt that much faster.
  • Disposable income. At the beginning of our marriage, and for many years afterwards, we had very little income to go around. Almost everything we earned went straight to our debt repayment as well as our normal monthly bills. Every once and while, we’d work an odd job that we designated as our fun money. We’d use it to treat ourselves to a movie or to dinner.  Now that we’re pretty much consumer debt free, it’s nice to have that extra income to put towards savings or retirement.
  • Income insurance. Not in the sense of car insurance or homeowner’s insurance but insurance in the event that one person loses his (or her) full-time job for whatever reason (layoff, medical reason, injury). For instance, if my husband were to lose his job, he still has his part-time job that provides a decent amount of income. The additional income that he brings in would soften the blow of losing his full-time income.
  • Death. Spouses die. It’s a fact. If a spouse dies, expectedly or unexpectedly, the financial consequences can be damaging (this is also why life insurance is so important and I’m yet again reminded that I really need to get some) especially if the spouse that dies is the higher income earner. That extra income can help offset the financial stress.
  • Relationship problems. Speaking from experience, spouses cheat. There is nothing worse than the feeling that you can’t leave a relationship that you are unhappy with because you can’t afford it. By having a side hustle, or part-time job, it’s possible to build up a savings account or have the extra income necessary to leave. I don’t necessarily advocate this as an option but sometimes, a relationship cannot be salvaged. Having the financial means to terminate the relationship provides necessary peace of mind.
As The Single Saver points out, side hustles and part-time income are not intended to replace full-time income; they are merely a supplement. But sometimes that supplemental income can provide a vital lifeline in extenuating, and not so extenuating, circumstances. 

Readers: If you’re married or in a relationship, what do you think of having a side hustle or part-time job? Do you have one? How do you use the money? 

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