• On Life and Love

    Weekly Linkage: Healthcare, Midnight Deployments, and Markov Chaining

    I’ve been all over The Incidental Economist lately, and it’s really hard not to link to every one of their posts that I can make heads or tails of. They’re really prolific by my standards, though, which means it’s a struggle to keep their posts from falling off the 30-day cut-off in Google Reader. Simply put: Marginal cost/benefit – "You’ll consume as much health care as you think worth it for the transaction price (your copayment if you’re insured). The lower the price, the more you’ll consume. You’ll keep using health services until the marginal benefit falls below the price you pay." I'm not sure I agree that people will…

  • On Life and Love

    Financial Advisor: Not This One

    My first financial advisor discussions have ended with a quiet crash and burn. The Bogleheads’ Guide to Retirement Planning warned me about commission-based folks. I listened to them and then called him on some junk. We met yesterday to catch up on some of the things we talked about the first time, such as pre-tax vs. post-tax investments, “real wealth” vs. “paper wealth”, etc. Showstopper: he was trying to sell me insurance. Lousy insurance at that. His ideas of safe, “real wealth”, tax-protected investments were whole life and variable universal life insurance. Which he’d get a commision on for selling me.

  • On Life and Love

    Weekly linkage

    Everything’s a day behind this week. I wanted these out yesterday. Anyway, here’s this week’s internet cruising: The Little Easy – OMG, can I move into this house, please? Please? White Bean and Onion Confit (recipe) – I'm totally going to try this. Healthy and yummy-sounding (although that's quite a bit of oil). Graphic Designer’s Journey: Freelance to Freedom (Infographic) – Apparently I'm on a freelance kick today. This totally resonated with me. As much as I like people, client work can be rough. It's hard to maintain the cheerful and patient "service industry" outlook 40 hours a week. It feels much more satisfying to do your own work or…

  • On Life and Love

    Shenanigans with an insurance salesperson

    So I’m trying to get life insurance. Just 20-year level term life insurance. It’s supposed to be cheap and easy to get. Some of the big dogs won’t do online quotes, New York Life in particular. So I agreed to meet with a local agent yesterday morning and let him talk at me over coffee. Yes, coffee, which I don’t go for often. Luckily, it was at Panera Bread, so the coffee was pretty good, although a little aged. We go through the usual rigmarole of “Oh, you used to be a teacher? So did I!” After the meeting, I think I knew pretty well why he ultimately left teaching,…

  • On Life and Love

    Daily tasteeness (2008-01-20)

    Organize & Prepare: Do Your Taxes Quickly | My Dollar Plan The title says it all. This seems like a good way to get organized to make taxes simpler. Single Guy Money: Save Money on Auto Insurance I just ripped Progressive a new one for how much I’ve been overcharged for my car insurance. If you have the money to do so, Single Money Guy has some tips to get discounts on insurance. Time To Call The Credit Card Company “If you are trying to get out of credit card debt, you might want to think about giving your credit card company a call.” Get your rates reduced, increase your…