Ah, the time of year when I have to make decisions for the next twelve months. No, I'm not talking writing or programming goals, I'm talking... insurance and medical benefits. Like most of my jobs, I have to make binding decisions on what type of insurance I want and how much to throw into my 401(k) plan. These decisions can only be changed if I get divorced, married, or managed to spawn.

And its very stressful. I've gone through four insurance companies in the last year. For the new job, then the new job becoming the same job in a new company, then the same job in the new company with their own insurance.

One of those decisions is health coverage. For me, HMO is completely and utterly out of the question. I'm spread out over two states, plus I really don't like the commitment. Normally, I go with a PPO, but this year I seriously considered the High Deductible Health Plan (HDHP) plan. In the end, I actually switched from a PPO to a HDHP plan. It is a risk, but Fluffy and I are overall healthy and we rarely spend that much money on health care, so it seemed to make sense.

The reason I actually decided to switch, baring the healthy bit, is the Health Savings Account (HSA). This is a pre-tax account just usable for medical expenses. Well, also for things like Nyquil and, much to my doom, massages. I took the other half of the amount I would have spent on a PPO (which is double the HDHP) and rammed it into the HSA. That way, it basically nets out the same amount of money for roughly the same amount of service (just front-loaded instead of larger co-pays throughout the year). Any money we don't spend this year rolls into next year, unlike the FSA which is "use it or lose it". So, if we have a good year, then I can start building up a pad for when we have really bad years, you know, when I'm old and broken.

The drawback is if we have a bad year this year. Not like I'm near the wire on anything else at the moment.

Like trying to sell a house.

...

*deep breath*