Money 2018

This came from—what else?—a notice for continuing legal education! We lawyers always think about money!

It is a new year and I am spending some of my time reflecting on money: how 2017 finished out, what 2018 may hold, and where I hope to take our household and my personal finances.

I wrote about money several times during 2017: starting the year with stringent monetary controls, actually looking at my finances visually every paycheck, keeping my accounts closely, and reflecting on where things stood as I headed into the last quarter of the year. So how did 2017 finish up?

I tracked our food and household spending (cleaning supplies including laundry, shared toiletries such as toothpaste, and household items like lightbulbs, garbage liners and such) for all of 2017. The total for the year came to $2518.62, or $209.88 per month on the average, or about $210.00 per month. My goal in 2018? Get that figure under $200.00 per month. How much under? I'd love to hit about $175.00 per month. We'll see. One of the tweaks I am making for 2018 is tracking the food separately from the household items, although I will combine them for the monthly totals. I'm curious where the dollars go.

One item I did not track in 2017 but will in 2018 is how much we spend, individually and together, on eating out. "Eating out" means any and all eating out: the cup of cocoa at the coffee shop with good friends, the quick drive-thru bag of food post chemo, pizza at our favorite restaurant. Other than when we travel, when our eating out rate jumps, I think we spend less than $25.00, and usually less than $20.00, per month. We always lack the time and often lack the interest in eating out. I don't "do" lunches because lunch is the hardest meal for me to eat, period. (I do well with brownbagging it, when I can be very specific about what is before me, but not so well otherwise. Sometimes friends from outside have been known to join me for brownbag lunch in my office.)

I start every year, as do most people with health insurance, with my out-of-pocket and deductible reset to zero. My out-of-pocket is $250.00; I have to spend that before my insurance kicks in. After the $250.00 is met, I pay 10% of all covered medical expenses until I have paid out $1500.00. I have an MRI scheduled for January 15 so I will meet my out-of-pocket and a chunk of the deductible right out of the gate.

[A note about the MRI: IF I had been able to get it approved and scheduled before the end of 2017, the cost to me would have been zero. However, my insurance company chose to deny the MRI (which is related to my myeloma and is not just a whim), issued a written denial with a false statement in it and some specious medical reasoning, then refused to take an appeal from my specialist at Mayo because he was not the doctor who ordered it. (My personal physician did; Dr. Leung at Mayo, who said it had to be done, agreed with me that it could be done in Ohio.) When my personal physician finally got through on the peer-to-peer line with my insurance company and explained to a real doctor why the MRI was medically necessary,  it was approved immediately. Unfortunately, the whole insurance rigamarole took until January 3 and so I will paying for a portion of it. On the bright side, that just gets me that much closer to meeting my deductible for 2018.]

On the matter of insurance, the county commissioners decided to require employees to pay 11% of the premium, up from 10%. Between that additional 1% and the annual premium increase, I am paying $108.00 a paycheck, up $15.00 from the $93.00 of last year. On the one hand, it's still a great deal. On the other hand, as a county employee, many of us make considerably less than we would in the private sector. Historically, the trade off has been better insurance and retirement. (For the record, Ohio has been systematically cutting away at retirement forpublic employees, making that less attractive than in the past.) The 3% COLA I got to my hourly wage just nudged ahead of the increase in my insurance premiums; I take home $9.00 more per paycheck in 2018 than I did in 2017.  Be still my heart. (Don't mind me; I'm grateful I have health insurance, and good insurance at that.)

As alway, I am fascinated with those who make January a no-spend month. I make it a "spend as little as possible" month. (Heck, I make all my months that kind of month.) Besides continuing to follow Katy Wolk-Stanley, the Non-Consumer Advocate, I am also following the January Money Diet with Eliza Cross at Happy Simple Living. There is also the No Spending for the Year 2018 Facebook group, which is just a hoot. I get a kick out of seeing what other people are doing to curb their spending.  The company does me good, even if 99.999% of the time I just watch from the sidelines.

With every paycheck this year (starting with the first one of the year), I am doing what served me so well last year: take out my fixed expenses (which includes yoga, Amanda!), write a check to my "expense account" (my separate checking account that serves as savings), and live on what's left.

Let's see what 2018 brings.