Posted on: June 22, 2009 by Matt
As I mentioned in my last post - there was a chance that I would be headed to Denver for a while to help out my company while another employee is on medical leave. As of Friday afternoon I am officially heading out to Colorado.
That said - I am not sure how my trip will effect my ability to post but I hope to have some time to write up a few new posts during my travels. We will have to wait and see how it goes.
Posted on: June 19, 2009 by Matt
At the beginning of the week my company had a bit of an unexpected shake up and now it looks like I may be heading to Denver for a week and a half or so to help out. I’m not too sure yet how the trip will potentially effect my posting but I am hopeful I will find time to write still. In all honesty I am a bit more concerned about having to be a way from my family for the next week and a half. Oh well - we will see how it all shakes out and I will be sure to post the final results.
As for some good reading this week here is what I came up with for stuff I liked:
Posted on: June 18, 2009 by Matt
Back in the beginning of the year I posted on some of the things I am looking forward to in2009 and considering that we are now about half way through the year I figured I would post an update of where I stand. The past few months have been pretty interesting and quite a bit has happened so I will get right down to it.
- Getting back in shape: I have been going to the gym for 5 months or so now. Lately I have been getting up early in the morning and going to work out four or five days a week. My gym is closed on Sundays thorough the summer so I am really only missing one or two days per week that the gym is available. Since the gym closed for Sundays a couple weeks ago I have been working to get outside and do something on Sundays as well. Overall I now: get a pretty good amount of exercise, have quite smoking for over a year and do not drink. My diet is still a bit unhealthy and I tend to overeat and have a sweet tooth but I am making progress.
- No more car payments: Next month will be my final full payment followed by a half payment in August and that will be done. I am very much looking forward to not owing money to my ex-girlfriend any more and am looking even more forward to having the extra cash every month!
- Giving my site a new look: I have changed my theme twice and am thinking I will settle with this one for a little bit. So far so good I think.
- Paying off my credit card: I no longer carry a balance on my credit card from month to month! I am still getting to a point where I do not spend at all on it but my balance of nearly $2,000 that was carrying over and accruing interest fees is now gone!
- Rebuilding my savings account: I am getting there. I have my own little emergency fund challenge for 2009 running to give myself some public incentive and accountability to get my savings account back in shape. Right now I am up to $250 in the emergency fund and am aiming to reach $1,000 before the end of the year.
So far 2009 has been a pretty productive year and I am really looking forward to seeing how it all wraps up. I am hopeful that my personal financial situation will continue to improve. My girlfriend has also been taking some pretty impressive steps to improve her financial fitness as well and has impressed me with her ability to reach her goals as well. I think that right now she has more in savings than I do and was telling me the other day that now that she has the money in savings she does not want to touch it. Needless to say - I am proud of her and am awed by her ability to accomplish her goals.
Tags: Debt, Debt Reduction, Goals, Health, Personal Finance, Relationships, Savings Filed Under: Debt, Debt Reduction, Goals, Health, Planning, Relationships, Savings
Posted on: June 17, 2009 by Matt
I have been thinking a fair amount lately about the US and why we do not have a universal health care system. The thoughts are probably coming from recently watching Michael Moore’s film Sicko along with my own personal need to get out and see a doctor for a check up. I have not been to a doctor for a routine physical for about 10 or 11 years now and currently dread the idea due to having out of pocket costs. I have recently opened up an HSA to set money aside for doctor visits and do have insurance but it is designed to only cover expenses after a $2,000 deductible is met. Overall my whole experience with health insurance has been pretty jaded. Even when I had “good insurance” that included low co-payments the policies were overly complicated, riddled with loopholes and required the use of certain providers. I have also heard stories of denied claims and families unable to cover the costs of covering all members.
Something about being denied access to your health or the health of a family member really just rubs me the wrong way. Insurance companies benchmark the “success” of a medical director based on the number of claims that they can deny to increase profits - ridiculous…. I just can not believe it. Health care should be as readily available to people as emergency services - the fire department does not let your house burn down because your home owner’s insurance did not pre-approve your claim. Why should anyone have to put their health at risk or suffer simply because an external company (or lack there of) decides they should?
I know that to many people out there that the socializing of health care is a pretty scary thought. People are worried about increased taxes, more national debt, decreased health care, outdated technology, inadequate facilities, etc. The fact still stands that we are the only wealthy, industrialized country that does not offer our citizens universal health care. So here is my question: If every other industrialized country in the world can offer universal health care to its citizens then why can’t we? The majority of these countries offer free to very low cost health care to citizens and have longer life expectancies, lower infant mortality rates and generally healthier people.
My answer to my question above: Greed. I think that insurance and pharmaceutical companies along with most of the health care industry and even our own government have let their want for more money to take a higher priority than the health of the nation as a whole. For those of you that disagree and think that we have a wonderful system in place I say just wait until it effects you personally. Eventually it will and even the most conservative will end up seeing the flaws with a for profit health care system. I am personally glad that I have not been effected yet and am hopeful that my family and I will never have to face a medical condition that goes unchecked.
Posted on: June 15, 2009 by Matt
For the past couple of months I have been looking to find a piece of software that would allow me to manage my money in one central location. I looked at Mint.com but was disappointed to discover that they do not offer services for my bank. I also had used Microsoft Money in the past but it looks like Microsoft will be discontinuing Money later this month. The copy of Money I have is from 2005 and is on my desktop computer that now lives in my girlfriend’s office. I do not spend a lot of time working in her space and therefore (due to the OEM license) do not have a copy on my laptop. I began to search for alternatives by looking down the Quicken product line and discovered the free option of Quicken Online.
I created an account and figured I would give it the quickest test I could think of: trying to add my checking account. My checking account is at a small local bank and the folks over at Mint.com do not have my bank as an option for adding the account. Despite submitting a request to add the bank nothing has happend over the past couple of months that I have tried. Considering my previous luck I did not expect that Quicken Online would have access to my bank but when I started to set the account up I was pleasantly surprised to see my bank listed!
I went through the process and set up all of my accounts without issue and began to dig into the product a little bit. Overall the product is very similar to the offering from Mint.com but appears to have less in the way of sponsored services / ads. The interface is clean and intuitive and offers most features that you need to manage your finances on a basic level (exactly what I was looking for). The service offers the ability to view all transactions for all accounts lumped together or for individual accounts only, trends for spending, income and savings and a “goals” section to plan a budget. Additionally - the Quicken service offers the ability to manually add items like bills to your accounts which appeared to be missing from Mint.com’s offering.
Overall - I am fairly impressed by the quality of the “free” service offered by Quicken. They have access to all the information that I need to have rolled up in one place and the ability to view that data in several different ways. For me it seems like the most cost effective and robust choice available and I will probably use this as my new personal finance software (for now anyway). The ability to have access in multiple locations and the broad range of features (including SMS alerts) will be enough to hold me as a customer for a while.
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