Beating Broke

Personal Finance from the Broke Perspective

Innovis Health Stinks

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Unfortunately, I try to keep this blog safe for work; which means that I can’t use the words and terms that I would like to in reference to Innovis.  In short, Innovis Health is one of the worst medical facilities that I’ve ever had to deal with.  And that’s not an exaggeration.  Innovis Stinks.

And here’s why.  Actually, the laundry list of reasons is a bit too long for me to go into detail, but let me discuss the most recent issue that is prompting this post.

I owe them money.  All told, it’s around $1300 that I owe them.  Not a big deal, and manageable.  Unless your Innovis.  Beginning in November of last year, I’ve had a budgeted agreement with them to pay them $45 a month.  I set it up on my bill pay to make sure that I won’t miss a payment and all is well and good, right?  Wrong.

Today, I got a phone call from their business department (read bill department) requesting a call back.  I called back and got a rep.  What she explained to me is that the policy of Innovis is to get at least 10% of the outstanding bill as a payment.  Fine, I told her, but I can’t pay that.  We only have so much money in the month and $45 is what we can afford to send to them.  I was then informed that unless they get the 10%, there is no way for them to guarantee that my bill will not get reviewed for collections.  What?!?

In a nutshell, they would rather sell my account to a collection agency and get 50% (or whatever an agency pays for debt) of the money they are owed instead of carrying the bill and receive all of it $45 at a time?  What kind of hair brained idea is that?  By being a good consumer and paying my bill on time and consistently, they are going to irreparably damage my credit report?  Some reward for doing the right thing.

I have half a mind to ask them to send it to collections now so I can begin negotiations with the collection agency to reduce the bill.  Unfortunately, I don’t know if that would affect my families ability to receive medical care there.  Not a big deal for me, I switched to a different medical facility a while ago, but Innovis has the only Pediatrician in town.

Innovis is the worst health facility I’ve ever dealt with.

And thanks for reading my rant.  I know I feel better.

Avoiding Reactive Personal Finance

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Just what is reactive personal finance?  It’s the management of your personal finance in reaction to events or situations as opposed to the management of personal finance in anticipation of events or situations.

The best example of this is a budget.  A budget is built and held to in anticipation of events in your financial life.  You know that things like your electric bill and water bill are going to be coming and roughly how much they  will be.  That allows you to budget for them and set aside money to pay for them with.  A budget is a great tool in avoiding reactive personal finance.

Why do we need to avoid reactive personal finance?  Because reactive personal finance is disruptive.  You are managing and spending your money in reaction to the events that are happening.  Doing so can cause you to quickly lose control of your finances and find yourself in a downward spiral of poor management choices and, eventually, it can lead to you being broke.

Some examples of events that can cause you to become reactive.  Medical emergencies, blown tires, unexpected social events, and even bills that are larger than they normally are.  Any thing that is unexpected can cause you to spend in a reactive manner.  And when you have events like that, it can often lead to larger problems, like overspending on luxury items to make you feel better.

How do you avoid reactive personal finance?  No plan is foolproof, so it’s not really completely possible.  However, you can make the odds of it happening be cut drastically.  How?  An emergency fund and a bit of willpower.  The emergency fund will give you the available spending power to cover any emergencies that would normally make you spend in a reactive manner.  Instead of trying to react and borrow from somewhere else to pay for the emergency, you can just pay from the emergency fund and not need to react any further.  The willpower comes in where the spending opportunity isn’t an emergency.  You have to have the willpower to avoid last minute and spontaneous spending that could drain your funds and cause you to become reactive when you no longer have the money to pay bills or buy necessities.

The best laid plans often go askew.  But, building an emergency fund and strengthening your resolve can go miles towards avoiding reactive finance and potential disaster.

Adjustments to Make (Price Checking)

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I’m making this post in part to share with you, but also to make a reminder for myself of the things that I need to look into.  One of the mistakes that I and many other people make is not shopping around enough.  While you may have found the best deal when you bought something, if you are still paying for it, you might not be getting the best deal still.

The most obvious place where this could be true is with insurance.  I’ve been with my insurance company for about 10 years.  When I first purchased the insurance, I did a fair amount of shopping around and comparing and bought the insurance that was the best fit.  Since then, many things have changed.  I got married.  We’ve had two children.  We bought a house.  We both turned 25 several years ago.  All of these things could easily cause some drastic changes that really warrant a new comparison.  But, we never did that.  It’s time we did.  Over the next few weeks, I’ll be doing a bit of shopping around for better insurance rates and coverages.  In particular, our home owners insurance seems much higher than it should be, and consequently, I am now in the market to find cheap home insurance cover.

The other thing that I really need to look into (and should have a while ago) is the mortgage on our house.  We managed to buy our house when rates were good.  We’ve since added a second mortgage that is about 25% of the original mortage’s size.  The rate on that is not as favorable.  (9% ish)  So, I need to look into whether refinancing the whole thing and rolling the two together might help us out with a lower overall rate and maybe even a lower payment.

That’s just the two things that came up recently.  I’m sure there are plenty of other things that need to be checked regularly that I and others do not.  What are the things that you check regularly to save money?