Forum Replies Created
-
AuthorPosts
-
bearishgurl
Participant[quote=paramount][quote=scaredyclassic]
A half drunk pissed offf frustrated drunk mom with an amphetamine scrip from the family doc was pretty standardIn the 50s[/quote]
Only in rolling stones songs was it standard.[/quote]paramount, IIRC, 7 or 8 years ago you posted on this forum several times that you were extremely disenchanted with living in TV and commuting to work in your home county of SD. Acc to your posts back then, for a period of YEARS, YOU BADLY wanted to move back here. Instead, you’ve posted since then that you purchased another residence in TV and rented out your old one in TV. I don’t know if your 2nd home purchase was closer or further from your job in SD County but it doesn’t matter, because, in retrospect, that’s what you really wanted to do, despite you posting here to the contrary.
Could it possibly be that at the time you were house shopping in SD (during the period we had the lowest house prices in recent history) that your household still couldn’t qualify for a mortgage for a house you were willing to accept here in SD County due to you being the primary (or only) “breadwinner” in your entire household?
I’m not trying to be “mean” here. Every adult makes their own choices in life. And everyone’s values are different. But I feel that you were insinuating here that some people are “bad parents” because they are willing to do what it takes to qualify to buy a residence of their choice for their families located in a CA coastal county as close to their jobs as possible. You may want one parent at home with your kids until they leave for college and that is okay. But that parent is not likely going to be bringing in a great deal of income into the household, especially living in the (corporate) isolation of TV. And that must be the way you like it because that is your chosen lifestyle.
The reality is that you had your chance to buy a residence back in your home county of SD a few years ago (while the “getting was good”) and for whatever reason, you chose not to. All I’m saying here is don’t begrudge families who are not willing to do what you’re doing every biz day and want a lot more time with their families. At the end of the day, we all have to sleep in our own beds.
I can tell you that if I was in my 30’s again and working and raising a family today in SD, there is no way in h@ll I would live in TV and have your commute. If I worked in dtn SD, 10 miles from it would be my limit (maybe 15 miles max from dtn for a very exceptional property which I thought was a good deal) but I would prefer not being freeway dependent every day. Life can be short and my time as a parent after the 40-hr wk grind would be very valuable to me. But that is just me.
Participant[quote=scaredyclassic]A half drunk pissed offf frustrated drunk mom with an amphetamine scrip from the family doc was pretty standardIn the 50s[/quote]Aaaahh, yes. The “Stepford Wife.” I saw that movie, too :=0
Participant[quote=no_such_reality]California runs the California exchange. California communicates enrollment info. California screws it up. And many other states too, I’m sure
As for your premiums rocketing and blaming ACA, frankly you apparently haven’t been listening for the last 20 years as businesses have been complaining about double digit premium growth since then.
Your just seeing it for a change. Nothing new. My prior employer screwed up my coverage the same way. People make mistakes and the more protected they are the more careless they are in performing their job duties
You rant you want to exclude coverage, what do you think your premiums will do when everyone under 50 starts dumping coverage for Alzheimer’s, dementia and all the other typically older conditions?[/quote]NSR, Alzheimer’s and dementia are typical diseases of those over the age of 65 and already on Medicare so your argument in this regard is moot. If young people don’t want to sign up on the exchanges and decide to be subject to the penalty instead, I don’t care. A lot of them just out of college, yet too old to be their parents’ policies aren’t making much and thus their penalty won’t be much. This group can go on Medi-Cal. It won’t affect their futures or estates one bit. They can stay on Medi-Cal until they get a job with coverage. I’m all for the Medi-Cal Kids program as well. Medi-Cal is fine for the younger groups but it’s NOT okay if it is “force-placed” on someone who very clearly has been affording and can afford their own healthcare premiums until they reach the age of 65 (with or without a smallish subsidy). Once someone over the age of 55 is “force-placed” on Medi-Cal” (esp behind their backs where they may not even be aware of it for the first month or two), their county SS Medi-Cal worker is the only person who can release them off Medi-Cal and will only do so if the ex-CC enrollee successfully PROVES their (allowable) monthly income to their Medi-Cal worker which is over the Medi-Cal threshold OR proves that they have purchased ACA-approved coverage OFF the exchange and that coverage has already started! (One CANNOT sign up for a plan on the exchange if they are currently on Medi-Cal. The exchanges’ websites will not permit this.) Even then, it takes Medi-Cal 4-12 months (avg of 8-9 mos) to “release” a former CC enrollee off Medi-Cal (who never should have been ON Medi-Cal in the first place! Meanwhile, a state tab of $625 to $635 month is running for their Medi-Cal managed-care premiums paid on their behalf (which they never signed up for and never used) solely for the purpose of “estate recovery.”
THIS is the “vise grip” which is regularly employed on the over-55 CC-enrollee cohort in CA. It’s a big “gotcha” and a potential future GOLD MINE for the state! As such, the “individual mandate” for this group could very well prove to be unconstitutional if it was tested in Federal Court.
This is also why I’m going to close my CC account at the end of this year after obtaining coverage OFF the exchange eff: 1-1-17 during “open enrollment” in the fall. Hopefully, the ACA will eventually be repealed and CA will get back those six major carriers who left the state’s individual health-plan market at the end of 2013 and there will be “competition” among sellers of nationwide PPOs which don’t cost $2200+ month. These companies will all come back if they can medically underwrite people again. People with bad health can apply to the state insurance pool which every carrier will have to join who is doing biz in the state. They will rotate accepting applicants with pre-existing conditions, much like auto insurers in the state pool do with driver’s with SR-22 filings and too many points on their licenses. Those premiums will be “affordable” by being “subsidized” and the truly “poor” with pre-existing conditions can go on Medi-Cal … as it has always been. The healthy applicants for individual healthplans will each pay a small surcharge in their monthly premiums to help cover the premiums of the “state pool applicants with pre-existing conditions.” This won’t be NEAR AS EXPENSIVE for the healthy group because their premium amount will be based upon their past usage and overall health as determined by the results of their carriers’ physical examinations administered to them during the application process. In addition, there will be six more major carriers in the state to compete against one another and ALL offer PORTABLE NATIONWIDE PPOs, which is what most boomers want. Actual subsidies will only be offered to those who have pre-existing conditions which would typically cause their healthplan rates to skyrocket. All the people who are healthy and receiving subsidies now won’t need them because their healthplans will be much cheaper.
I also like Trump’s idea of “public hospitals.” (UCSD Hospital in Hillcrest back in the ’70’s and ’80’s, along with the now defunct “Physicians and Surgeon’s” Hospital in SE SD used to be SD County’s “public hospitals.”) “Public hospitals” can provide care to the uninsured indigent who fell thru the cracks and get reimbursed the Medicare rate for their care by the Federal Government.
The “individual mandate” needs to be scrapped as well, imho.
After I “prove” my income to CC once again next month, I won’t be “proving” any more of my personal biz to (supremely incompetent) state and local bureaucrats anymore. I have already given them several years access to my tax returns when I signed up to CC, I spent nearly my entire working life playing stupid games with bureaucrats and the truth is that I don’t have to anymore. It’s nothing but a fool’s errand. I paid all my exorbitant health premiums (yes, even MY share of my health premium is way more than it should be) on time since the ACA has been in force and I am now done. It is illegal to dump someone’s coverage if they have paid their premium on time for that month. The carriers who elected to participate in CA’s exchange are weak and have caved into CC, lock, stock and barrel. They will tell you that they have absolutely no say in anything regarding the continuity of coverage of any of their planholders who signed up through CC whilst taking your money every month. CC runs the show and I don’t want incompetent bureaucrats with thousands of $10-$15 hr employees (most of whom don’t even have associate degrees and a good portion who undoubtedly only received GEDs) fvcking with my income and bumping me from my health coverage behind my back after I already paid my premium for that month … ESPecially when I am on frequently on the road for weeks at a time where anything can happen to me in the blink of an eye. I don’t need that kind of stress and am no longer in a place in life where I have to play with these idiots. End of story.
Participant[quote=no_such_reality]Same issue with the under 25 crowd. Not sure what the complaint is other than the State department is being incompetent in execution in checking out make sure the State isn’t getting bilked.[/quote]It’s not “their (State’s) money,” NSR. Healthcare subsidies come from Federal funds and it is actually the IRS who is “in charge” of vetting taxpayers’ incomes for subsidy eligibility and amount. The IRS has access to the forms of ALL income reported to each taxpayer because those paying entities are required to report this info to the IRS. CC does not.
NSR, why don’t you explain to me how a CC enrollee who received a tax refund in 2015 of a portion of CC premiums they paid in 2014 (because they were not awarded a large enough subsidy for their incomes by CC in 2014) was told by CC in writing DURING 2014 that they are NOT eligible for a subsidy (eligible only for Medi-Cal) and threatened with forced placement of their CC acct to Medi-Cal? OR, the CC enrollee was told by CC in writing that they were not eligible for a subsidy anymore during the same year that the IRS determined they didn’t receive enough subsidy for that year and refunded them premium monies after they filed their tax returns?
This debacle is happening again this year for early 2015 tax return filers. They’re getting $400 to $900 back from the IRS this year for not receiving enough subsidy from CC in tax year 2015, yet ALL have been hassled in writing by CC and/or Medi-Cal workers since the 3rd quarter of 2015 (and now, again, in 2016) to “re-prove” the SAME income to CC (or Medi-Cal) for “subsidy eligibility” which the IRS has already vetted! Lots and lots people over the age of 55 are on “fixed incomes” which change little from year to year unless they remove income from their retirement savings.
This whole “make-work procedure” by the state and counties is nothing more than a function of (greedy) state gubments overarching and sticking their noses into everyone’s business because they found loopholes in the ACA which they believe permits them to do so for the sole purpose of obtaining the right to eventual “estate recovery” on the estates of those CC enrollees receiving subsidies who are over the age of 55. In CA, it’s as if our 58 county SS agencies don’t have enough work with “poor” US citizens at their doors seeking cash and food aid as well as illegal immigrants to deal with who are attempting to use phony identities and addresses to receive aid.
It was a really “bad idea” to expand Medicaid/Medi-Cal in the states who adopted it and the predominately DEM Congress who passed this crap were idiots. The states who adopted “expanded Medicaid” are (very methodically and purposefully) attempting to snag thousands upon thousands of high-asset boomers into the their dragnets for the sole purpose of eventual “estate recovery.” The vast majority of these individuals are reporting legitimate incomes above (often far above) the Medi-Cal threshold which CC and their respective SS agencies then discount or render “exempt” in the back room (and unbeknownst to the taxpayer/CC enrollee) for the sole purpose of force-placing them on Medicaid/Medi-Cal behind their backs! For example, I will receive a portion of my sponsor’s military retirement every month for the rest of my life and the portion of my (non-taxable) Health Insurance Reimbursement from my retirement association every month until I am 65 (at which time my allowance will increase to pay for my Medicare supplements for Parts B and D). But both of those “monthly incomes” are exempt from keeping me from Medi-Cal eligibility! My experience with “the system” with the 7-8 people I have helped sign up to CC is that it is grossly incompetent and can’t understand numbers on tax forms indicating the individual has other lifetime income such as annuities or trust income, etc and will receive it until the “fund” runs out (which will likely be many years … in most cases, AFTER the individual turns 65). CC is also too incompetent to determine from a 59.5+ yo’s tax return that they removed tax-free $$ from retirement accts last year to live on.
This situation is especially difficult for boomers with CC accounts due to the now exorbitant cost of premiums of CC plans for their age group. Prior to the ACA, I knew several people over age 55 who purchased their own plans (incl myself) and no way did ANY of them pay monthly premiums of over $1000 until about age 62 (for a comprehensive plan, NOT an HDHP)! Now, HMO, EPO and PPO premiums are hitting the $1000 month mark starting at Gold level for age 56 for most of the CC plans (which is nearly 3x the cost of a very good pre-ACA HDHP). By the time one hits the age of 62, monthly premiums for Silver plans and up now cost from $775 to $1350 per month and are rising 8-20% per year in CA! I can tell you that the vast majority of boomers would rather not take a subsidy (and didn’t need one to pay for their coverage prior to the ACA) but the “ACA compliant” plans are now so pricey that many have no choice but to accept a subsidy if they wish to NOT outlive their retirement savings. The requirement that ALL plans now be “ACA-compliant” has driven up the price for those plans exponentially for this age group who typically doesn’t need or want a good portion of services which are “ACA compliant” (i.e. maternity svcs, chiropractic, mental health, drug and alcohol detox/rehab, svcs for autistic children, etc). Yet, by law, every CA resident who is NOT on Medi-Cal must now pay for ALL of these services every month in their premiums as they are mandatory inclusions in our coverage.
Boomers’ healthplan premiums are high enough. We shouldn’t be forced to subsidize millenial families having babies (while they pay premiums which cost 1/3 to 1/4 of ours). Who was there to “subsidize” our “maternity bills?” Ummm, actually, no one. We paid our own medical bills with our own medical coverage.
The ACA is the biggest scam this country has ever seen and the only entities benefiting from it are the insurance companies who opted to participate in the state exchanges. They are raking in billions from the gubment only to offer very narrow networks (and often no networks at all in some jurisdictions) to their sitting-duck state-exchange planholders in exchange for those billions. The ACA isn’t even good for millenials. Before it was enacted, relatively healthy individuals in their 20’s were able to easily obtain a NATIONWIDE HDHP with a very REPUTABLE carrier with a HUGE selection of providers on the open market for $94 to $110 month (30-somethings cost a little more).
As a result of the ACA, healthplan premiums are now so inflated that the majority without access to health insurance now need a “subsidy” to help pay for it every month. This phenomenon has the effect of creating a “license” for state and local gubment to insert itself into Joe and Jane 6p’s personal business. To this end, CA now needs more and more CC workers and County SS workers (who vest for lifetime pensions after five years of service). It’s ALL ABOUT CONTROL of the populace, people, plain and simple.
Our country is now spending trillions on premium subsidies, essentially to line the pockets of the exchange carriers and to create extra state bureaucracies and beef up county bureaucracies. The (PPO) exchange carriers’ reimbursements to providers have actually decreased by more than 100% since the inception of the ACA, causing many GREAT longtime providers who are in a position to retire to voluntarily give up their practices.
If a candidate such as Trump has an agenda to decimate the ACA and start over, I’ll volunteer my services to that end. I now have enough “ammunition” which will prove to be so utterly ridiculous to “John Q Public registered voter” that it will make CC and CA County SS agencies look like the flaming “make-work” idiots that they are. I’m getting very close to filling out that new voter registration form I have bookmarked, and, depending upon the outcome of the CA primary election, drafting letters (with [redacted] exhibits) …. to be mailed (certified) to the “appropriate entities” just in time for the “general election campaign season.” If I’m ever needed out of town to testify to the PTB or a campaign rally as to this travesty taking place every business day, all day at the hands of CA state gubment, I’ll be there with bells on :=0
/disgusted rant
ParticipantOkay, my peeps (both over 55) are gone now and had documentation in their CC accounts that they had proved their (W-2) incomes to CC in January and early February and have been reinstated … for now, retroactive back to 2/1. CC had bumped them off their plans without even reading their uploads, which is typical.
CC has access to both of their tax return numbers until 2020 and has had that access since the beginning of last year.
However, one of them is likely going to have to “re-prove” her income to CC come June or July. We’ll see what happens. She’s going to check her CC account the 2nd business day of every month (after her premium is paid) to make sure her plan is still active.
enron, yes, the people who create an account on CC and state they are not seeking a subsidy and purchase a CC plan without a subsidy don’t have any problems. But why would anyone want to go thru a bureaucratic gubment middleman (CC) to buy a healthplan if they weren’t eligible for subsidy? What would be the purpose of doing that? They could just log onto a carrier’s website or “ehealthinsurance” as you listed here and probably get the same plan for $14-15 month less because the plan isn’t paying any monthly “commissions” to CC!
I know about all those ways to purchase healthplans off the exchange and will be doing so myself for 2017. I actually purchased my former (“grandfathered”) healthplan online in 2004 but they bumped me off the plan at the end of 2013 when they left CA’s individual market (with 5 other large carriers) because they refused to offer “ACA compliant” plans in CA.
[quote=spdrun] . . . Also, with the realtor example, aren’t most salesmen paid on 1099? That’s not reported till the end of the year, not reported monthly. . . . [/quote]If a CC enrollee who is accepting a subsidy is over 55 and DID NOT prove their income last year with W2’s, then they will likely find themselves having to prove their income several times annually to keep their subsidy. If any of their reported income was through commissions, then yes, they wouldn’t get that 1099 until the following January and CC knows this. The commissioned salesperson over 55 years of age will be required to prove when they were paid commissions by scanning and uploading their (dated) commission stmts or checkstubs into the CC website.
An “over-55” CC enrollees’ CC file is automatically sent electronically to their County SS Dept who will “work it up” for Medi-Cal eligibility at the same time the enrollee is covered with a subsidy helping to pay their premiums. County Medi-Cal workers have the authority to go into a CC enrollee’s CC case and change their income numbers as they see fit, without informing the enrollee and often do. (For instance, remove military retirement income, adjust interest or dividend income or a remove a deduction they don’t feel qualifies for MAGI, etc). For those who have reported W-2 income in the previous year and/or listed it in their current income on CalHEERS, the Medi-Cal worker in their county will cull the state EDD index beginning one month after every quarter (4/30, 7/31, 10/31 and 1/31, after employers have reported earnings) to try to match CC enrollees’ reported or projected earnings with what their employer reported. If employers reported less monthly earnings than the Medi-Cal threshold for the enrollee’s filing status (or in any months leading up to the current month), that is cause for Medi-Cal forced placement. It doesn’t matter if the employee may have been on FML or ran out of leave and that is why their paycheck(s) were short for that month or a period of months. It only matters that their gross pay for one or more months fell below 138% of the “poverty level,” rendering them “Medi-Cal eligible.”
CC enrollees below 55 years of age aren’t scrutinized as closely and their tax returns (usually reporting W-2 income) are accepted at face value because for them, their Medi-Cal premium may cost just as much or more than the subsidy they are receiving and more importantly, the law does not provide for Medi-Cal estate recovery for CC enrollees under the age of 55. There is little incentive for CC or County SS Depts to go through all that extra work of constantly monitoring younger CC enrollees’ CC accounts and hassling them for proof of income when the state wouldn’t be allowed to place any liens on them for the cost of Medi-Cal managed care premiums. In most cases, it’s cheaper to give them a subsidy if they have an easily proveable W-2 income within $15K annually of the Medi-Cal threshold.
Boomers are an absolute cash cow for states who adopted expanded Medicaid under the ACA and CA is wasting no time making sure they are going to get their cut. Our homes and other properties are sitting ducks for attachment and the state is chomping at the bit to obtain the right to start their tab running and lay claim on them.
Participant[quote=FlyerInHi]Why didn’t trump marry native women? He imported his wives.
BG, I’m not defending all of obamacare. I would prefer VA or Medicare for all.
But I know at least 20 people who now have health care. They went without before.Despite your problems, ACA is an incremental improvement for all.[/quote]FIH, Trump’s second spouse was from GA, USA. He didn’t have to “import” his first and third spouse as they were both already present in NY when he met them. However, they both eventually became US citizens due to marrying him.
I know an older plumber and also a cabinetmaker in his late forties (both Americans) who “imported” their latest spouses from Russia and they seem to be very happy. It’s not only the “rich” who do this.
CC is specifically targeting heads of households and single filers who are over the age of 55 for forced Medi-Cal placement. It doesn’t matter what income they reported or what the nature of their income is (ie W-2, 1099, etc). It doesn’t matter if they have an income $15K or $20K above the Medi-Cal threshold, their tax returns show this to be true and they proved it last year and the year before. They must prove it every year and often two or three times per year on very short notice or they can be bumped off their healthplan arbitrarily (yes, after paying their premium for that month). Our great state of CA has been “lawyering up” for nearly six months now to begin massive collection efforts for the purposes Medi-Cal recovery on the estates of the “over-55” set. I cannot emphasize enough here that CA wants EVERYBODY they can possibly get who is over 55 on Medi-Cal ASAP so they can start running up their estate tabs with mandatory ~$625 month Medi-Cal premiums, whether they ever go to the doctor or not.
THOUSANDS of CC enrollees have already gotten Medi-Cal cards in the mail that they never applied for only to call their carrier and find out they have been bumped from their plans.
CC and Social Service agencies of CA’s 58 counties have access to the the CA EDD computer and Franchise Tax Board records of CC participants. For example, if a CC participant is a Realtor who makes $8K in commissions one month and then doesn’t make any money for four months and then makes $34K the next month in commissions, they could find themselves force-placed into Medi-Cal. Unlike CC, Medi-Cal does not use annual income and does not recognize military pensions as “income.” (I know a military retiree whose pension is over $4K month.) Medi-Cal only uses MONTHLY income to determine eligibility. If you have months where no income is reported to the EDD or don’t have legitimate documentation to prove when income was paid to you, you could easily be bumped into Medi-Cal. I doesn’t matter if your income for the year was over $40K. If you reside in CA, are receiving a subsidy to pay your premium (however small) and you are over 55, you are a moving target for forced Medi-Cal placement behind your back. You will find yourself “proving your income” to CC over and over and over again and will be given very little notice to do so before being bumped. Their personnel doesn’t have the expertise to properly read the numbers on your tax return and doesn’t have access to your backup documents from entities which paid you income. You could have an income of $45K (or $65K if a couple) and have an AGI on Line 37 of your tax return) of $15K or $20k due to writeoffs and they don’t understand how you got to that number and want to know all the particulars … all the time.
If you are over 55, my advice to EVERYONE is to STAY OFF CC and get your healthplan elsewhere if you want to preserve your estate. It’s NOT WORTH IT!!!
Participant[quote=harvey]If it comes down to Donald vs. Hillary it will really come down to Trump vs. Mrs. Bill Clinton.
Trump has it easy now because other Republicans have to play nice and can’t bring up his long history of … well … being Donald Trump.
The negative campaign ads will be interesting.[/quote]Um, it’s “legal” to have had three wives (and to prefer a much-younger eastern European spouse). It’s actually quite common for someone in his age group (rich or poor). He supported (and is still supporting one) all of his children (private school) and sent them all to college. Whatever Cruz and Rubio can come up with … more power to them.
Edit: oh, and he “created” (executive) jobs for three of his children and is likely still supporting the fourth in college.
Participant[quote=FlyerInHi]I watched the entire republican debate last night. I like Kasich but he looked hunchback and unpolished. I like Carson’s health plan. Cruz is consistently conservative. Rubio is very corporate republican.
Trump won. Does not matter what the press thinks. Republicans seem to love trump’s hardass CEO style of shutting up people. The other guys looked incredulous at what Trump gets away with.
So today Trumps get Christie’s endorsement.[/quote]LOL, I missed all that. I’ll have to catch up tonight. I’ve got more folks coming over for help to find out why they were bumped from their CC plans after paying their February premium. One just found out at the doctor’s office this morning. These people are just two of many thousands out there :=0
I checked my CC acct just now and I am apparently still covered as of today. However, I was bumped off my plan twice during my last long (3600+ mile) road trip ending mid-November. I didn’t find out about it until I arrived back home and got my mail. It would have been disastrous for me had something happened to me on my road trip and my Blue Shield membership card was no longer good.
My premium is automatically deducted on the 1st of every month, as are 95% of CC participants.
Participant[quote=FlyerInHi]BG, I think people in border towns don’t want a wall. They would prefer ease of travel so they can go back and forth. Let see how they vote.[/quote]
They’ll still be able to have “ease of travel” with a wall (if they are properly documented). The existence of a wall is not going to affect the officer-controlled checkpoints which are already in existence (~24 at the SD/Tijuana border crossing).The wall will specifically be to prohibit foot traffic across the border in all areas except those which are part of the existing checkpoints.
Participant[quote=FlyerInHi]BG, you sound like a good shopper and a person who can resist temptation really well. Good for you….[/quote]Well, the key is that you have to “go with the flow” with whatever is offered on sale/clearance this week and can’t be “brand-loyal” the way I shop. You also can’t be “in a hurry” to purchase a particular item. If you know you won’t use it this week and it is not deeply discounted right now, then don’t buy it. It is likely to go on sale within the next 14 days at one of the Big Three “corporate” grocery chains in SD County. You need to sign up for e-mails for their deals which come out every Wed. If you’re in the store and see something in the clearance areas that won’t spoil and you will definitely use in the near future, then buy it, ESP if you have a coupon for it.
I used to buy my grains at Sprouts but their bags went up in price over $1 each. Steel cut oatmeal is now cheaper at Ralphs, as is flaxseed. I agree that Sprouts’ produce is really cheap. However, the tomatoes are of better quality at Vons.
You also can’t be loyal to any particular store. I buy staples at Grocery Outlet such as eggs ($2.73 for a dozen local “jumbo size” which typically isn’t carried in the “Big 3” cuz they are too big for recipes), $1.49 for 24 oz wide 100% WW bread, $2.29 gal milk and as little as $1.99 for a GAL of 100% CA orange juice (both from Rockview Farms):
I can actually still feed two pets and two people (if necessary) very well (incl personal and hshld items) for $160 – $170 month and I lost my commissary privileges almost two years ago! Fortunately, I am surrounded my grocery stores of every kind 🙂
My strategy wouldn’t work nearly as well for a rural dweller who had to plan trips for grocery shopping due to more time and gas expended. I can just drop by any of the big 3 on my way to/from the gym, post office, and other local offices I regularly visit without wasting any extra time or gas.
I have never belonged to Costco (formerly “Price Club”) even when I had a family to feed. I’m not in any way, shape or form interested in buying in bulk (and having to store it). The reason is because most of us in SD County are surrounded by stores and whatever you want will be cheaper next week or the week after. Hence, there is no reason whatsoever to stock up unless you just made a killing on the purchase or you live in the boonies.
Edit: I have always only fed “premium brands” of dry pet food. These items are on sale and clearance frequently and coupons are readily available both online and off.
Participant[quote=livinincali]. . . Vons and the other corporate grocery stores are trash, it’s a waste of time unless you are only shopping their deals. Of course most people just shop their local grocery store so sometimes you’re stuck with want you got where you live. It’s just too much of a pain or hassle to go somewhere else.[/quote]livinincali, I used to have five Vons to choose from within 8 miles of my home and now I only have two. The closest Vons to me is very small and doesn’t carry Safeway’s whole line of groceries OR even everything they advertise. However, I typically come into the store with a paper list of my Just4U items and a few club deals for that week on produce and end up making out like a bandit at the register after only buying what is on my list (and anything I might be able to use within a reasonable period of time from the clearance bin in which I also have a coupon for). For example, I just scored 2 bottles of Nature Made Multi-Vitamin capsules (60’s) for $7.33 (incl tax) in a 2 for 1 club deal with a $4 Just4U coupon. (That’s $1.83 mo for high-quality multivitamins.) I could get deals like that all day, every day if I shopped every day but I am now only a one-person household. I regularly get a LOT of slightly bent cans (dropped the night before in stocking) from both Vons or Ralphs for .25 to .50 ea (esp pet food).
I’m not a big meat eater but Vons meats are very high quality, they have their own organic line and they put them on clearance between 7:30 and 8:30 am at 30% – 75% off (incl fresh fish and poultry). If you’re going to freeze it when you get home or cook it within 24 hours (and then maybe freeze it), it doesn’t matter if its “sell-by” date is today or tomorrow. NONE of the meat they put out for clearance is discolored or spoiled. If you can’t shop early in the am, there isn’t much to choose from (if anything) by 11:00 am.
Vons and Albertsons now both have “red tag” sales every week featuring at least 50 items in the store. Buy any four and save $1.00 each. I’ve gotten all kinds of frozen, dairy and dry groceries (ex: Ragu spaghetti sauce or Progresso soup) for .88 to .99 each many times.
Overall, Vons is a good value if you plan your trip from home, bring a list (I don’t have any apps in my phone) and stick to your Just4U list religiously (except for visiting their clearance areas).
I’m fairly certain that “corporate grocery stores” make very little $$ off me, if anything.
Participant[quote=zk]If it’s Hillary vs. Trump, I don’t think the democratic turnout will be low. Not because anybody’s super-excited about Hillary, but because they’d be super-excited about making sure Trump didn’t win…. [/quote]I see the predominantly blue precincts in “problem spots” (such as population centers adjacent to the Int’l Border) as turning from blue to purple or red in the coming months. In other words, a portion of registered dems will re-register in states with closed primaries before their respective primary elections take place. It’s not going to affect the dem base much in solid dem locales such as SF and the peninsula (north and south, incl SV and Marin Co) or the front range of CO but it will affect the million + population in precincts along the Rio Grande Valley (likely 1M+ total pop in the “metropolises” of El Paso/Juarez, McAllen/Reynosa and Brownsville/Matamoros who are tired of putting up with flood of poor Mexican immigrants into their communities.
I believe the precincts in the states of NM and AZ are already mostly red, and, in any case, the population along the border in these states is negligible. I predict El Centro/Mexicali will stay mostly blue and South County SD (pop ~400,000 in five cities) will slowly turn purple/red in the coming months). Tijuana has a population of over 3M which is contributing to a lot of residential “spillover” within four miles of the border on the US side.
I don’t know if this phenomenon is enough to “convert” longtime registered dems to Repubs and I haven’t investigated which states have closed primaries, thus causing registered dems/independents to actually have to make the effort to re-register in order to vote for Trump in the primaries. It’s going to be interesting to see how all this pans out.
Of course, it’s a crapshoot what voters will decide in the general election (regardless of their registration).
ParticipantThere is really nothing to be “scared of” as the article intimates. All this huffing and puffing is going to disappear if Trump is ever inaugurated. He’s will mobilize the best people in the country to do all the “dirty work” on his agenda and then immediately take to following around seasoned bureaucrats assigned to him as well as heads of Federal agencies to learn the “lay of the land” and will prove to be a “quick study.” This was (inexperienced) Arnold Schwarzenegger’s MO after he was elected Governor of CA and it worked.
Participant[quote=paramount]A professor of political science at Stony Brook University has forecasted that Donald Trump has a minimum 97 percent chance of winning the general election as the Republican nominee.
“The bottom line is that the primary model, using also the cyclical movement, makes it almost certain that Donald Trump will be the next president,” Norpoth said, “if he’s a nominee of the [Republican] party.”
Norpoth’s primary model works for every presidential election since 1912, with the notable exception of the 1960 election. These results give the model an accuracy of 96.1 percent.[/quote]Well, I just had to look this up cuz I didn’t believe it but it is actually “real” and coming from an academic, no less, lol …
“Trump beats Hillary 54.7 percent to 45.3 percent” in terms of popular vote, Norpoth prophesied. “This is almost too much to believe,” he told audience members described by the student as nervously laughing. But he is convinced his model won’t be wrong.
“Take it to the bank,” Norpoth confidently suggested.
-
AuthorPosts
