December chitchat

[agate]

I'm not sure where 2023 is going but it seems to be about to end. Are you ready for the change, with 2024 calendars?

I'm not.

Here we are, the placeholders for this venerable message board. We're here for anyone who wants to check in and talk.

Time for those who observe Christmas to break out the holiday cheer and sing carols, like the one from an old Pogo comic strip:

Deck us all with Boston Charlie,
Walla Walla, Wash., and Kalamazoo!
Nora's freezin' on the trolley,
Swaller dollar cauliflower alley-garoo!

I hope everyone here will have an easy winter, without any brutal weather or bouts with viruses, or mishaps of any kind. And do drop by here often and let people know what's going on with you.

[flatcap]

Dean Martin - Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

[flatcap]

I went to the dentist today to have my new crown seated. Along the way before I got there, I managed to shatter the temporary, so they had to put in a new one. My out-of-pocket for two temporaries and the permanent crown was $705.60.

Ouch.

It could be worse, though. I still have the tooth. I'm going to have to let the adhesive cure for awhile before I have anything to eat today. I'm going to have a nutrition shake for now. I don't have much of an appetite, anyway.

[agate]

That's apparently a very common problem with temporary crowns. I've had temporary crowns give out several times too, very annoyingly.

Do you have dental insurance of any kind? Mine has a cap of $1,000/year on it, and so the coverage for my recent big-ticket bit of dentistry came to more than I had available on that policy, leaving me responsible for $785.

I was very pleasantly surprised yesterday when I learned that the SNAP benefit would be adjusted upward on account of that expense. I wasn't looking forward to adding that much credit card debt, and now I'll be able to pay it down a little faster.

I hope you'll be able to find a way of covering some of that cost, flatcap. Different communities have different arrangements but years ago, in a WA state town, I was able to use a "dental access" plan for many years. It provided discounts on dental bills if the dentist agreed to participate. I believe it was run by the Easter Seal Society, which may have something similar for your area?

Another way around high dental bills that I've used is just paying $5/month on the bill. I'm not sure that this is still OK but at the time there wasn't a thing the dentist could do about it. Legally so long as you pay something on a bill, a creditor can't go after you, or at least that's how it was explained to me.

I went in there every month and paid my $5. At the time I didn't have a checking account or I would have sent in a check.

[flatcap]

I am glad that SNAP was able to help you.

I do have dental insurance. The maximum benefit is $1500/yr. I am at $1327 for 2023.

I'm afraid the hefty co-pay is on me, but that's OK. It's in my budget, more or less, for the upcoming year.

[agate]

Just think, flatcap--in about 29 more days won't you be entitled to a whole lot of dental work (if you want)?

A lot of dental work that a person might need costs considerably more than those caps on insurance benefits. But some coverage is better than none.

Fancier equipment seems to be turning up often in dentists' offices. I realize that they need to keep pace with technological advances, and that is good. But the cost of it must be driving up what patients are having to pay for dental care.

[Virginia]

Well, I am dropping in as Agate said we should. I just don't have a lot of exciting news to report. No great big plans or anything like that.

It is fairly warm today, but kind of dark and rainy. I am not doing much, but plan to do a little exercise in a few minutes.

Flatcap, I am sorry to hear about your tooth. That is a junk of money. My Dentist will not allow payments. Everything is pay as you go. I know because I asked one time. I have been going to that office since sometime in the 1970s when I returned to Raleigh. The first Dentist I had was wonderful. He had to retire early because he had MS. He might have taken payments I don't know, I didn't need to ask back then. Then another Dentist took over the business. I continued going because I didn't know what monetary arrangement they had and if it was helping the first Dentist I wanted to do so. Now he is only there occasionally. His young son-in-law took over from him. So, it has basically always been a one Dentist office, but is a very thriving one. This is the third Dentist in all these years. One of the ladies who works at the reception desk has been there as long as I have.

I hope everyone will check in this month - Snuggles, Ikoiko, Jingle and any others that might be around. I am sure everyone is busy getting ready for Christmas already. I haven't done anything and don't plan on doing anything other than getting the two year old and the 8 month old a couple of things, but I am not planning on a Christmas tree or decorations because I can't bring them downstairs from the attic. I can remember when I would have thought that unthinkable, but no longer. It is just the way things are.

My computer is sitting in my office just churning away. I wrote a very long email and when I do that sometime little wheels start turning and the email will not save to the "draft" folder and it will not send. I have been waiting for about 2 1/2 hours and plan to wait a few more hours. I do not want to type that email over. I might have to. If I turn the computer off it is lost and if I try to go into my email it is lost. It just sits there with the little wheels turning.

I came on last night and my vision was very blurred. Today it is better thankfully.

I hope all my of you have a good evening.

[flatcap]

Among others it would be nice to hear from, I've been wondering about soul and how he is doing. I have been thinking about bumping his still fairly recent thread, but I hope he is reading here and will check in.

Virginia, I can't help with the buffering problem you are having with your email, but I do have a suggestion. Whenever I write a long email, I use a word processor, then copy/paste the text into the body of the message. I feel much less pressured writing 'offline,' plus I get to spell check, etc. I never could get used to the small window you have to type in when using email, either. I always feel cramped when I have more than a sentence or two to say. I can also save the text in a temporary file on my computer and go back to it if I need to. If you go this route* in the future, I'm betting your buffering problem will go away. It might at least be worth trying. It has saved me a lot of similar grief, that's for sure.

I am glad your vision has cleared up some. It's never any fun when things around you look all blurry.


*Hit 'Send' as soon as you paste the text into the body of the email. You can read it over if you want, but do not save it as a draft, or you are apt to have the buffering problem come up again. As always, the email will be saved in your Sent folder if you need it.

[flatcap]

Just think, flatcap--in about 29 more days won't you be entitled to a whole lot of dental work (if you want)?

A lot of dental work that a person might need costs considerably more than those caps on insurance benefits. But some coverage is better than none.

Fancier equipment seems to be turning up often in dentists' offices. I realize that they need to keep pace with technological advances, and that is good. But the cost of it must be driving up what patients are having to pay for dental care.

The premium will be going up for 2024, but I plan to keep the policy. I am hoping all I will need it for next year is perio maintenance, x-rays, and an annual exam. (Fingers crossed.) Co-pays for most everything else are high, but I will have a new $1500 cap on claims. (Too bad unspent balances don't roll over!)

There are a lot of 'hidden costs' in medical practices. Coincidentally, perhaps, my dentist's office closed at 1:00 on Friday afternoon for their Christmas party. I'm all for that, but I have no illusions when it comes to who paid the bill. It was the patients.

The rest we pay for, too, but the benefits we receive from better care seem worth it. As long as we can afford it, that is. I worry a lot that I won't be able to very much longer. It's hard to keep up with the cost of technological progress — particularly in medical, vision, and dental care — when living on a fixed income.

[agate]

Dentists and doctors live pretty well but they have us by the short hair, don't they?

Fixed income people don't have much leeway. I wouldn't survive without my credit card. Debt is just part of my way of life and has been for many years. I take advantage of balance transfer offers now and then and can often get a card with 0 interest for 12-18 months that way. My current card is charging 24.99% though.

When you just don't have enough income to get by on, you can try to borrow money. Some borrow from friends and family. I borrow from credit cards. There seems to be no other way sometimes. I do have to keep a very watchful eye on that debt.

[flatcap]

My former dentist drives a newish Porsche and was recently selling another high-end collector car. I'm not much of a car person myself, but you get the point.

I am sorry you have to use a credit card to get along. I am particularly sorry you are having to pay what amounts to usury for the 'privilege.' I have my own worries, but they are small compared to yours. I am thankful for what I have.

On another topic, I recently mentioned I was trying a new browser called Brave. That was a failure, so I went back to Chrome.

Today, I have started testing another browser, Firefox. It's been a long time since I used it. It is much improved. Among its other privacy features, it blocks browser fingerprinting. I am hoping it works out.

[agate]

I thought you were a fan of Edge, flatcap. Did you give up on it?

I've been trying it from time to time.

[flatcap]

I do use Edge, but only for email, banking, and things like that. I have been using Chrome for things like YouTube and this forum.

I would like to get away from using Chrome, but I might not be able to. Google might as well be running the planet at this point.

[agate]

I like Chrome's search engine much better than Edge's.

[flatcap]

The default search engine in Edge is Bing. You can change it to Google. I have done so myself.

Google has kindly posted instructions on how to do this. It is easy.

Only registered and activated users can see links., Click Here To Register...

Note that Bing will still be there as an option when you right-click something you have highlighted, but if you select "Search the web for," the query will go to your new default search engine, Google.


ETA: You can also change the page that opens when Edge starts. In addition, you can change the home page to whatever you want and opt to show the home button on the toolbar for easy access.

1) Go to Settings

2) Go to "Start, home, and new tabs"

3) Make your changes

That's all there is to it.

Note that opening a new tab will still take you to Bing. I do not believe this can be changed. If it can, I don't know how to do it.

Chrome is similar in this regard. Opening a new tab takes you to Google.