Mom. Student. Wife. Doctor?

Movies are a lot more entertaining these days because of all the extra features that are available on the DVD release. The DVD can cram so much more information than a stupid old VHS tape. Just look at all the great features on the new Dark Night DVD. The DVD is loaded with extra content. It has deleted scenes and it had extended scenes. Scenes that might be interesting, but might have slowed the pace of the movie down too much for its theatrical release, but make the movie more fleshed out for the home audience. The Dark Knight is a perfect example of why the extra content is so important to most movie watchers. When I see a movie that I have anticipated for a long time, been waiting for its release and am really excited about; I can’t get enough of it. It is not enough to just watch the movie. I want to go behind the scenes and see how the director and actors made the movie happen. I want to know the process. I want to know what got left out and what other directions that the director might have thought about taking the movie.

I want to see more and to hear what the director and some of the actors think about the scene that I am watching. As long as the commentary is thoughtful and informative, I don’t want them to just go through the motions because the DVD is coming out and they need content. That is why it is so great going back and buying the rereleases of older movies when the producers go through the trouble to add new and extra content. It makes watching these movies a whole new experience and it puts a different spin on them. It is also cool when they rerelease an old movie and the commentary from the director and actors is filtered through the lens of history. Sometimes they have had twenty or thirty years to reflect on what the movie meant to them and their careers. Sometimes if the movie is a classic, it has had an effect on many people’s lives and it is interesting to look at it from a historical perspective as well. I know for me personally, I feel ripped off if there is not a good amount of extra features on a DVD. I don’t want it filled up with garbage just so that there are a whole bunch of menus to go through, but even if the extras are bare minimum, but add to the feature they are worthwhile.

Is Catastrophic Health Insurance a Safe Bet?

For most people who do not get go health insurance coverage from their employer (or for those who balk at paying $300 or more for their monthly premiums), health care coverage can seem completely unaffordable and out of reach. Individual policies comparable to employer-sponsored coverage can reach $1000 a month or more, and even basic coverage can be steep. Many people simply choose to go without health care coverage rather than pay these kinds of bills (and risk serious financial burdens if they become seriously ill). But there is another option: catastrophic health insurance.

Catastrophic health insurance (also called high deductible, or major medical, insurance) provides financial protection against costly health care problems by offering coverage after a high deductible is met. These deductibles – anywhere from $2000 to $5000 or more – mean that you pay more out of pocket for your everyday medical costs (prescriptions, doctor visits, etc.), but you are protected if a major medical expense (i.e., a hospital visit) occurs. You pay more, so the health insurance company pays less, and you both save money. Catastrophic health insurance is typically much cheaper than regular health insurance policies, and many policies can also be used along with a healthcare savings account (HSA), that allows you to save pre-tax earnings to go towards your health-related expenses. Together, these two financial products can protect you against major financial loss in the event of a serious health crisis.

This is a great opportunity for people who do not have grave concerns about their health, but want to be protected from the unknown. Young people new to the work force can often find such a policy for less than $30 a month, and even older individuals can sometimes pay less than $200 a month for a high deductible plan. The rates can be even better for employer-sponsored catastrophic health plans. That is a great deal more affordable than the going rate for full coverage at a lower – or no – deductible.

Are you a good candidate for catastrophic health insurance? That is based entirely on your level of acceptable risk, and your willingness and ability to pay thousands of dollars out of pocket, if necessary. A good idea before choosing any health plan is to consider what your anticipated health needs are for the coming year (or even the next few years). Do you go to your health professional frequently? Do you have an ongoing health condition that requires frequent lab work and doctor visits? Do you need medical supplies on a regular basis? If you know that you will be paying out that $5000 deductible every year, plus another $50 to $100 or more in monthly premiums, it may be a good idea to take another look at full coverage. Though it can be costly, it could make better financial sense for your particular situation.

I have been working on learning my fathers business and one of the most important things I have learned is how to promote your business using promotional products. Promotional products and logo products are two of the best ways to say thank you to your business partners, clients and suppliers while providing you with some much needed cheap advertising.

It is amazing how fast word spreads about your business when you have a ton of promotional products and logo products out there with your name and number on them. I never really thought about this but thank goodness for my father and his brilliant insight. He uses promotional products to give away as freebees to his clients for their referrals and they really do use them. For instance his last promotional item give away he gave out umbrellas, and when it rains I can see them in the office and also around town. One client gave one to his wife and now she carries it around town and I have actually seen her with this promotional item on several occasions.

She says that when she carries it, people always ask her about it and where she got it because of the neat colors that my father had it done in. He says that one of the best things that you can do is make your promotional products unique and different so that they stand out and then people will ask about them. He says that he gets more referrals from his logo products than just about any of the other advertising he does.

When he first started out in business, he used to spend a lot of money on advertising. He took out newspaper ads and had flyers and signs printed, but he says that he figured out really quickly that promotional items were really the way to go. He found that if he gave out logo items to people for free, especially if the logo items had some purpose that he would get plenty of free advertising and his clients would be happier with him than ever before, and man was he right.

Now I am not sure whether I will take over his business or start my own, I really haven?t decide yet, but either way, I can assure you that I will get online and find the best deals on promotional items and logo products that I can and I will create some catchy logo and slogan and will get my products out as soon as I can. I will hand out free logo products to local business owners in the area and to friends and family to start. There won?t be anyone that I come in contact with that won?t get some great promotional products from me. I have seen how effective using promotional products are to improving your business and I know that I will start out right from the very beginning using these promotional items to get my business off the ground.

Having both of us in school is a little bit more challenging than I thought it was going to be, but I know that we can manage it. Lately, I am back thinking about finances. Right now we are both getting student loans and that is great, but I am concerned about how much our monthly payments are going to be on these student loans once we both graduate. I would like to do other things with our money besides just pay back loans. Someone told me that the student loan payments after you graduate can get very costly, but they also said that as long as you secure yourself in your profession you should be able to handle it. I am just afraid with all the twists and turns in the economy that the more debt we accrue the less chance that we could get a mortgage. We are trying to keep our debt down, but with the amount we will both owe in student loans in the end, I am not sure how we can do this. With a young family and hard economic times, I am just concerned, because I know that with each year it is becoming more and more expensive to raise children.

Whenever I start getting overwhelmed about things, my husband always reminds me that we never know what the future holds. We can just wait and see what will happen. He says that we are lucky to still be able to get student loans with the economy being so unstable, so we should just be grateful that we are able to get our educations and pursue our respective careers. I know he is right, but sometimes I get worked up and my mind starts going. I never really had any of these problems before becoming a parent, but somehow that seems to change a lot about how you feel and what you think.

Having little people who depend on you making the right decision, puts a lot of added pressures on you. I just want to make good decisions that result in them having the best possible future; actually I want us all to have the best possible future. I have been up and I have been down, and the one thing I know for sure is that I am a survivor. I just don’t really want them to have to be. But the truth is that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, so maybe a little struggling isn’t so bad.

Being a parent, student and wife is not an easy balance, but it is working out okay for me so far. I know that I am older than a lot of the people that I am in school with, but not by that much, and they make me feel young, except when they talk about music that I don’t know about, that does make me feel a little old. Anyway, I guess I must have inspired my husband because he wants to return to school now. We have been talking about it and he thinks that he is eligible to get financial assistance for some of the online colleges and universities. He has been looking into them and is actually considering attending one of the culinary schools, which I think would be incredible since he loves to cook and wants to open his own restaurant some day. I think that he would love it and the great thing about online school is that he can do his coursework while the kids are taking a nap or after I get home in the evenings. He is going to look into the admissions process and see what he has to do to complete his online certification. He has a phone interview with the admissions counselor the day after tomorrow, so I told him to get a list with all his questions together so that he can use this opportunity to gather as much information as he can. I also told him to contact a few other culinary schools so that he can compare what this school offers to what the other schools do.

I just think that he should investigate it thoroughly before committing to one school or the other. I know that he is really going to enjoy going back to school and I think that online school is a good idea for him for now, but I would like to see him return to a traditional school after a while, I am afraid that he will go stir crazy if he stays home for too long.

I think this will be really good for him, I just hope that as a family we are not taking on too much. It already get a little overwhelming at times, but working together helps get us through.

I have been trying to save my nickels and dimes thinking about buying a house, I am getting just a little bit concerned that maybe we are not ready yet. I guess between that and school and the kids, I am getting just a little over the top worrying. I have noticed that all the stress has me eating more than I should and sleeping more than I should, which would probably be fine if I hadn’t completely stopped exercising over the past week and that I can tell you is going to be the death of me. Stress is 10 times worse if you don’t exercise, so trust me I need to get back on track and honestly I need to get my stress level down, so I took a ride to the health food store and got some nutritional supplements and some natural health products, because I always feel better when I am taking good care of my body. It is so great when your body is functioning well, I just can’t tell you. Anyway, I came home from the health food store and took my supplements and got some exercise and did some meditation and told myself that I am going to stay calm and relaxed. It worked for a little while, but then I felt myself getting tense again, so I left my hubby with the kids and went out for a jog to try and release that tension, and it really did help. When I came home I got distracted with taking care of the kids and baths and bedtime. Then I had some work to do for school and so I did that. When all was said and done, I crashed about 10:30pm and slept straight through til morning. Keeping your body sound can really help keep your mind sound too. Hopefully I will feel better after we meet with the financial counselor next week and get some of these issues ironed out. They just keep nagging at me and the truth is that I just don’t have the time to be sitting around worrying; I have way too many things to do. So I will just have to keep stress proofing my body by eating right and exercising until things get a little more settled.

Getting our affairs in order has not been as easy as I thought it would be. I really thought that we had a good financial foothold, but obviously I am not very wise can it comes to these sort of matters. We have some credit cards and we don’t have bad credit or anything like that, but unfortunately our credit report does have a few blemishes on it, and our credit score is not as high as I would like it to me. I don’t think that we would be declined for a mortgage or anything like that, but we will have to pay a higher interest rate and put more money down, if we don’t do something to improve our credit score. I told my husband that the best way we can work on this is with some professional help, and at first he was a bit hesitant, but I think now he is finally starting to come around. I told him that we don’t need debt consolidation or anything like that, but we do need someone who can help us figure out what we can do to bring up our credit score, like maybe a debt counselor or a credit counselor or something of the sort. I really wasn’t sure who to call, but my father, who I do consider all knowing was more than happy to point me in a direction. That is what I love about him, he always has the answers. I really don’t know how, but he does. In any case, he told me the name of someone he knows who does some financial counseling and that he really felt that was our next step. I told my father all of the negative information on our report, and he really feels that we should be able to clean most of that up pretty simply. I was relieved, because especially in this market, I don’t want to buy a home if I have to pay extra in interest on the mortgage. That would just be silly. He also said that we may be eligible for some of the first time home owner’s perks that they offer now, such as low or no down payment, no closing costs, and a reduced interest rate. I went online and looked this up and he is right, there are many options for people just buying their first home, so I think that if we can get our credit looking a little bit better, we should be able to be in our own home by next summer. I can’t wait to have our very own little piece of the pie!

Lately, I have been feeling the need to set down some roots. I really think that we should look into buying our own house. It is a real asset to own real estate and although I would not be looking to invest in real estate, owning your own home is really the only way to acquire wealth. My husband and I are debating this right now because everything I read says that you have to stay in your home for a while before you actually make some money on the deal. He thinks that we can flip property for profit, but I assured him with the real estate market as it is the most we can hope for is to buy a home and use it for a rental property. In my opinion that is the only way we will make money on a home purchase if we decide that we don’t want to live in it anymore, and I am not sure with the loans that I have taken out for school if we could actually own two houses at one time. I don’t think a bank is going to give us that much money, unless they can take into account that one of them is a rental property. I am not exactly sure how that works, does it count for you or against you or both? In any case, we have decided to stop debating investing in real estate and just seek out some investment advice. Not only about real estate investing, but in all types of investments including stock market investing and how to invest. Actually I came across a workshop at the local library where they are going to have an open forum where you can ask the expert’s questions and get some free advice. So I think that we will be going to that together, if we can get a sitter for the kids.

I am really just feeling like we need to be on better financial ground for the well being of our family. Having kids makes you think a little more about the future and what will be. Securing their future is everything to me. I want them to have a house to grow up in, and to come back and visit me in when I am old and they are grown. I want them to bring their kids and show off their rooms from when they were kids. I want them to have a yard to play in and I want an asset that I can borrow against if I need to in the difficult times. A home is a place of stability for a family, and that is what I want.

I am working on a report for school and have been researching all sorts of natural supplements. It seems that with all the government regulations on the natural health industry, the use of nutritional supplements has actually been on the decline in this country. Some people feel that the economy and the reduced drug prices have something to do with this trend, but I personally am not sure. I find personally that I get many health benefits from using vitamins not only to supplement, along with eating right, but also for natural healing. Some people turn to drugs when they are ill, however, I am not one of them. I turn to organic ways to treat illness such as herbal remedies and homeopathy. I find that the benefits of doing this are so incredible, and believe it or not homeopathy works much better than many over the counter medications for the same issues. The greatest thing about using natural health remedies like homeopathy is that they are completely safe. They don't offer up lots of side effects and other symptoms, they just address the problem. With homeopathy, if you were to accidentally choose the wrong remedy, then it would not do anything to or for you. It is specifically designed to affect positively the body and address the issue, if you are wrong, no harm done.

Now a day, you can actually order all your health needs online. I personally like to go to the local health food store, where I can get some organic foods and produce and soy milk in addition to vitamins and nutritional supplements. Our little store is very good about ordering things for me if they don't have them available, and stocking things that they know I will come in and buy. The staff works very hard to stay well informed about the newest and latest things available including the latest research.

I think that with the condition of the world, problems like obesity, cancer and heart disease, that the American public should be looking toward an alternative to the sugar and fat filled foods that cover the grocery store shelves. Keep in mind that many of the nutritional elements of foods in the past are long gone, and of course people's bodies are suffering. You may be lacking something that provides incredible nutrition and not even know what that item is. It is important to research about nutritional findings and realize that you could be overeating looking for a nutrient that our foods are devoid of. Trying out different things to help your body stay balanced and in harmony is a great way to take your health and weight into your own hands.

The Credit Catch All

Trying to go to school while starting a family is not truly the ideal path, however, it is where I find myself these days. The demands of having two small children and having to be in classes all day long, does not leave me much time for anything else. I get student loans and that helps, plus I do a work study during my free time at school and my husband works in the evenings. Still as hard as I try these days, I really can't make ends meet. I know everyone keeps talking about how the economy and how bad things are getting, well personally I can really feel it. About a year ago, in desperation I applied for a few credit cards and got approved. I was thrilled as we really needed a little bit of cushion and we had blown all of our savings moving for my schooling.

I made my payments, but just the minimum and apparently I came too close to my credit limit. Well, I really had no idea that if the interest and charges reached my credit limit that they were going to start charging me over the limit fees. I have always had good credit; however, I never came close to my credit limit before. I guess I probably should have done a little more to compare credit cards before I began charging on them. I had always used my American Express card for my purchases, which fortunately didn't have a credit limit and needed to be paid every month. I never realized a balance could get out of control so quickly. Fortunately, I was able to transfer the balance from that card to another card quickly and without getting too far into this scam. I have checked my credit score and all still seems to be fine, although a friend of mine told me to check back again in a few months because sometimes things don't show on your credit report right away.

If there is one lesson I have learned from all this is don't borrow money if you need it. I know that sounds pretty silly, but I really do think that it is only safe to borrow money if you can afford to pay it back, and if you can't then you really can't risk ruining your good credit. It seems like a catch all I know, but your credit rating is a very important part of your wealth and you must hang onto it at all costs.