Thrifty CT Living

Cost of Health Care

Over 11% of the people in the State of Connecticut are without any kind health care insurance at all. Another 34% are underinsured. While Connecticut does provide a public health care plan, quite frankly the monthly premiums (at $433 a month for one person) are unaffordable for most uninsured households. And this does not include the co-pays to the doctor.

People who don’t have insurance often risk their health by avoiding health care because paying out-of-pocket for care to most providers is simply unaffordable. And if you have a health condition that requires prescriptions, not having insurance can become a health crisis.

Frankly, between you and me, the symbiosis between the health insurance and the health care industry has produced a monster. This beast is the high cost of health care. It’s like heroin, this money that the health care industry gets from the insurance companies. Continue reading →

Kneading Pizza Dough

It is, perhaps the biggest day of the year for sports enthusiasts, the day most women dread. It is the Superbowl, which this year falls on Sunday, February 5.

Whether or not you are hosting a game party most of you moms out there are expected to produce some game day fare. In my house, that food is pizza, but not just any pizza, my own.

I started making my own to defend against of the high price of pizza delivered to the house. Now it is an expected part of any family gathering, except Thanksgiving and Christmas.

If you don’t bake much, you might think that making pizza dough is outside your skill set. Relax, its easy and I have a few short cuts too. Continue reading →

The first advice diet gurus give you when you embark on a diet is to keep a diet diary. After all, how can you change your eating habits if you don’t know what you are eating?

The same principle applies to money management. If you don’t know where your money is going, how will save any of it? But how are you going to do that aside from keeping track of your expenses on a spread sheet?

Good news! Online tools takes the onus out of counting up your pennies. There are a number of tools out there, but the one that I use is Mint.com. Mint is a product of Intuit, the same people who produce Turbo Tax. Mint is free, my favorite price point. It helps you organize your money by logging in (with your permission) to your bank accounts and categorizes your expenses. There are generic categories, but you can add your own. Once your categories are set up, the only thing you need to do is take a few minutes going over your spending once a month to make sure everything is categorized properly.

You have access to bar and pie graphs (like the one pictured) which captures the low down on your monthly and yearly spending. Nothing hits home like seeing where your money goes.

A real plus to using a service like this is using the categories. A the end of year you can pull up a list of tax-deductible expenses to use when calculating your taxes and have an exact total instantly. What a plus.

Another organizing technique is to put the due dates for your monthly bills on a calendar. I use my iCal calendar on my computer, but there are online tools like Don’t Forget the Milk.com that will send you automated reminders in your email.

If you have any other simple organizing technique let us know with a comment!

The Nutmeg State is the fourth priciest state, the fifth priciest place, just right below Washington, DC and Manhattan in which to live. Connecticut’s state and local taxes are the 3rd highest in the nation. Our “tax freedom day”, the day on which we’ve earned enough money to pay our taxes come twelve days later, on May 2, than the national average.

There is no doubt about it. Connecticut is an expensive place to live.

As a woman that raised four children, bought a home, worked and been unemployed in Connecticut, I’ve experienced what many of you experience, wrangling your expenses and your family life in the hopes that all of you can live well. You want to own or keep your home, make sure your children are educated well enough to support themselves and put some money aside for rainy days and your retirement. Folks, that is a tall order, especially in this state.

And I know how it is. Working full-time there is barely enough time to get the kids off to school before you head to the workplace. You don’t have time to breath, let alone manage your expenses. You are up against it. Resources, time and money are in short supply.

Let’s see what we can do about that.

The biggest problem we all have it that of time. There isn’t enough it, not for every individual to research the cheapest, most efficient way to get something done. I’ve done a lot of that in my thirty years of working and parenting in Connecticut.

I am not a doctor or a lawyer, a nutritionist or even a tax advisor, but I’ve taped up my share of childhood war wounds, navigated the legal system, fed a family of six regularly and did battle with my own tax forms. I’ve couponed, comparison shopped and spread around thin resources. I am sure that I don’t have all the answers, but I have some. I’ll share what I know. Hopefully, you will share what you know. But in the battle of saving money in Connecticut, I know one thing.

Saving well is the best revenge.

Photo published under a Creative Commons license as explained by Flickr issued by user bradbox. Yes, that means I used this photo for free.

What you waitin' for?

A Super Lightweight Slider

Visualize Your Ideas.

Saving on Health Care

Entertaining: Making Dough to Save Money

Get Your Money Organized!

Saving Well is the Best Revenge