Search results

My retirement thread! Five years ago today was my last day w***king. I'm loving it and can't imagine every working a j*b again, unless it's watering plants at a garden store. But I'm plenty busy and have more friends than ever. I'm playing in three concert bands, started my own flute choir...

We lost a friend to complications from Covid two days ago. He was in reasonably good shape until acquiring Covid in November. The lung damage was severe, and he developed pulmonary fibrosis. He was 85 and had repaired congenital heart disease as comorbidities. Before Covid, he was a performing...

We have had a Hydropool swim spa for almost 10 years, and the cover wears out after about 5 years. The cover is vinyl, comes in four pieces, attached by velcro attached to the vinyl cover and to overlapping straps. The cover itself is in good shape, but the thread holding the velcro and the...

I'm looking for suggestions. Three weeks ago I found that yellow jackets had found a hole in the grout of our brick fireplace outside and were nesting under the siding. It's on our deck only 4 feet from our door. Kind of ruining our ability to run out to our pool and grill food as well. An...

I have been using a CPA for taxes for years. In retirement and with a paid off house, we take the standard deduction. I am considering doing my own taxes going forward. I'm experimenting with TaxAct and found the software easy to use, but this is a pretend year. I'm waiting for our CPA to finish...

I have an online Washington Post subscription. There is an opinion piece entitled, "Opinion: The Great Resignation is also the Great Retirement of the baby boomers. That’s a problem." You know the blather. I enjoy reading readers' opinions, which is why I have the subscription. The response...

I get emails all the time from companies with which I do business. I still get emails from "professional head hunters" even though I have tried to unsubscribe. I spend a few dollars per year for an email sorting service (initials SB), which overall works well but I need to go in and separate the...

I know this bill has not yet passed the Senate, but it has some health care provisions that affect the ACA and Medicare, the may affects some folks in the E-R forum. Regarding the ACA, it extends the 8.5% cap on premiums through 2025. Regarding Medicare, it has a provision to cap annual out of...

I posted this morning in the Covid containment area, a thoughtful post that I put about 30 minutes in thinking of an even and useful post on the delta variant. There was a reply to my post that was high praise and was a joy to read. My posting from my phone was interrupted by my sister sharing...

We have an in-ground fiberglass pool and the chlorinator is starting to fail. For the remainder of this season, We're using a floating chlorinator and it is working fine. But reading other pool threads here, we're considering changing to a salt chlorinator, especially given the rise in price of...

We booked a trip to the Pacific Northwest for September, as my niece is getting married not far from Seattle. The wedding date was set back in 2019. We have friends and family to see in Oregon and California as well, and property in California to check up on. DH and I need to come back at...

I, DH, and DS are really frustrated. DS is trained as a music educator with a masters degree. He has been trying to get a full time job for nearly five years. Jobs are a bit few and far between in his field, but this time of year there are many music education jobs and he has only landed a...

Lately, I've been getting a lot of spam supposedly from Norton360. For some reason, some of the emails do not get redirected to my spam folder. I also have software to block them, and have been doing that, but this one got through. Warning! Your Notron.com License Expires Today! Then farther...

What would you do? I play in a community band that started up in person rehearsals 4 weeks ago. Before the pandemic, one of the players in my section was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia. It was obvious that her playing was slowly going downhill for a couple of years before her diagnosis...

Here in the mid-Atlantic we had a mild winter and snow cover-a happy situation for voles. I re-seeded the lawn in the damaged areas, and spring has taken care of most of the damage. This year a colony set up housekeeping under our deck steps. I normally don't do much about voles, but these were...

Our gas powered lawnmower is dying a slow, painful death and is barely useable. Granted, we did not get it sharpened this year, as we were thinking of replacing it. And we went from brown lawn to insanely thick green lawn in the past 2 weeks. We're looking at purchasing either an EGO mower with...

I have found some resilience in this pandemic experience. I decided to grow my hair long earlier than planned. I learned how to color my hair at home. I learned how to successfully cut mens' hair. I studied Italian for awhile. I'm trying to learn to play oboe. My house is cleaner and much more...

It's eagle cam season. Here is one showing an eagle's nest while it is still snowing. https://hdontap.com/index.php/video/stream/pa-farm-country-bald-eagle-live-cam

I am surprised at the emotions our family experienced when our son went to employee health and received his first dose. He works part time as a medical scribe and 80% of his job and 60% of his time is computer only. So he has been working from home for the past 3 weeks, with a substantial cut in...

Since late yesterday, I have received 10 emails from different email addresses saying my loan was approved and I just need to click to get my money. I recently changed a bunch of my passwords and have been adding two-factor authentication wherever I can. It is clear that most, if not all, are...

This is an informational message for those on the ACA in Pennsylvania. I think I uncovered a problem that is not the exchange's fault, but the fault of Highmark insurance company. The list of in-network doctors and hospitals they provided to Pennie.com is incorrect. If you are looking at a...

I am applying for the ACA for the first time in which I expect to have a subsidy, and I have a question about investment income. Our brokerage account is held jointly. Do I report the expected income for just one of us, or do I divide it in two and report half each? Does it matter? I'm...

My COBRA ends 11/30/20. Our state (PA) is launching it's own ACA portal in November, to start coverage on 1/1/21. I am thinking of a short term health insurance plan to bridge that one month gap. The cost difference is at least $1300 for the cheapest bronze plan. We have no need to use the...

Question: For those who use the state exchange in their state, is the income cutoff for a subsidy cutoff different than the federal cutoff? The federal cutoff in the lower 48 states is currently $67640. Pennsylvania is launching its own state exchange on January 1st, with open enrollment...

I just got a summons for jury duty for early October. I have a few KN95 masks and will wear one for the duration. The county website goes into detail regarding mitigation, but I'm concerned about sitting in a room for an entire day with strangers even with social distancing. Our area has not...