Kill It!
A few weeks ago we talked a bit about the ‘possible’ financial benefits to biking to work rather than driving. I got some pretty pointed response to the piece from a few of my coworkers, who basically told me I would love it, and that I didn’t factor lower health costs into my equation, as well as a few other factors.
Turns out I also needed to budget for Gatorade as well, but that’s later on in my story.
So they have talked me into giving this thing a shot. I plunk down my cash for a pretty sweet folding bike, and honestly, I’m pretty excited about the whole thing.
Pretty slick looking bike, if I don’t say so myself.
Anyhow, my first time trying to ride the thing was going to work – ignoring the probably wise advice of one of my colleagues. Suffice it to say, I didn’t make it – I got about 3 miles into the ride and had to turn around. Yeah, I know, brilliant…right?
Second time out (last weekend) I just did a ride around Arlington that was about the same distance as my commute, and made it home without dying, so I decided that I would ride to work. It took me a while, but I did make it, and I actually felt pretty good a few hours later. My plan was to try to bus home, but I was feeling SO good that I said “heck, I might as well ride home.” Talk about one of the most torturous things I’ve ever willingly subjected myself to, at least in a physical sense. But I did make it, so there is a definite sense of accomplishment there.
This got me thinking, how could I apply this to my blog? I guess you could make the argument that this is the same kind of short term pain, long term gain that most people have to deal with when handling their finances as well. If you save a lot early on, you can kind of coast the rest of the way. My biking coworkers assure me that the trek will get much easier if I keep it up. Hopefully it will, because if it keeps killing me like it did earlier this week I won’t be able to keep it up for very long.
Should I change the format?
So, I’ve had several comments recently stating that I’m not going into enough depth with some of my posts – that I could take topics a lot further than I currently am. I agree, there are definitely things that I’m leaving unsaid in some of my posts. However, the current 500-ish word format I’m doing right now doesn’t lend itself very well to hitting home more than one specific point in a post. What do you think – should I move to a longer feature format and decrease my posting frequency?
I’m thinking I might try out a MWF posting schedule and then double the length of the posts. The additional time will give me the opportunity to intersperse some graphics and other stuff in the posts as well. What do you think? Is that the right way to go, or do you prefer the shorter, daily commentary?
Peddlers and Purveyors – Medicine Made Complicated
As a lot of you all are already aware, I have moderate to severe allergies that pretty much have me medicated daily. I’ve done the shots, pills, nasal sprays, sinus washes, etc. Basically, you name it, I’ve tried it.
Anyhow, I was at the pharmacy yesterday getting my first refill on my allergy prescriptions and I’m surprised to find out that my insurance is trying to give me the shaft (surprise!) on a generic allergy medication I’ve been taking for several years now. Basically, they want to charge me 5x as much for the generic drug because there are ‘over the counter’ options available, which quite frankly just don’t work as well for me.
You would think these companies would want to keep their costs down by giving you what you need, right? If I’m properly medicated for allergies, I get sinus infections a lot less frequently, which equals less total money out of pocket for them. If I’m forced into the OTC alternative, I tend to have problems more frequently. So I call them and try to get them to honor what is listed as the “generic” copay on my insurance card. And I get no customer service whatsoever – as a matter of fact, the only thing the person on the phone can tell me is that there is a P.O. Box in Salt Lake City I can send a letter to for an “appeal.”
Great. No wonder medical costs in this country are sky high. Thank you United Health Care.
Now that I’ve ranted for a few hundred words, you’re probably thinking, what the heck does this have to do with this site? Well, I started looking around, and it turns out there are free prescription drug programs available that actually beat out your drug coverage in some cases – for this particular prescription, one in particular saves about $10 a month, which although not a ton is better than nothing.
Seriously though, what gives? Why is it cheaper for me to get allergy medication using some card I printed off the internet instead of getting it through my health insurance? These modern day drug peddlers, the ones licensed by the DEA, don’t seem to care how this is handled – they just want you to pay. And I’d really like to know why some drugs seem to get substantially more expensive as they get older – it’s the exact opposite situation that you see in every other business.
I’m going to try out some of these programs and see how well they work – I’ll report back later. Hopefully, I can convince the pharmacist to use the discount card or my insurance, depending on which one is cheaper. Otherwise, I’ll have to pick up my prescriptions at two different pharmacies, and that just sounds like a pain.
Regularly Scheduled Posting
I should be back on my regular posting schedule starting tomorrow, now that the month without a day-off is over! Yay!
I need your help
I’ve had a couple of people ask me what they could do to help me in my blogging efforts. Other than contributing story ideas (I always need more of those), commenting on the various posts really boosts my motivation because it helps remind me that people are actually reading this stuff and thinking about it. I love all the positive comments I’ve been getting from everyone – the support is appreciated.
Also, it would be great if you could pass the word on to your friends and coworkers. Ask them to check it out. Please?
Thanks for your help everyone!
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So, you want to know what's up with the brackets in the name? "Curly brackets (also called braces, or "squiggly brackets") are sometimes used in prose to indicate a series of equal choices" and "Square brackets are mainly used to enclose explanatory or missing material usually added by someone other than the original author, especially in quoted text." So basically, if you really want to be wealthy in life, you have to figure out how to get happy. Since that whole spiel would make a crappy name for a blog, I decided to do something a bit creative with some brackets.
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