Stand back! I've got insurance and I'm not afraid to use it!
2006-01-25 12:41 p.m.
I'm being all responsible this week. I just got back from an oil change my car desperately needed. I should have had one last May or so.The really ironic part is that I've had, since last February, a completely filled-in punch card for a FREE oil change. All I had to do was make an appointment, and drive my car TWO BLOCKS, and I completely failed to do that for eight months. Eight months! What's wrong with me? This was supposed to be the car that I kept on top of the maintenance, so maybe it would outlast the payments. Damn, I suck. *** I also finally scheduled myself an appointment for an eye exam. I've had my current glasses for about six years, and I'm pretty sure I'm legally blind even while wearing them. My Fazuulian insurance kicked in about a year ago, of course. I just never got around to doing anything about it. My insurance turned out to be not very helpful with the birth control, and I became very frightened of the word "co-payment." Half of a pair of glasses (a monocle, perhaps?) might turn out to be more than my generally precarious finances could handle, so I kept putting it off. (Around July or so, I really was going to do it. First, I just had to get the oil changed. I rationalized that my car's health was going to cost me more in the long run than my own. This was blatantly untrue, and I knew it. But it sounded good, and it made me feel like I had a plan. Then, of course, I failed to get the oil change.) In December, though, I was offered a radically new kind of insurance, and suddenly everything seemed so much easier. It's called a Flexible Spending Account, and I want to make sweet sweet love with the person who invented it. I have no idea if this concept is as new to you as it was to me, but lacking a better topic for today, I will explain it to you. Instead of an ID card, which NO ONE on the planet will recognise, I have a credit card, with a preset limit to the total amount I will pay in over the year. I can use this card ANYWHERE. My insurance plan last year was just wasted money. As mentioned, it didn't do a thing for me with the birth control and yearly physical I required to get the birth control. Then, because I'd been hurt before, I was afraid to try it anywhere else. Ah, the FSA, though. If I don't happen to get run over by a bus this year, I'll take myself to the dentist in December. If there's STILL money left over, I can spend it at Walgreens. Walgreens! My wonderful little FSA card can buy cough drops, aspirin, first aid supplies, and thousands of other over-the-counter products. How cool is that?? Rijid says I can even buy his insulin. The needles, he's on his own, because those require a prescription. A little bottle of insulin is apparently fairly benign all by itself, though, and they'll sell it to anyone who asks. (Now I'm trying to think of ways I could use a bottle of insulin for evil. I suppose I could cover it with gravy, and trick someone into choking on it. If thrown just right, I could maybe take out an eye.) Anyway, tomorrow I get to try this strange magic called "FSA" for the first time, at my local LensCrafters. The nice lady who set up my appointment seemed to have heard of it, and was willing to proceed with the transaction. I am WAY too excited about this. I'm also really looking forward to the day in December when I try to go through Walgreen's checkout with $300 worth of cough drops. If my estimate for the amount of insurance I need in a year is WAY off, I can adjust the amount I pay in for 2007. FSA. Best. Insurance. EVER.
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