USAA sucks

10/18/07 I’m having trouble sleeping this morning. It’s just about 3am. All of this financial and job stuff has my head spinning. I’m also pretty ticked off at USAA. I’ve been a customer for over 20 years and I can’t believe the way they are treating me. I’m going to look into other car insurance, maybe through AARP (The Hartford) or Geico. I’m sure the rate won’t be as good as USAA but at least I’d be able to make changes to my policy. I don’t like having liability only on my jeep. I want full coverage. It’s worth the extra expense to get the full coverage. I have to make sure I have all of my ducks in a row for Friday’s financial meeting. I’ve put together a time line of events from June of 2005 when the kids moved in with us through now. I guess I just need to be able to keep things straight in my head.

It’ll be a month before my appointment with the Voc Rehab people and I’m not even sure they can do anything for me. I’ve got to look for a job in the mean time. I should get my franny over to Target tomorrow and sit at the little kiosk and put in an application. Only problem is, I don’t have a full resume. It’s on a disk somewhere but I don’t have the ability to look at disks with the laptop. I’ll have to check with Kitty and Lisa and see if they can help me out. I also want to check with Lisa and Kitty to see if either of them has a set of headphones I can have to use with my CD and tape players. I did find my radio headset and it’s working. Even after all these years it’s still working. Amazing! I’m not sure how to change the batteries in it so I’m glad it is working. I guess I could look at Goodwill too for a set of headphones. I can’t believe I dropped my headphones and they got run over. Crushed!

I’m going to look into the HSA and see if it’s something that could benefit us. The dollars are put in pre-tax which lowers the gross income. I’m just not sure what happens to the money if it’s not used during that year. I’ll have to check into that scenario. If I had internet service I could look it up online right now, but since I don’t have the internet at home right now, I’ll have to wait until I go to the library.

I can’t believe, sometimes, the situation that we are in. So much has happened over the last two plus years. Knowing that we wiped out David’s retirement still make me feel sick to my stomach. I’m glad he has his other retirement account. It’s not much, but it’s something. I need to start a Roth IRA this coming year. I’ll have to check into that too.

When I met with Julie yesterday she told me that I have the option to drop my Medicare coverage and ‘give myself’ about a $100 raise each month. I don’t know if it’s worth $1200 to do that though. If I have to get another injection in my back, it could well be worth having both insurance coverage’s. I think I go to the doctor too much to not have my Medicare coverage. I think it just would be part B that I’d drop and still continue to have part A (hospitalization), but I’m less worried about being hospitalized than I am about going to the doctor’s office as frequently as I have to go.

Another concern on my mind is my next review with Social Security for my disability benefits. It would be horrible to lose my benefits. I had to fight so hard to get them. I can’t afford to go to see Dr. Marten any more and I’m not sure how that will affect me at review time. I can’t afford my prescriptions right now either. I’m having to wait a couple of weeks before I can order my three month supply of ALL of my prescriptions at one time. Yikes! That’s going to cost a bunch of money, probably about $250! I’ve got to have my medicine though, especially my psych stuff. I’ll get really depressed if I don’t take my medicine as prescribed. I’m out of one of the meds right now but I’m doing okay without it. I can tell I need it, but I just can’t afford it this week.

I’m going to try to get ahead paying bills. Instead of paying this month’s bills with this month’s money, I’m going to try to pay next month’s bills with this month’s money. I’m not sure how long it will take me to get ahead though. Not even sure it’s possible. I guess the first thing I really need to work on is the BEF. We really need to have that in place in case Murphy decides to visit. I printed out the October and November budgets. That way we can have our budget on paper, on purpose, where every dollar has a name. It’ll take 3 – 6 months to get the budget set. I’m still trying to figure out how much we spend each month and on what. There are many things coming up that I haven’t budgeted for and it’s been throwing me off. I know I have to make sure that USAA gets paid on time. I know they will cancel us or raise our rates if we are late even by a minute.

It’s 3:30am now. I wish I could go back to bed, but my mind is still racing. I wish I could take care of some of these things right now, but without the internet, I can’t do much of anything. It’s so weird to not have instant access to information online. Of course, USAA won’t let me do anything online any more. I have to get papers in the mail (bills and policy info) and pay them through web bill pay. I’d like to just pay off the balance for the auto coverage. I think I’ll look into doing that as soon as I am able to. Then I won’t have to worry about the payment being late.

I think I’m going to try to go back to bed. I’m yawning a lot, so maybe I can get back to sleep. I can’t wait until I get my sleep medicine again. Being out of that too has been difficult. I don’t sleep near as well without it. Okay, off to la-la land I go.