On Sunday MisterMoonbeam and I had lunch at Waffle House (DarkKnight had play practice). While there, we went over health insurance changes for next year. Prices went up slightly, but it was absorbable. What sucked was that if all things go as planned, neither of us will have large medical expenses next year, which means we won’t reach the deductible early. We stayed with the high-premium, low deductible plan again this year though, as the math for both options works out to about the same.
The main difference is that the plan we’re going with has an FSA rather than an HSA, so the total funds immediately. The HSA allows for payments as the payroll deductions dump into it weekly. So if we have to pay $200 for a copay, we can only cover that once we’ve deposited that $200. FSA is like, we know you’re good for the $200, so we got you now. Our medications are replenished in 3 month increments, so that means we’d have to have significant amount available to cover my Mounjaro and Dexcom sensors, and because of my specialist copays, the totals due might not keep up with what’s available in the account. My goal next year is no new credit card charges for medical payments! So FSA is the way to go.
We kept his life insurance and disability insurance at the same levels. We had put his 401(k) deposits on hold for 2024 and we are still on track to restart those in March/April. Whatever his salary increase percentage is then, we’re going to use it to get back going on that. The lowest it would be is 2% but it should be closer to 3%, and then his company matches his 401(k) deposits, so that will be significant at restarting.
DarkKnight’s insurance changes didn’t even require a meeting. He only has a single, high deductible plan and no choice about it. He has no 401(k) and we are going to address that, finally, when we have the State of the Union meeting.
I’m going to be working today on our State of the Union stuff, actually. The plan is to get together on that when I am back from Arizona. MisterMoonbeam and I leave for that trip on Sunday. I’m coming home by myself on November 4, and he will be there until November 8. So we’ll get together November 10th in the evening to go over everything.
I’ve been working bunches the last week on our October Safety stuff. We skipped last year so there is so much to be done right now! I have five main categories that need attention: Power Supply, Tools, Fire Safety, Water Supply and First Aide.
I’m pretty much done with Tools - today I’m going to do a quick run around the property and gather up everything that’s been randomly stuck in drawers and cabinets and return them all to the garage. Our garage is looking better these days, but it’s still not organized well. I purchased two complete basic tool kits though, that now have homes inside of the house. One kit is orange and the other is green. Orange is basement and green is main level. This way, when someone needs a hammer, they don’t have to rummage in the garage for it, only to find that someone used it and didn’t return it. And if someone doesn’t put away a tool kit hammer, if you see it and it’s green, you know exactly where it belongs.
I also have completed a bit of our Power Supply category, but I’ll do more on that this afternoon. I refilled our battery case that lives in the living room, making sure they’re all charged up. I bought new AAAs and AAs. I also checked that our power bank was charged, though that is on the list for the first of every month and I know DarkKnight does check it.
Today I need to look for where our flashlights are stashed, and check the batteries in them. I don’t actually know, to be honest! I also know we don’t have a supply of emergency candles, because we have cats. However, I did find these lanterns that look promising so I plan to buy one and see how they work before committing to more. They hold one candle so if we each had our own during a loss of power, it would make sense. We will see. I also need to make sure our phone charging cables in our car are working okay, and see if the guys think we need any cables around the house. And a set of jumper cables in each car.
I really want to get Power Supply checked off the list for this month!
First Aide is on my calendar for tomorrow. I bought two new travel kits already this month, as the ones in the cars previously have magically disappeared. The ones here in the house are a disaster. I need to empty everything and take stock, then reorder to refill. Part of this category is also pulling out our bins of medication and getting rid of expired or no-longer used meds. This shouldn’t take too long - it mostly comes down to money and reordering things like neosporin and gloves and Advil as those get pillaged during the year.
Water Supply is going to be pricey because this is a new house and we’ve never addressed it since moving here. I want at least two rain barrels installed. We have two bathtubs and no Water Bobs at the moment. I am fairly sure we have a stack of water bottles in the garage but I need to look at the dates. In the past we have talked about buying some water bricks for storage but we never did.
Each water fountain in our house for the cats is supposed to have a pitcher of water right next to it, so if we had an extended time with nothing flowing from the sink, we’d still be able to keep our cats good for a while without touching our own emergency supply. I think only one has a pitcher - in MisterMoonbeam’s bedroom. I have zero idea what happened to the others. We need five more pitchers, and there’s still no water fountain set up in the basement, so that needs to happen.
I also have Life Straws on our camping wish list as we have zero in our closet. Honestly, these will probably get pushed off again, as our house supply is more important. My funds aren’t limitless!
Fire Safety is the last category and arguably the most important for us to address. We bought half a dozen smoke detectors when we moved in, and apparently they all got installed in the old house right before we moved. I know the guys put up one in the hallway next to the garage, but that was it. I didn’t pay attention, but we have zero others in the house right now! WTF. There are some hard wired ancient-looking ones but none of us know if they work or not.
My plan is to buy a bunch ASAP and get them up. We also have no carbon monoxide detectors. That said, we do have at least 3 fire extinguishers - they need to be looked at to make sure they are still good and that everyone knows where they are located. I did buy two fire blankets for the kitchen this month already and those are in a cupboard - we need to get them put someplace that makes sense.
I plan to call the fire station in November and ask them to come give us an inspection to check on us and make sure I haven’t missed anything.
Oh, and we need a new fire door between the house and the garage. That’s about the only thing I might not do this month due to time and expense. There aren’t any cars in our garage currently so it’s not critical.
I think this month is going to cost us close to $500 (without the door). It’s aggravating, but after ignoring this for a year, it’s time to fucking do it. I don’t like not sticking to my plans and in the old house we did these checks and updates every October.
, It's interesting the Poly people we meet I thought Poly meant something like the care bears where you automatically know the land you're in. But who knows maybe that's maybe the new future of Poly 1
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