Other Voices: Links for 2/20/08

Filed in archive Other Voices on February 21, 2008

Profundity from the PF blogosphere:

Everybody Loves Your Money:

From my point of view, I'm a financially savvy, solidly middle class household with a net worth higher than 90+ percent of people my age. In this situation you would think that would give me some level of peace of mind when it comes to finances. Frankly, I don't have much.

If I was to get very sick and need significant medical attention, I could be faced with huge medical bills. Yes, my health insurance (that I have through my employer) would cover the majority of the costs after a deductible but only up to a maximum amount. What if I was in bad enough shape that I couldn't work for an extended period of time and ultimately lost my status as an employee? I could lose the health insurance that my employer offers me and then burn through the assets that I do have.

What if everything goes peachy until I'm 55 and want to retire? I would be faced with a LARGE cost to insure myself until I hit Medicare age and even then, benefits could be reduced so much that medicare doesn't really cover all of my health costs. Then what? How long could I sustain myself on the assets that I've saved over my working career?

My point here is that you can do everything right. Save 20% of your income, invest aggressively, amass a sizable retirement, only to have it crushed by medical bills. Is this a good system? Isn't there a better way?

Grad Money Matters:

Today, my glasses arrived. I love the way they look and feel. Nevertheless, every time I put them on or take them off, I can't help but feel a slight sense of shame for having been a sucker and so grossly overpaying for them.

Get Rich Slick:

With the over abundance of frugal tips on the pf blogger circuit, you'd think they'd be millionaires left and right all over the place but what I've found so far is that most of the people advocating frugal tips aren't rich (as far as I can tell) but hope to be rich some day.

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When I read frugal tips offered out in the pf blogger world, I can tell a great deal of time, energy and effort was taken to come up with some of the elaborate tips for saving a buck or two and I can only surmise that perhaps too much time, energy and effort is spent on researching ways to be frugal vs. growing income.