Tag: finance

Review subscriptions and memberships

March 15, 2025

Last year, I went through our remaining memberships/subscriptions and made a list of the ones that would not be renewed at the 2025 renewal date:

  1. Everand/Scribd
  2. Smyrna Public Library
  3. Amazon Prime
  4. QuiltFolk magazine
  5. Missouri Star BLOCK magazine

Everand was cancelled the same day they announced a price increase.

The Smyrna Public Library is a hard one for me. I live outside the city limits and pay a modest annual fee to use the library. It’s totally worth the fee, but after being told last year that Sadie was no longer allowed in the library outside of official therapy dog visits, I’ve limited my visits and ceased all non-READ volunteering. Now that I no longer work part-time as a literacy enrichment instructor, I don’t need the extra access to children’s picture books. No need to renew. The county library system and regional library consortium will meet my needs. (Update 5/13/25: my renewal fee was waived due to a “policy change”.)

Amazon Prime no longer represents a good value for us. Stuff is frequently delivered late. There’s not much streaming programming that we watch. I get books and magazines for free via the Libby app at the public library. We’ll do what our niece does and wait until the shopping cart has $35 in it to get free shipping. We can wait a day or two extra for delivery.

Quiltfolk is a quarterly quilting lifestyle magazine. It’s absolutely gorgeous and available in print only. I’ve been a subscriber since the magazine’s early days. Over time, I’ve kept a handful of issues and shared the rest. It’s become too expensive to just give away. Already been set to non-renew.

BLOCK from Missouri Star is another quilting magazine. I flip through each print issue when it arrives, but haven’t made a project from one of the magazines in a LONG time. The issues also come digitally as part of the subscription, so I’ll still have access to them even after I cancel. (Update 5/13/25: With the new format, I really find value in the magazine projects, so it’s a keeper for now.)

Photo by Mikhail Nilov on Pexels.com

Happy emails

February 4, 2024

On Friday, the email began “Dear Pending Retiree” and it made my day. Today, I received the official email notification to enroll in “pending retiree” health insurance benefits once our current benefits under COBRA expire at the end of February. You bet I completed enrollment shortly after receiving the email! I now have confirmation in writing that our existing health insurance will continue with no break in coverage. This is exactly what we needed to happen. Now, I’m just waiting on my letter with the new login details so I can set up the new account to pay premiums electronically.

Once my active employee – COBRA – state extended coverage – retiree journey is complete, I’ll write a detailed post to share with my fellow teacher friends on how to navigate the process. Once friends learned I was able to take my insurance with me to fill in the gap until retirement, two other teacher friends did the same thing. This option is available to any GA teacher/state employee who meets certain criteria and you can keep the insurance in place as long as you are willing to pay for it. Yes it’s expensive, but it was the only option for our particular situation unless I wanted to continue working full-time (nope). I was able to leave two years early and meet the requirement to keep my health insurance coverage active from last date of employment to my official retirement date. At that point, premiums will drop back to reasonable retiree rates. This has been the goal all along. I’m so thankful this option was available so I could join hubby in early retirement. We’ve had a blast!

Photo by Dids . on Pexels.com