I’m hosting the Carnival of Personal Finance next week. To submit an article, please either use this submission form, or just e-mail me. Entries are due by 5pm ET on Sunday 10/16. Please follow the submission guidelines posted here. Look forward to reading some good stuff!
Still on the search for the best health insurance plan that will let me contribute to a Health Savings Account (HSA). I need to contact my State Farm agent for one more quote, and then I can start crunching some numbers. First, I wanted to write down some basics of what I’ve found out about HSAs, including Pros and Cons. Overall, I think of them as a Traditional IRA for healthcare expenses.
Who’s eligible:
Anyone under age 65 can contribute to an HSA if they buy a high-deductible health insurance policy. The policy’s deductible must be at least $1,000 for individuals or $2,000 for families.
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Here are our budget results for September via Quicken:
We did fine overall in most areas including Gas, Dining Out, and Groceries. I try to drive as little as possible these days, and use public transportation for school. Our entertainment bill was $50 less this month, because of our requested cable bill reduction, and the fact that they bill one month ahead and applied the discount retroactively to last month’s bill.
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This week’s Carnival of Personal Finance and Carnival of Debt Reduction are up. Check ‘em out! I’ve decided that every week I will also post a Carnival-related food link, because that’s what I think of when I read Carnivals. This week - Cotton Candy.
I’m cheap - err… frugal, so I’ve only used the 411 service on my cell phone once when it was a work emergency and being late was not an option. And I know I’m not the only one who won’t pay $1.25 for someone with a phone book. But, now, I don’t have to! Enter the newly launched service at 1-800-FREE411 (1-800-373-3411), which is paid for by advertisers. Program this number into your cell phone now. Thank me later =)
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Catching up on housekeeping this weekend, I ran across my stash of Bed, Bath, and Beyond coupons. For those that shop at BBB, if you sign up for their mailing list in-store, you regularly get coupons for ‘20% off any single item’, with some brand restrictions like Dyson vacuums. The great thing about these coupons is that they never expire. I’ve been to many BBB stores from many states, and there is an unstated policy that they accept any coupon, even though there is an expiration date clearly printed on each one!
(11/5/05: This is old news, I now have plenty of referrals. Please follow the new directions for the Emigrant Direct Sign-Up Bonus.)
Ok, I’m all caught up on e-mails now. Every who wrote me their 1st & 2nd email on or before Friday 10/7 should have a reply.
Lots of referrals left, so no worries.
As of this writing, 80 referrals have been given out, so 20 are left. I will try, but I cannot guarantee that I will be able to update again promptly when they run out, so this is my official warning: You may not get in on this offer if you are not within the next 20 people to go through my link and apply and e-mail me. But you really have nothing to lose by trying either. FYI, I’ve been getting from 2-8 referrals a day.
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HSBC Banks’s Online Savings Account (features mentioned previously), an ING/Emigrant Direct no-minimum no-fees clone, is currently offering a $35 Opening Bonus for new customers. The bonus code, which is already part of the URL, is ‘ccs20‘ in case you need it. I haven’t opened an account here, and am debating whether or not the $35 bonus is worth for an account I may or may not use, but hey, free money is free money. Anecdotally, they are only doing a “soft” credit pull to check your identity, so your credit score likely won’t be hurt either. Offer expires 10/31/05.
School’s keeping me pretty busy, but Open Enrollment ends October 31st, so I need to get going if I’m going to look for alternative health insurance. I’m no expert, but I’m learning - a big website on Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) is HSAInsider.com, and the best rate quote comparison site seemed to be eHealthInsurance.
Going on eHealthInsurance, I typed in my info (male, 27, non-smoker, full-time college student) and actually found a lot of good big-name options. For some reason I thought I’d only find smaller companies. Both Kaiser Permanente and Blue Cross/Blue Shield came with an HSA compatible option for just under $100/month.
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Bank of America has just announced a new program called Keep The Change. If you enroll, every time you buy something with a Bank of America debit card, they?ll round up your purchase to the nearest dollar amount ? and transfer the difference from your checking to your savings account. So if you buy something worth $4.57, you’ll get charged $5 to your checking account, but get the 43 cents straight into your savings account. So far, ho-hum. But, for the first 3 months, they’ll match your “change” 100% (so you’d get 86 cents in your savings), and 5% after that (45.15 cents).
Obviously, you need both checking and savings accounts at Bank of America. I do. You also need to physically walk in a branch to enroll, which I haven’t had the chance to yet. I think I will sign up and participate, but probably only for the initial 3 months and for smaller amd non-gas/grocery store/drugstore purchases.
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I forgot to mention that, although tuition is going to be a big expense this year, I will be eligible for the Lifetime Learning Credit. In essence, it is a 20% rebate back on your college-level expenses up to $10,000, with some restrictions. Since it is a tax credit and not an deduction, it’s up to $2,000 cash in your pocket.
You must pay these expenses yourself, not from a scholarship or a 529 plan. Tuition counts, and mandatory fees count, but for me books do not, since they are technically not “required for enrollment”. Very disapointing, sometimes the books cost as much as the class!
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(Update: This is old news, I now have plenty of referrals. Please follow the new directions for the Emigrant Direct Opening Bonus Promotion.)
First, I’d like to say thanks everyone for reading and making my $10 Emigrant Direct Opening Bonus Referral program successful so far. Ok, now here are some things I need participants to read:
1. Not everyone is following the rules exactly. I need two e-mails from everyone - one when you open the account online, and another when you get the paper letter and get full online access to your account. This is to ensure an accurate count, and to make sure we don’t go over 100 without knowing and leave people out in the cold. If this happens, the people who did not follow the rules will be the ones left out instead! Otherwise, the Honor System approach seems to be doing well.
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We just entered the Open Enrollment period for my wife’s work, so we have to choose what health insurance options we want for 2006. This is actually pretty good timing since I am now also eligible for health insurance for as a student at my University.
Since I left my job in July, I’ve been added onto my wife’s health plan for an additional $200 pre-tax a month, a pretty good deal. Next year, it’s only going to be $160/month. I don’t have any current health conditions, but I feel it’s very important to stay covered at all times. The insurance plan is a pretty decent PPO, especially if you stay in-network (I don’t really have any preference towards any specific doctor). In-network, the plan has a $200 annual deductible per person, and an annual out-of-pocket maximum (including the deductible) of $1,200 per person. There is a $2,000,000 lifetime maximum benefit.
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