I have to say, I am surprised by what I am seeing with the COVID-19 progression over the last few weeks. Max is generally pretty even-keeled about things like this. As such, I have been in the “hey, aren’t we overreacting a bit here?” camp for a while now. But the changes over the last few days have certainly gotten my full attention. For me, the global response over the last week has been both...
Over the last several years, I have absorbed a ton of excellent content from a lot of people in and around the internet. A lot of those ideas even got implemented into my personal finance strategy. Some of these people are professionals, but a lot of them are just amateurs throwing their weight around in a specific niche. I like to think I am pretty good at healthcare and personal finance, but there are plenty...
The Max Out of Pocket crew had a pretty fun 2019; fun that is reflected in our 2019 expenses. That’s okay though, we are willing to spend some serious cash on the things we enjoy. I suppose some people might look at this and say we are slumming it in a dark dungeon of frugal deprivation. While others will see the same information and think we might have a spending problem. Max on the other...
Let’s get right to the point. In 2020, the Medicare Part B deductible came in at $198. This is a $13.00 increase from where we were in 2020. That’s a 7% increase year over year and a very similar increase to what we saw (on a percentage basis) with the Medicare Part A deductible. If you remember, the Medicare Part B premiums came in up 6.7% from where we were in 2019. Now a lot...
As it turns out, 2019 was a pretty great year for front-loading my 403(b) account. My low-cost VIIIX (Vanguard Institutional Index Fund Institutional Plus Shares) fund generally tracks the performance of the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. The S&P 500 returned just over 30% in 2019. Thus, VIIIX put up a very similar return for 2019. On 12/31/2018 VIIIX was worth $227.57 per share and by 12/31/2019 is was worth $290.25 per share. That’s a...