I do love your blog. Maybe because your advice is often just plain Midwestern good sense and I am from Iowa, too.

What I don’t love is all the attention paid to the people who want to call you “self-righteous”. Please just ignore them. If they don’t like the blog, nobody’s forcing them to read it. When my husband was working retail, they had the 80/20 rule, which basically means that if 20% or less of the feedback you get is negative, you’re doing fine. It seems that 20% or so just LIKE to complain. My humble opinion: Don’t feed the beast.

Go to msn.com and click on the Money section, then click Personal Finance, then click on Insurance. Once you’re in the Insurance section, scroll down to “Save on health insurance” for more tips. I suggest starting with the “5-minute guide” to health insurance article.

Here’s the direct link to the “5-minute” article:
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Insurance/InsureYourHealth/Your5MinuteGuideToHealthInsurance.aspx

I hope this helps and good luck with finding health insurance and with all your future plans.

The company name and phone info matched on Google, and more importantly the hospital agreed that it was their collections agency. I called back and asked for a written bill to be sent to me, which she did (and put a hold on my account so it wouldn’t affect my credit), and after checking out the bill I went ahead and paid it. But I’m glad to see that I wasn’t improperly suspicious!!

I’m not sure whether I should be trying for single payer health insurance, or wait until I have a job. My state (NY) doesn’t seem to have any temporary insurance, according to the websites I’ve looked at, but I’m not sure how to tell which website is the real deal, and which one isn’t.

I just got my monthly statement from my credit card company, stating that my minimum payment due this month is “$0″. I currently have a balance of about $1,500 on this card.

Even though money is “tight right now, I would really like to start putting away small amounts of money into a savings account and then focus on paying down my credit card.

My question is: Should I take the $50 that I normally pay per month on this card and put it toward my savings or should I just pay $50 to my credit card company this month as usual?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

It sounds to me like you are being contacted by a scavenger collection agency. If your debt is past the statute of limitations, it is against the law for this agency to try and collect it. If you do send them money, this will reopen and reaffirm the debt and this delinquent debt will stay on your DW’s credit report for another seven years or whatever the statute of limitations on debts are in your state (in mine it’s seven years) and it will negatively affect her credit score.

What you need to do is send them a registered “drop dead” letter telling them not to contact you. I would also request in the letter that they provide you written proof of this debt that they allege you owe. If they are reputable and the debt is legitimate, they will do as you ask. Scavenger agencies will not do this. You have rights under the Fair Debt Collection Act and scavenger collection agencies take advantage of the fact that most people do not know what their rights are and they use illegal tactics and intimidation to collect on debts that they have no legal right to collect.

Just because a collection agency claims you owe money, doesn’t mean you should immediately cut them a check. My DH was harassed by a scavenger agency who claimed that he owed money on a store credit card that had been closed years ago that was paid in full and had no balance when he closed it.

Scavenger collection agencies are the WORST. They have no regard for the law, either. Collection agencies have to follow the Fair Debt Collection act.

Do you have it in writing that the original hospital debt was forgiven? The hospital should have given you something that stated the debt was forgiven and you do not owe them money.

mystery shopping- i have been doing so for several years and it’s not a waste of time. however, i do not see it as a way to make a little extra money. i do things that i normally do [or maybe do things that i would have to splurge on] and just alter my plan slightly to complete the mystery shopping.
example #1: get the oil changed in my car for “free” instead of paying $30-40 out-of-pocket or listening to my hubsand cuss while he does it.
example #2: treat my daughter to a popular smoothie instead of paying $3-5.
mystery shopping can be a way to avoid paying for a product/service that normally costs more than i’m willing to pay; i choose shop evaluations are not difficult or overly time consuming. to me, it’s not much different than using coupons, which is a nominal time investment to avoid spending a significant amount.

“spend avoidance” is not the same as saving money! i think trent does a good job of spelling out the differences AND providing reasons and methods to do both effectively.

I work for an insurer (although not auto and in Canada not the US) and I assure you that they can’t just deny coverage because they feel like it. Insurance, particularly auto, is heavily regulated and generally applicable laws and judicial attitudes fall squarely on the insured’s side, not the company’s. Even giving people “the run around” is very bad practice and certainly not done intentionally. If an adjuster denies a claim that should be paid and the company is taken to court and forced to pay they will incur more costs then had they just paid the claim in the first place and can even earn government censure in some cases or further damages for breaching the idea of utmost good faith. In all such cases their reputation would suffer. I don’t work on the claims side but I imagine that denying legitimate claims would be a good way to find yourself out of work. Insurer’s don’t mind paying legitimate claims, that’s what we do.

Were you in breach of policy conditions?

If you had full coverage insurance on the car (which you should since you were not the sole owner) the insurance should pay for the damage. Your girlfriend had your permission to drive the vehicle and should be covered under the policy.

Insurance companies are notorious for not wanting to pay out on claims and for giving individuals the run around. Review your policy (or have a trusted agent/attorney do it for you, they can be hard reading thanks to all the legalese) to see what kinds of losses they cover, and under what circumstances. I wouldn’t just take “no” for an answer on this one.

Why won’t the insurance cover the loss?

I’m not saying piracy shouldn’t be an offense, but is it the crime of theft or is it something else? Defining terms might help here.

We might define digital piracy as “breach of contract.” Copyright owners could make a civil case for damages/compensation because of the monopoly the government grants the holder to distribute that media. Stealing a CD, on the other hand, would still be theft since the property was taken from someone and is now in the hands of a wrongful owner only.

I dont work for any collection agency or anything like that. I just think that people should pay what they incur in debts.

You got the benefit of the service, and by not paying what you owe (credit card, medical coverage, cars etc) it makes companies have to charge everyone else a little more to cover for those who dont pay. I dont appreciate that.