Medicare

Bob will be 65 in July.  We have started the process of registering him for Medicare.  Evidently it's something you have to do within a few months of turning 65.  The process is on line.  The good thing is we can stop and then sign back on to continue.  This is what we have done.

Even though Bob is not taking Social Security until age 66, he has to register for Medicare.  We currently purchase our health care coverage through his pension at a cost of nearly $5,000 per year. 

I will be 63 in June.  As far as we understand now, we will purchase supplemental coverage for Bob and full coverage for me through his pension.  We think my coverage will be the same as was established at the beginning of the year.

We have checked with our primary physician group.  They do not accept new patients with Medicare coverage but will accept old patients.  So far it seems we will get to keep our doctors. 

Bob has steady work right now so we will not have a day free to finish our on line registration until next week.  Grateful for the work.  He has been very busy for 2 weeks now and will not have time off until May 22 - June 2.  It's great.  His winter months were very quiet.

'til later

First Quarter

The First Quarter of 2014 is complete.  You may be receiving quarter end statements from your investments and IRAs. 

I work part time during tax season for an accounting firm across town.  You might be surprised how many of our clients bring their quarterly statements in along with their year end documents.  We need the year end documents to gather such things as dividends and taxable gains, taxable numbers.  Generally we do not need quarterly statements.

The big surprise is the number of these statements that are still in sealed envelopes.  The clients simply toss them into a file and bring them to the accountant in the winter.  Unopened statements.

I strongly suggest you open your statements.  See what has been going on in these accounts.  Call your adviser or the fund itself if you have questions. 

It has been said that no one, absolutely no one, will care about your financial situation more than you do.  Not one other person in this world cares if your investments are growing or even appropriate for you and your risk tolerance. 

Plenty of people including advisers care about how they can benefit from your investments.  Bob and I make our own decisions regarding investments and holdings.  We look at each quarterly statement and discuss how each is doing. 

We subscribe to one newsletter than promotes investing in mutual funds.  The author has 4 suggested plans based on risk tolerance and stage in life.  We subscribe to the least risky plan with some variances.  We are in the middle of liquidating one holding and dispersing that $ to 2 other funds. 

That may sound like the decision is complete and the paperwork in the mail but that's not the truth.  We have yet to complete the paperwork.  We have removed the $ from the holding our newsletter author suggested but have not made the move into other bond funds.  We laugh that we talk a lot before we move. 

Once tax season is over, we will complete the paperwork and make the final step in our $ move.

'til later