The more I have gone through in recent years, the more it has gotten me to thinking about the way we run our lives in modern society. Every thought that I have always seems to lead me back to the same conclusion, ancient folks had it right. Why are we losing so much of their knowledge and skill?
They had no mortgages. Their homes with their own two hands or carved them out of the earth. Who wouldn't like to have that 30% of our income to spend on something else?
They worked for themselves. There weren't huge corporations out there driving them to work 60 hours per week and forcing them to move place to place. Whatever they did, they did because they chose to and for the benefit of themselves, their family, or their neighbors. They had time to help each other.
They knew their neighbors. It is very easy with our hectic lives filled with modern day conveniences not to have ever talked to our neighbors. I am guilty as charged. Living on a 2 acre plot of land out in the country I have never had the need to go to the neighbors and they have never come here. People used to depend on their neighbors and help each other out. There were communities that stood strong together. I don't know about you, but I certainly don't feel that same sense of community where I live. No one will stand up and speak out against someone being treated poorly, no one will lend a helping hand, no one cares what happens to anyone else. So many people are wrapped up in their own little world worrying about their own little worries and nothing else matters.
They didn't need power to entertain themselves. They were creative and used their many talents to occupy their free time. Those extra talents probably earned them a little extra income too. We waste so much time glued to the television watching non sense, seeing ads that don't speak the truth. Our young are being brought up to think there is always going to be someone or something there to tell us the answers. There isn't!
They thought for themselves. As I said before, we watch so much TV that many people lack the mental skill to figure anything out for themselves. When is the last time you added something up without a calculator? Be honest now... They could figure out the exact angle they needed to hit an animal with a rock in order to take it down. They couldn't wait for someone else to tell them, if they did their dinner would be running the other direction.
They bartered for goods and services. Come on, we all know that money isn't everything. If they didn't have the money to pay their doctor bill they didn't set up accounts and pay on a monthly basis $40 per month until the bill was paid off. They fixed his toilet for him or gave him a chicken or some eggs.
They heated their own homes. Many relied on fire, but some discovered the power of the earth's internal heating and cooling systems and sun's heat. They didn't pay large heating and cooling bills to giant electric and gas corporations.
They saved up for the hard times. Who hasn't had a tough go of it in the last few years? I know we have had several times where we have struggled. Unfortunately circumstances didn't allow us to save extra cash to pay for higher medical insurance bills and such. It used to be that when times were plentiful they dried extra beans and meat and stored it up for when the food wasn't so plentiful. What could be more practical than that?
They helped each other. In times past, they helped people who needed help. They didn't ask how much their home was worth, how much they had in their 401K account, tell them to go apply for assistance else where, or anything of the sort. They didn't say that they made $300 more than the income level that they can help you at and close the door in their face. They saw a need and they helped, plain and simple.
I think I'd like to go back to simpler times and live a few of the lessons people from the not so distant past could teach so many of us today.
Thank you for stopping by to chat with me. Please leave me a message, I'd love to hear your thoughts! Cindy
Introducing My Fabulous Readers
I Give UP!!!!
Have you ever felt like you could just collapse on the floor in a huge blubbering pile? Like nothing in the world will ever go your way again? As if you need to take out a white flag and wave it for everyone to see and call a truce? The endless barrage of hardships and difficulties are just too much to bear!
I don't know what has been going on the last 5 years so that nothing will ever go our way, but I am at my wits' end. It just seems like it's one thing after another. As soon as we start to see the clouds breaking up, more clouds roll right in to take their place. It's just one never ending storm after another. I feel empty and hopeless. I am truly at a loss and no one will help us. I feel like I am in a bottomless pit of quicksand from which there is no escape. I have a feeling that the depression is trying to move back in and take back over my life, but I don't want it to.
I am usually a pretty optimistic person. I know it is always darkest before the dawn, really I do. I have made many batches of lemonade out of my pile of lemons, and some earrings, lemon bars, lemon sherbet, lemon bread, lemon meringue pie, lemon drops, lemon chicken, lemon poppy seed muffins, and lovely scented soaps too. But I am running out of things to make with these lemons and I would really like to get something else instead. Did you know that we have had 10 qualifying hardships within the last 5 years? I am sure I could find even more than that too if I tried. Sad. Pathetic. Unnatural.
Why does no one see my pain? Why will no one reach out a helping hand? Why does everyone think my business is none of their business? Even when I ask for help, no one will help. They won't see my need, it's like they put blinders on, plug their ears and sing a merry tune until I have talked so much I can't talk anymore. They change what I tell them to ease their guilt and so that they are able to do their worst to me. I am sick of it.
Bad service, rising expenses, job transfers, job losses, botched rentals, home sale staging, deaths, depression, short sale, foreclosure, credit clampdowns, home repairs, credit counseling, stress, illness, refinancing, medical debt, loan modifications, I could go on and on. All the while I always try to do the right thing and take care of my debts at the expense of our family and our life. It's sickening really. Why won't it stop? Why do these things keep happening to me? I need to put an end to this vicious cycle.
Everyone has a plan, and everyone tells me what to do when they can't help me. When I tell them I've tried that already, they simply tell me that I must have done it wrong or that I need to do X as well. They tell me someone else will help and pretend to act incredulous and disgusted when I tell them that didn't work either.
Can't anyone just listen, support a person, and help them out? Why does everyone feel the need to require documentation of everything even though I have never told any lies about my situation? Why can't we prepare for something bad that is going to happen when we know in advance it will happen simply because it has yet to happen?
Yeah, I know I have a lot of questions. Why can't anyone answer any of them? Doesn't anyone else have these kinds of questions too? Hasn't this kind of thing been happening all over the world? Why is no one willing to help a person simply to be helpful, not just because a law says they have to?
Apparently no business, no government program, and no job performance bonus is going to get us out of this mess. Only God can and only God will. How do I give this all up for him to deal with when all I do is worry about tomorrow? How do I give it all up into God's hands? I want to give up.
Thank you for stopping by to chat with me. Please leave me a message, I'd love to hear your thoughts! Cindy
I don't know what has been going on the last 5 years so that nothing will ever go our way, but I am at my wits' end. It just seems like it's one thing after another. As soon as we start to see the clouds breaking up, more clouds roll right in to take their place. It's just one never ending storm after another. I feel empty and hopeless. I am truly at a loss and no one will help us. I feel like I am in a bottomless pit of quicksand from which there is no escape. I have a feeling that the depression is trying to move back in and take back over my life, but I don't want it to.
I am usually a pretty optimistic person. I know it is always darkest before the dawn, really I do. I have made many batches of lemonade out of my pile of lemons, and some earrings, lemon bars, lemon sherbet, lemon bread, lemon meringue pie, lemon drops, lemon chicken, lemon poppy seed muffins, and lovely scented soaps too. But I am running out of things to make with these lemons and I would really like to get something else instead. Did you know that we have had 10 qualifying hardships within the last 5 years? I am sure I could find even more than that too if I tried. Sad. Pathetic. Unnatural.
Why does no one see my pain? Why will no one reach out a helping hand? Why does everyone think my business is none of their business? Even when I ask for help, no one will help. They won't see my need, it's like they put blinders on, plug their ears and sing a merry tune until I have talked so much I can't talk anymore. They change what I tell them to ease their guilt and so that they are able to do their worst to me. I am sick of it.
Bad service, rising expenses, job transfers, job losses, botched rentals, home sale staging, deaths, depression, short sale, foreclosure, credit clampdowns, home repairs, credit counseling, stress, illness, refinancing, medical debt, loan modifications, I could go on and on. All the while I always try to do the right thing and take care of my debts at the expense of our family and our life. It's sickening really. Why won't it stop? Why do these things keep happening to me? I need to put an end to this vicious cycle.
Everyone has a plan, and everyone tells me what to do when they can't help me. When I tell them I've tried that already, they simply tell me that I must have done it wrong or that I need to do X as well. They tell me someone else will help and pretend to act incredulous and disgusted when I tell them that didn't work either.
Can't anyone just listen, support a person, and help them out? Why does everyone feel the need to require documentation of everything even though I have never told any lies about my situation? Why can't we prepare for something bad that is going to happen when we know in advance it will happen simply because it has yet to happen?
Yeah, I know I have a lot of questions. Why can't anyone answer any of them? Doesn't anyone else have these kinds of questions too? Hasn't this kind of thing been happening all over the world? Why is no one willing to help a person simply to be helpful, not just because a law says they have to?
Apparently no business, no government program, and no job performance bonus is going to get us out of this mess. Only God can and only God will. How do I give this all up for him to deal with when all I do is worry about tomorrow? How do I give it all up into God's hands? I want to give up.
Thank you for stopping by to chat with me. Please leave me a message, I'd love to hear your thoughts! Cindy
Insurance Comparisons
My husband just got a newsletter from his work in the mail. In it, there was a summary of our 2010 insurance's annual reports for both medical and dental. We have gotten new medical insurance companies every few years, but have had the same dental insurance the whole time my husband has been with the company. (13 years at this point in time.) I could not believe my eyes when I read the report. How can our health insurance company keep up with their greedy ways in the middle of a recession? It drives me absolutely insane!
Medical premiums paid by employees of his company for medical amounted to $57,042,365.
Aetna paid out claims equaling $48,567,376.
Premiums - Claims = The profit made $8,474,989. This is just from one company's employees.
Yet they need to raise our premiums on a yearly basis by between $40 and $60 per month why? We certainly aren't seeing that big of raises in our monthly paychecks. Deductibles are high and they do not like to actually cover much of anything and find every excuse in the book to make us pay for each service out of pocket.
Curious, I decided to do some math to figure out how much each family paid Aetna to line their pockets. I know my math isn't exactly right as not all people have family coverage or the best plan like we do, but I thought I'd aim for some ball park numbers just to occupy my mind and satisfy my curiosity. I am also unsure of how much they pay their employees or how many they actually have on staff, but I think my guesstimates are fairly reasonable. Here is what I came up with:
We paid $144.10 per week for our family health insurance coverage.
Multiply that by 4 and we paid $576.40 per month.
Multiply the monthly amount by 12 and get $6,916.80 as our yearly premium.
This is where the math might seem a little fuzzy to you, but I wanted to find out my share of the overcharges. Dividing total premiums received by our monthly premium amount gives us the number of families served if all of the payees had family plans. $57,042,365/$6,916.8= 8,246.93 families.
Granted some of the profit is paid to people who use our money to pay our bills, but now to find out how much Aetna charged each family to earn their profits. I took the profits that they made and divided it by the number of families who paid in premiums.
$8,474,989/8,246.93=$1,027.66.
I wonder how many employees it takes to service these accounts? Is 8 a fair number? That leaves each of them to deal with customer issues for 1,031 families. If they were paid a salary of $60,000 per year (just guessing here...) that would take $480,000 out of their profit of $8,474989 leaving them only $7,994,989. Let's say $100K for overhead stuff (utilities, phone, etc) that leaves $7,894,989 profit. We were each bilked out of $957.32 just so they could make a tidy profit. Does anyone else think that companies should not be in the health care business to make money?
I believe that is where all of our problems are coming from. If you are in it to make a large profit you raise the prices of procedures every year, making insurance companies pay you more for each service provided, increasing the premiums of each consumer involved until no one is able to afford anything at all. No wonder our health care industry has so many problems! People are also dropping insurance left and right because they simply can't afford it. Health care clinics are unwilling to work with people who can not afford to keep paying more money toward their bill every year so more people simply don't pay and end up declaring bankruptcy which leaves the company holding the bag so they increase prices some more to cover their losses. Add to that the people who sue places for millions of dollars just because the lawyer told them they have a case and won and you have a perfect way to bankrupt an entire country.
With everyone out there only to get money for themselves any which way they can and no one looking for the common good of mankind, no wonder we're in such a pickle!
In contrast to our health insurance there is the dental insurance.
We pay $4.92 per week x 4 = $19.68 per month x 12 = $236.16 per year.
We each go to see a hygienist twice per year, we only go to the doctor once a year. Hmm...
Premiums paid to Delta Dental by employees of his company $2,580,841.
Claims paid by Delta on behalf of same employees $2,390,665.
Premiums - Claims = Total profit $190,176.
Taking premiums paid divided by how much we paid in premium is giving me the number of families served. $2,580,841/236.16=10,928.358
Taking the profit of $190,176/families served 10,928.358 leaves each family paying an extra $17.40 per year not counting Delta's expenses.
Sorry, I'm not going to do the math here to figure out how much of that goes to employees and such because it simply isn't worth it to me. Obviously they provide some services and deserve to make a little bit of profit. They also do not refuse to pay things like our health insurance company seems to enjoy doing leaving me to pay most of the bill.
I have a much higher opinion of Delta Dental than I do of any health insurance company that I have ever had.
Obviously dentists make money or they would not be open and running their own businesses. (Not run or owned by corporations I might add.)
The dental insurance makes money or they would not be in business. They treat their customers well or they wouldn't have more customers than the medical insurance company has.
I often hear the excuse that doctors are highly paid because of the number of years they went to medical school, but don't dentists and vets go to the same amount of schooling? Sorry if you buy that line, but I don't! Look at you vet bill and dentist bill next time you go to either one and compare it to your own medical doctor. You probably see the doctor at each place the same amount of time, right?
Is there a lesson to be learned here? I think so! Actually I believe there are several noteworthy lessons here.
1. Treat your customers well, they are not just giant ATM's.
2. Profit can be made without ripping off your customers.
3. Work with your customers, when you help them you help yourself.
Thank you for stopping by to chat with me. Please leave me a message, I'd love to hear your thoughts! Cindy
Medical premiums paid by employees of his company for medical amounted to $57,042,365.
Aetna paid out claims equaling $48,567,376.
Premiums - Claims = The profit made $8,474,989. This is just from one company's employees.
Yet they need to raise our premiums on a yearly basis by between $40 and $60 per month why? We certainly aren't seeing that big of raises in our monthly paychecks. Deductibles are high and they do not like to actually cover much of anything and find every excuse in the book to make us pay for each service out of pocket.
Curious, I decided to do some math to figure out how much each family paid Aetna to line their pockets. I know my math isn't exactly right as not all people have family coverage or the best plan like we do, but I thought I'd aim for some ball park numbers just to occupy my mind and satisfy my curiosity. I am also unsure of how much they pay their employees or how many they actually have on staff, but I think my guesstimates are fairly reasonable. Here is what I came up with:
We paid $144.10 per week for our family health insurance coverage.
Multiply that by 4 and we paid $576.40 per month.
Multiply the monthly amount by 12 and get $6,916.80 as our yearly premium.
This is where the math might seem a little fuzzy to you, but I wanted to find out my share of the overcharges. Dividing total premiums received by our monthly premium amount gives us the number of families served if all of the payees had family plans. $57,042,365/$6,916.8= 8,246.93 families.
Granted some of the profit is paid to people who use our money to pay our bills, but now to find out how much Aetna charged each family to earn their profits. I took the profits that they made and divided it by the number of families who paid in premiums.
$8,474,989/8,246.93=$1,027.66.
I wonder how many employees it takes to service these accounts? Is 8 a fair number? That leaves each of them to deal with customer issues for 1,031 families. If they were paid a salary of $60,000 per year (just guessing here...) that would take $480,000 out of their profit of $8,474989 leaving them only $7,994,989. Let's say $100K for overhead stuff (utilities, phone, etc) that leaves $7,894,989 profit. We were each bilked out of $957.32 just so they could make a tidy profit. Does anyone else think that companies should not be in the health care business to make money?
I believe that is where all of our problems are coming from. If you are in it to make a large profit you raise the prices of procedures every year, making insurance companies pay you more for each service provided, increasing the premiums of each consumer involved until no one is able to afford anything at all. No wonder our health care industry has so many problems! People are also dropping insurance left and right because they simply can't afford it. Health care clinics are unwilling to work with people who can not afford to keep paying more money toward their bill every year so more people simply don't pay and end up declaring bankruptcy which leaves the company holding the bag so they increase prices some more to cover their losses. Add to that the people who sue places for millions of dollars just because the lawyer told them they have a case and won and you have a perfect way to bankrupt an entire country.
With everyone out there only to get money for themselves any which way they can and no one looking for the common good of mankind, no wonder we're in such a pickle!
In contrast to our health insurance there is the dental insurance.
We pay $4.92 per week x 4 = $19.68 per month x 12 = $236.16 per year.
We each go to see a hygienist twice per year, we only go to the doctor once a year. Hmm...
Premiums paid to Delta Dental by employees of his company $2,580,841.
Claims paid by Delta on behalf of same employees $2,390,665.
Premiums - Claims = Total profit $190,176.
Taking premiums paid divided by how much we paid in premium is giving me the number of families served. $2,580,841/236.16=10,928.358
Taking the profit of $190,176/families served 10,928.358 leaves each family paying an extra $17.40 per year not counting Delta's expenses.
Sorry, I'm not going to do the math here to figure out how much of that goes to employees and such because it simply isn't worth it to me. Obviously they provide some services and deserve to make a little bit of profit. They also do not refuse to pay things like our health insurance company seems to enjoy doing leaving me to pay most of the bill.
I have a much higher opinion of Delta Dental than I do of any health insurance company that I have ever had.
Obviously dentists make money or they would not be open and running their own businesses. (Not run or owned by corporations I might add.)
The dental insurance makes money or they would not be in business. They treat their customers well or they wouldn't have more customers than the medical insurance company has.
I often hear the excuse that doctors are highly paid because of the number of years they went to medical school, but don't dentists and vets go to the same amount of schooling? Sorry if you buy that line, but I don't! Look at you vet bill and dentist bill next time you go to either one and compare it to your own medical doctor. You probably see the doctor at each place the same amount of time, right?
Is there a lesson to be learned here? I think so! Actually I believe there are several noteworthy lessons here.
1. Treat your customers well, they are not just giant ATM's.
2. Profit can be made without ripping off your customers.
3. Work with your customers, when you help them you help yourself.
Thank you for stopping by to chat with me. Please leave me a message, I'd love to hear your thoughts! Cindy
It Makes No Sense
Ten years ago both my husband and I worked full time. We owned a house and had 2 kids, owned two cars and lived in a nice house in the suburbs. He worked an average of 50.61 hours per week and both of us had a 15 minute commute. We made $11,000 less per year then than we do now, but we lived a better quality of life. We had money to enroll our children in activities (well, okay it was daycare but I also had to buy diapers so that counts, right?), we didn't feel the strain of not being able to pay our bills, we had a healthy savings account, retirement account, and owed more money on our house than we owe on the one we are living in now.
Fast forward to today, I am not working. Hubby works an average of 57.05 hours per week. Our savings has been depleted by various events in our lives, we have more bills than we ever have, we never do anything or go anywhere that doesn't involve our son and his school sports, I make tons of our own cleaning and health products, grow and can lots of our food, and home decor items, and people feel they can take advantage of us and tell me what they think I can afford to do. No one seems to think I know what I'm talking about when I tell them about our circumstances, they look at me like I'm an alien life form or that I am talking gibberish. They think they know my finances better than I do? WTH?
Has inflation really increased so much? What is wrong with this picture? Now when I mention any difficulty to anyone they tell me all I need to do is get a job. Should I really have to? What is wrong with everyone? They are saying that I am the problem? Ugh! It drives me absolutely mad!!!
Thank you for stopping by to chat with me. Please leave me a message, I'd love to hear your thoughts! Cindy
Fast forward to today, I am not working. Hubby works an average of 57.05 hours per week. Our savings has been depleted by various events in our lives, we have more bills than we ever have, we never do anything or go anywhere that doesn't involve our son and his school sports, I make tons of our own cleaning and health products, grow and can lots of our food, and home decor items, and people feel they can take advantage of us and tell me what they think I can afford to do. No one seems to think I know what I'm talking about when I tell them about our circumstances, they look at me like I'm an alien life form or that I am talking gibberish. They think they know my finances better than I do? WTH?
Has inflation really increased so much? What is wrong with this picture? Now when I mention any difficulty to anyone they tell me all I need to do is get a job. Should I really have to? What is wrong with everyone? They are saying that I am the problem? Ugh! It drives me absolutely mad!!!
Thank you for stopping by to chat with me. Please leave me a message, I'd love to hear your thoughts! Cindy
I Cried Today
I am not an overly emotional person. I am not in touch with my feelings. It is easy for me to put distance between my thoughts and my feelings. I keep drama out of my life at all costs. It is easy for me to keep people an arms' length away. I do not share my thoughts and feelings with many people, especially not those whom they should be shared with. I am not sure how I got to be this way.
I have searched for ways to connect more with both my feelings and other people, with little success. I barely cried at my dad's funeral, until I saw one of my friends from high school that I felt really comfortable with. The only times I can recall crying, aside from funerals and sad movies, are times that I tie into my depression. What made me cry? All I know is that this time it wasn't just because of my depression and this isn't any spilled milk we're crying about here. Or is it?
I madly started swiping the tears away with the backs of my hands. Why can't I stop crying? Thoughts and possibilities swirled through my head. Past events, circumstances, times I have just let people walk over both myself and my family. My insecurities surfaced and I could not quiet the voices that were telling me I would never and could never be good enough. Things I feel I have no control over, things I feel that I can not change, and people who won't hear me or don't care about my circumstances just frustrate me so much. Anchors I have tied my life to are slipping through my fingers. I have always thought having faith, dedication, perseverance, and making smart decisions were all I needed to get through this life in one piece, but now our life is so far off course, so far from what we tried to plan for ourselves I don't know which way to go. Storm clouds keep rolling through my life and I can not do anything to make them go away. It's all I can do to try to stay out of the pouring rains. I cry out to God, but he doesn't seem to be able to hear me. Where is that megaphone?
Why must life be so hard? It is obvious to me that I am supposed to learn a lesson in this, but what is that lesson? I am still searching. What choices am I supposed to make? What changes am I supposed to make? Is there such a thing as being too open to change? I refuse to give up. I will keep pushing on, pressing forward, and hoping and praying for God to show me the way.
God, please come and take me by the hand and lead me to whatever it is that you want from me. I can not find my way to the sheltered harbor without you. Please do not leave me to drown. Instead, give me the faith I need to get out of the boat and to walk on the water towards you through the scary storms of life.
Thank you for stopping by to chat with me. Please leave me a message, I'd love to hear your thoughts! Cindy
I have searched for ways to connect more with both my feelings and other people, with little success. I barely cried at my dad's funeral, until I saw one of my friends from high school that I felt really comfortable with. The only times I can recall crying, aside from funerals and sad movies, are times that I tie into my depression. What made me cry? All I know is that this time it wasn't just because of my depression and this isn't any spilled milk we're crying about here. Or is it?
I madly started swiping the tears away with the backs of my hands. Why can't I stop crying? Thoughts and possibilities swirled through my head. Past events, circumstances, times I have just let people walk over both myself and my family. My insecurities surfaced and I could not quiet the voices that were telling me I would never and could never be good enough. Things I feel I have no control over, things I feel that I can not change, and people who won't hear me or don't care about my circumstances just frustrate me so much. Anchors I have tied my life to are slipping through my fingers. I have always thought having faith, dedication, perseverance, and making smart decisions were all I needed to get through this life in one piece, but now our life is so far off course, so far from what we tried to plan for ourselves I don't know which way to go. Storm clouds keep rolling through my life and I can not do anything to make them go away. It's all I can do to try to stay out of the pouring rains. I cry out to God, but he doesn't seem to be able to hear me. Where is that megaphone?
Why must life be so hard? It is obvious to me that I am supposed to learn a lesson in this, but what is that lesson? I am still searching. What choices am I supposed to make? What changes am I supposed to make? Is there such a thing as being too open to change? I refuse to give up. I will keep pushing on, pressing forward, and hoping and praying for God to show me the way.
God, please come and take me by the hand and lead me to whatever it is that you want from me. I can not find my way to the sheltered harbor without you. Please do not leave me to drown. Instead, give me the faith I need to get out of the boat and to walk on the water towards you through the scary storms of life.
Thank you for stopping by to chat with me. Please leave me a message, I'd love to hear your thoughts! Cindy
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