Insurance after Work

When I asked the insurance broker assisting my husband in his Medicare supplement selection about a less expensive policy for me, she told me that through my employer I had Gold level coverage for a Bronze level price.  Needless to say, I decided to keep my work insurance as long as possible.

I also learned through my husband's insurance journey that I had better sign up for Medicare during the 3 months prior to my birthday, if I wanted things to go smoothly.  Because he had stayed on my insurance until he was eligible for M'care, and I didn't correctly understand which forms to fill out with the M'care office, we almost had a gap in coverage for him.  Not a good thing for Mr. Accident-prone.

The last few months at work I kept writing notes to myself to sign up for my coverage but there were students to see, reports to write and many other things that kept me away from taking care of the insurance question.

Oh, and then there is the other matter of switching the employer pension to a Roth IRA.  More paperwork that needs to be done in the next couple of weeks.

If I don't take care of these two things I will 1) have to scramble for insurance and 2) could miss out on some significant tax savings for years to come.  It's easy to let the everyday crowd out the important.

Part of my retirement plan includes a set day of the week for different tasks, and one afternoon is designated "Investing and Financial Matters."  If I regularly review the long-term investments I've made and develop more knowledge about money management I'll feel more relaxed about being a good steward of what I've been given.  Plus, it's so interesting to hear in the news about a company that I first learned about when they had their initial public offering (IPO) and made some guesstimates about their future success.  If I had only bought Starbucks and Panera in the late 90's......