Patrick

Sorry to hear that. No, never been through it.

Welcome aboard.

Hello, This topic should steer clear of general political issues (such as the state of the public school system, good or bad, and related effects and causes). Thank you.

I'm not really a new years resolution type of guy. I do want to get my drivers license, perhaps start going to some industry conferences and events and step it up to a new level professionally.

Are you on last.fm? It's a pretty neat site. My profile is at http://www.last.fm/user/iFroggy

I'll drink most sodas. I really like a lot of sodas. Most of the time, we drink the Wal-Mart brand soda (Sam's Choice). It tastes good to me/us and you can get 2 2 liters for the price of 1 of a Coca-Cola brand. I don't buy the soda, but it's kind of a no brainer I imagine if you want to save money and like the taste. You can drink twice the soda for the same price.

Thanks, I appreciate that. It's the proper spelling, punctuation, grammar, etc. It fools people.

Yeah, I agree (with it never being too early). I've been watching the stock market since I was 10 and have had stock since I was 11. So, although I'm only 22, I've been following the market for 12 years.

How many martial arts have you taken (by your own definition)? Vote in the poll.

No problem. Yeah, I don't know much about CDs, never had one. I've had a bank account since I was probably 7, 8ish I think. I'm not sure what my age was, but my parents have this picture of me going to open a bank account. I'm holding up a zip loc bag (with my apparent life savings in it... it was probably like $30-$50), smiling.

I'll drink either as I imagine most people would, but I prefer Coke. My great grandfather (who I died before I was born) worked at Coca-Cola for 30 years. My great grandmother (his wife, who I did meet and know a little) worked at Pepsi for 10 years. But, they always drank Coke.

Welcome.

I used to play RuneScape a bit.

Well, it depends on how you define luck, I guess. I suppose there is some. But, you do your research and hopefully that eliminates the need for it.

For those that trade stocks, etc. online, what broker do you use? I use TD Ameritrade. I've been with them for a while, probably nearly or more than 3 years, not 100%.

We'll be at home. My grandmother is flying in, though. It's only been like 5 or 6 months since I last saw her, though.

Yeah, I mean, if you just have money sitting in your bank account that you aren't looking to invest/risk losing and you have enough to reach the minimums, there is no reason not to keep it in a higher interest bank account until you need to use it. Like I said, there are minimums, so you have to maintain those minimums or face some sort of penalty (you could always check to see if you could cancel the account if that happens, before you open it), so you'll want to make sure that you can maintain them. The interest on mine is 4.64% which I think is pretty good. Basically, what it amounts to is if you have $10-12,000 in there (as an example), you are going to generate $40-50 a month in interest. Over a year, you are looking at an extra $500 to $600. So, that's a nice bit of extra cash with no risk. The amount of money generated changes with how much money you have in there and/or how the interest rate changes. Money markets/high interest bank accounts are just like any other bank account. The main limitation, I believe, is that you can only write 3 checks/withdrawals to third parties in a month (or 6 total withdrawals period, including ones to yourself), so that's why you can't just have one high interest account. That's why you need the checking account since you probably have to pay more than 3 bills in a month. Anyway, hope I'm not just repeating things you already know.

Welcome.

What are your favorite sports teams? Mine are the New York Yankees (MLB) and Miami Dolphins (NFL).

Just a general note: it's important that this thread focus on health insurance, how to get it, how it factored into your decision to get into MA, etc. There should not be any talk of the general political circumstances that affect these matters. Anyway, like others have said, it's just a good thing to have. You won't need it ... until you need it and then you'll be kicking yourself. It may cost you, but you just don't want to be caught without it, if at all possible. In my case, I was taken off of my Dad's insurance because he moved to a new company and I didn't qualify for their policy because of my age, income, etc. That was 3 years ago. I went for a while without it and then I checked out the largest health insurance quote websites. I typed my info into 2 or 3 of them and got a couple calls. I went with the one I liked best. There was like a yearly fee of $100 and a monthly fee of $225, just for myself. Health, no dental, etc. I think that's probably expensive, but I have heard that insurance in MA was expensive. I did that for about a year and a half or so. At which point, we moved from MA (4 or 5 months ago - Dad got another job) and so I cancelled that insurance and I am back on my Dad's insurance with the new company because I qualify on the their plan, however that works. I'll stay on that as long as I can or until I move out (which will happen in the next year and a half), whatever is longer.

hehe. Yeah, the main thing for me is maximizing my money. It's easy to keep all of my money in the high interest account and keep only the money needed to pay a bill in the checking account. You don't need to use online banking to do that, but it is so much easier. And it amounts to more money. Laurie, have you taken a look at Amazon.com Grocery? http://www.amazon.com/grocery-breakfast-foods-snacks-organic/b/ref=gw_br_gro/104-7123092-2443105?%5Fencoding=UTF8&node=16310101 I haven't done sat down and done the research, but Amazon.com's prices are generally very good on most everything (either the cheapest or very competitive), so I don't see why they wouldn't be on groceries. Granted, there are some items you can't buy and some items you must buy in bulk from them, but it may be worth a look. Free shipping if you spend over $25 (or if you have Amazon Prime, which costs $79 a year, it's free 2 day shipping no matter how much you spend). Might be worth a look if you're serious.

It also has it's own pickle jar (if you watched In Living Color).

When you listen to music on your computer, what softwar do you use? I use Winamp.

I'm gonna be like that. Or I should say... I'm like that now. It's a good thing.