You might think I love everything about money as a finance blogger, but I wouldn’t bet the house on it as you’d be wrong :) (Though I do know of a house for sale if you end up losing it!)
Today I thought I’d share some of the areas I hate just to let you know you’re not alone. It doesn’t mean I don’t pay attention to them, but it doesn’t mean I have to be in love with them either.
Let’s start with health insurance. *Vomit*
If there’s one thing I understand the least, it’s health insurance. I don’t know how it’s billed, why we can only use some doctors vs others, what the % of deductibles for emergency room visits are vs co-pays vs all the paperwork you get from both the doctors and the insurance companies, and I damn don’t understand how Obamacare works.
I like how my boy Lance* put it the other day:
I laughed for a quick second until I realized I was “one of his friends.” And then I proceeded to laugh-cry as I signed up for $957 monthly premiums for 2016 (!!!). I’m glad more people are being helped through it, but man does it still sting. That’s a mortgage payment right there! Or a Boat/RV/Benzo payment – combined!
Now thankfully you get something in return for these crazy rates, but what exactly I couldn’t tell you either. I made it my wife’s job to figure it out for our household as I do everything else surrounding our finances. Like the fun stuff :) (Paying bills, saving and investing, tracking net worth – giggity giggity!). All I know is that we now pay $50 more than we did a few months ago, and $500 more than we did two years ago before baby #2 and my wife both came onto my policy. Important stuff to have, but man…
Hate #2: wills / estate planning
While health insurance you can at least see the benefit you’re getting every time you’re sick, with wills you never will until you’re dead ;) Now of course it still means they’re super important, especially if you have wee ones in the mix, but it’s always hard to get excited for something that you pay for but always hope to never use. Not unlike life insurance, which is next on our list.
Life insurance
Easier to understand than the top two items, but still very much a pain in the ass to set up and go over the first time around. Especially when you have all those shady salesmen trying to sell you plans with “investments” in them or that thing they call “whole” life insurance.
Now I’m not versed enough to debate intelligently on this topic, but I do know that I’ve been quite happy with our TERM life insurance, and that most other finance bloggers would agree it’s something to consider. Especially if you’re young. It’s as simple and straight forward as it gets too: you die, your beneficiary gets the amount of the policy. You live – they don’t. And isn’t that what life insurance is supposed to be?
Stock picking / researching
I love making money, but I hate losing at it. And I’ve never been real good at picking the right stocks at the right time and then knowing when to cash out at the exact perfect time too. (Or researching them in general for that matter – I get no excitement out of it at all). So I’ve stopped. If the “experts” who do it for a living can’t even out perform the markets consistently (with emphasis on consistently), why would I expect myself to?
So I thank the heavens above for finally realizing the magic of Vanguard and waking up to the idea of simply matching the market through indexing. It’s not very sexy, but it works. And requires no effort at all on your behalf – a double score!
“Planning for the future”
This one’s going to sound insane because the whole point of managing your money is to give yourself a better future, but truth be told I suck at forecasting ahead like that. I still save and invest like crazy, obviously, but I can barely comprehend what my life will be like within the next month, never the less the next 5 or 10 or – hell – 20 years from now.
So to combat this, I just do my best to stash away as much money as I can, and then make sure to consistently track my net worth each month to keep things in perspective as the years go by. Combine that with running calculators every now and then, and plotting along early retirement spreadsheets, and I can tell fairly quickly whether I’m moving in the right direction or not, haha… I WISH I could see myself in the future, but at least I’m paying attention to my money on a daily basis, eh? If I continue doing that I should be fine in theory!
Taxes
I almost didn’t put this one on here because I cheat and use an accountant, but I still hate seeing the money leave my account every three months ;) I get that taxes are important for the country to run and all so I’m fine paying them, but man – couldn’t there be an easier way?
I’ve also noticed how much I dislike *business* accounting vs *personal* accounting too – is that weird? I feel like my brain can only handle one side at a time, and it always chooses the personal side of finances, haha… And thus, exactly why I use an accountant!
Anyways, those are the biggest areas in finance that annoy me :) You assign me most anything else with money and I’ll sit there devouring it like crazy, but not with those guys, no siree.
Maybe these are the parts normal people think “finance” is all about? The areas we’re forced to pay attention to vs all the hacking and dreaming and molding our perfect lifestyles when we make money our bitch? If so, I don’t blame them for hating this stuff! You gotta get into the fun parts before tackling the boring!
I’ll start thinking up some new slogans for loving personal finance… In the meantime, you share the parts you hate with money now and we’ll officially make it a Day of Complaining ;)
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*If you’re wondering how much Lance is now paying for insurance, the answer is $310.43/mo. So basically one third of what his dear friend is paying, womp womp.
[Facepalming monkey by Duncan Hull]
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I hate taxes too (oh, and I was *this* close to going into corporate accounting because I was good at it). Now, I don’t do any of my taxes at all.
Haha – love it!
Wait, some people actually *like* taxes?
Yeah, I didn’t think so :)
I don’t mind doing my taxes. It’s straight forward, and I typically “get money back”. I put that in quotes, because I usually shell out thousands to our IRAs to get a couple thousand back.
Yep, same boat, don’t mind doing my own taxes….I must not hate it considering I do them a couple times a year to ensure I’m near where I need to be and adjust my withholdings to match :).
Luckily for me, we don’t pay health insurance over here. Of course, that statement is a misnomer, I pay for it through my taxes, but that is transparent to me.
For next, I have decided to keep investing in mutual funds, and start saving as crazy to start investing in ETFs. Unfortunately, we don’t get Vanguard over here which is a pity. Oh well, I’ll try to make due with small mercies :)
Cheers
MrRicket
I’m sure you’ll be fine :)
It seems we pay about the same in health care taxes as you pay for insurance.
Ahhhh. I couldn’t agree with you more. Insurances, taxes, and wills…oh my. I am always impressed with people who are able to pick the right stocks and live off the dividends; unfortunately, I am not one of those people. It’s mutual fund investing all the way for us. Well, that, and rental properties. The part about personal finance that gets me excited is being able to put more and more money into investments each month. And watching it grow, of course.
Rock on!
Mrs. Mad Money Monster
Agreed! It’s addicting to keep pouring it on there!
Taxes! Just when I think I have them figured out, they change the rules. Ouch.
Taxes. We do have an accountant though, as a small business here we are forced to have an accountant. Sure she needs to be paid MONTHLY, oh, the joy.
Saving. It’s pretty tricky with 2 incomes that are not the same month after month. We’re not dealing with the feast/famine issue, but its’ a bit annoying to see ‘bad’ months from time to time.
These would be my top 2 things I hate about finance.
The saving part def. gets tricky with self-employment. I remember realizing that we weren’t saving anything after the first 3 months of becoming a full-time blogger and wondering if it was all worth it? Doing your dream job but breaking even all the time? I decided it was of course, or else we wouldn’t be on this blog, haha, but it’s something to keep in mind when starting out!
Ugh, I really need to get on Obamacare starting next month, and I keep putting off applying because it’s just boring…and probably expensive…
Other than that, I have to say there’s no aspect of my finances that currently annoys me! Probably because I’m still relatively new to caring about this stuff. Talk to me in a year and we’ll see how I feel. :)
Hah! You know, I actually didn’t have a problem with most of these either when I first started paying attention. Something about looking into a new area and checking off the box as “completed” that makes you feel better. Only I wish it ended there and didn’t keep requiring attention EVERY YEAR FORWARD! Haha…. So yes, please do check in in a year and let us know :)
Sarah, just make sure you sign up by 12/15 if you want to be covered starting 1/1!
Oh, really?? Thank you! I didn’t realize there was a specific deadline. I’m in Massachusetts and MassHealth sometimes seems to differ from other versions of Obamacare…but regardless I will definitely look into it. Thank you so much for the advice, Lance.
I hate insurance, it is a total rip off. I studied to be an actuary and my first job out of college was as an actuarial analyst for a Fortune 500 life insurace company. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I hate insurance (even working on it from the inside – actuaries are the guys at the heart of determing rates and stategies to rip off the customers). And one thing that I learned while there was to NEVER BUY WHOLE LIFE INSURANCE!!!!. The reason that the salesmen push whole life so hard is because they make about 20 times more off of a sale from a whole life policy than they do a term policy, because the insurace company makes a ton off of the sap that buys it. They taught us how to structure and calculate whole life policies and it is obserd the amount of money that they make on them.
Fascinating!! (And scary!!)
I love this post. I too get confused – I’m interested in personal finance, so why am I *so bored* by certain topics? My list id’s quite similar to yours.
God am I ever glad that we don’t have a huge monthly insurance bill like that. I don’t even have a monthly premium up here for insurance, and luckily (for now) my extended health care coverage is free through my work.
I really, really, really need to get on making a will with a little one at home now and some extra life insurance would be smart too, just gotta keep it on the DL in case the Mrs. gets any crazy ideas.
As for tracking net worth, thanks to this blog here I have now tracked mine 15 months in a row, except for one month when my computer decided to misplace my updated spreadsheet.
Thanks for all of these posts, keep pumpin’ them out.
Way to go on hitting 15 months – that’s huge! And you feeling more motivated/confident after doing so? It was a game changer for me when I started – and still is, really.
My insurance coverage through my school is way better than my husband’s – and they’re both GREAT compared to many other people. But I’ve heard from our union that that too shall pass. Womp womp.
My current frustration is retirement planning for teachers. Our 403b options are the worst. The fees list is longer than any of their other literature. So maxing out our Roth IRA it is.
Dang, that sucks about the 403b options. If you ever change careers you can xfer out your money into something better! :) Or maybe even schools? (Not sure how it works w/ teachers, but with other jobs you always have the option of rolling it over into the new one or putting elsewhere which is good. Annoying to process, but good!)
Taxes! Shockingly, we don’t hate paying them (that’s our fair share, after all), but I don’t like doing them. Even with TurboTax, which helps a ton. And Obamacare… Not looking forward to that either when we quit in two years. Think we can keep our income low enough to qualify for a super silver plan?? Fingers crossed!
YES! That’s exactly what all the other early retiree rockstars do. They quality for all the subsidies cuz their income is so low ;) I did too earlier in the year, but once business took off so did the discounts! (A problem I don’t mind having, but not any less annoying to have to pay).
I believe we got the silver plan too fwiw.
I hate remembering all my passwords!
Seriously – its healthcare. Right now we have employer sponsored plans, and even figuring whose is best every year gives me the sweats. But when we break free in a couple years we will have to use ACA and that freaks me out mostly because there are so many choices, and it just seems so variable. I mostly worry that healthcare costs will vary drastically year to year, which makes planning very difficult!
I used to hate passwords but now I keep them all in a secured spreadsheet and it’s made my job 1,000x easier :) I also make notes as to where all my credit card info is stored so anytime it gets hacked or we’re issued a new one I already know where to go asap and update it all!
Health insurance is definitely the worst. Instead of paying around $800 per month for a plan with a $13,000 deductible (the cheapest plan available to us), we joined a health care sharing ministry last year. It isn’t ideal in the least but the alternative is basically extortion.
I remember reading that post of yours! I can’t remember why we didn’t look into it, but I was glad y’all found a work around :)
I agree that health insurance is such a headache, and expensive. That system is so broken. Though I try to focus on being grateful for having access to great care, no matter how confusing it is to figure out the payment for it.
“Hate #2: wills / estate planning”
Oh, I hated this, but I’m so excited for it next year.
My company provides a service where we can pay $21 per month (252 for the year) and all your legal services are covered for that year. Everything from traffic tickets to all of your estate planning needs! I’m going to be calling early january and planning everything. Will, living will, maybe a trust, power of attorney for my wife and I. Is there anything else I’m missing? So stoked about this! Just hope I don’t need it (just like my term life insurance).
OMG, YES!! Take advantage of all of that like a mother! That is so awesome, wow… I wonder if you get to keep it all with you too if you decide to opt out later on if you no longer need? Most of this stuff just lies still for a handful of years until you need to update it, so that could be a cool option too! (though there is something nice about knowing you have access to legal stuff 24/7. And at $20/mo it’s well worth the peace of mind.)
Yep! Plan is to cancel it after next year but get all the documents through in that one calendar year. :-D
I’m with you. I have to admit I’ve procrastinated even making a will ever since I learned where my money would go if I die intestate in Texas and decided I’m a-ok with that (probate is relatively cheap and easy here too). Not a great excuse of course but ugh, wills. Now since reading this post I have to feel guilty all day about this financial ball I’ve completely dropped! Maybe it’ll be my afternoon project…
If you can lock it in I will be so damn proud of you :)
Health insurance is the worst. We have an ACA plan, but it’s only affordable compared to what we would have been paying outside of ACA. And estate planning is difficult, with so many personal choices and disagreements (You want WHO to take care of our kid!?!)
I purchased a high deductible health plan from Blue Cross, it has a $10k deductible (ouch!). For a family of 4, it costs me $598 per month which I think is outrageous but it provides a free yearly checkup. We pretty much pay any out-of-pocket expenses. Small visits to the doctor — we just pay for it.
Regarding life insurance, it’s great to have that until you reach FI. But once you reach FI, you can get rid of that because you’ve already set your family up for financial stability once you’re gone.
Wait, really? Is that what a lot of FI people do? Because if so, that makes me want to work for my money even FASTER! Hahahaa… That would be awesome to no longer worry about! (Though I’m sure I’ll be too conservative not to, but you’ve got my mind percolating ;))
Oh the joys of health insurance! I am taking this drive down “Crazy Lane” my self and it has been quite the “education”….Deductibles, out of pocket, POP, POS, HMO. Then you get into subsidies….eligibility…the amount…what plan is available ….HSA compliant….Sheeez.
Two things….IMHO your accountant will be more important than ever with this “healthcare calculus”. And second this will have a lasting consequence on the economy. As you stated your MONTHLY premium is right around $1K which means you need to “gross” right around $1500-1600 a month JUST to cover your health insurance premium not counting deductibles, co-pays and out of pockets. After this is taken care of then you can pay the rent…buy groceries….pay the electric…and fund your retirement….Depressing!!!
Thanks for the reminder! ;)
“Money” your wife is a “saint”…..Just had a meeting to discuss health insurance plans to replace my “grandfathered plan” and I felt like I was at a car dealership. The vagueness of coverage, terms, spending limits, exclusion and inclusions was mind boggling. IMHO the most important terms to understand in coverage “aggregate and separate” under member responsibility. It seems my old plan may actually be better….You could start a blog JUST about this topic!
Looks like you have a homework assignment :)
I’m a nerd and like this stuff :) Also might be why I chose the CPA career path. Health insurance is yuck, but I fortunately get a cheap high deductible plan through my employer. I don’t do any stock picking or related research really. I’ve researched an index fund allocation and just plug all my excess money into that set allocation and let it work for me.
Almost forgot — on the Will & Testament. It’s really important to do that. I recently found out about this tool called the Trigger Box (www.TheTriggerBox.com) and it allows you to create what they call a “Legacy Box”. It allows you to put your will, passwords and other stuff in a secure cloud storage area so that if you pass, your loved ones and beneficiaries can get to it.
Imagine leaving digital photos, passwords to your financial accounts, wills, etc. in one of those boxes. Pretty interesting how it safeguards them for you.
Cool stuff.
Very cool indeed! I’m not sure I like it all in the cloud for the long run, but it probably would be better than a safe unless you forget to tell people the combination :) My parents rent a box at a credit union where all their stuff is and I’m listed as an account holder so that’s another idea too.
Ugh J you hit the nail on the head. There are still a few items on this list that I need to tackle myself…
Health insurance! Talk about a hot button. Here’s what Mr. AR and I are in the process of working through as we speak: my “Gold” plan, through the affordable care act, was $800.23 per month in 2015 for me alone. That 80% coverage (the typical industry standard 80/20 policy) is VERY misleading. Here’s why. Let’s say you develop an earache and go to the doctor. You have a $30 copay on this plan. You think you need to budget $30 for this visit. But wait! The physician is not a GP, he’s a “specialist.” Now that $30 is $50. But there’s more. That’s just the doctor! Unless he treats you in the parking lot, there will be a $30 “facility fee” charged by the clinic for the use of the room. Oh, the swab they used needs to be cultured? $30 for the lab. Antibiotics? The sky’s the limit on that, let’s go with $15 to be conservative. You have now paid $800.23 for one month of coverage, $50 for the ENT Doctor, $30 for the clinic, $30 for the lab and $15 for the meds. That’s one visit, and you’re not even that ill. How do I know? I’ve been dealing with this system since March 1, 2015 when Mr. AR went on Medicare. Am I complaining? NO. I can’t. Without the ACA I would not have been able to retire; I would have had to take my employee’s terrible group plan and work until I was eighteen months from age 65 so I could COBRA out. So believe me when I say although I’m not pleased to pay the premiums I have healthcare coverage and I’m retired! Thank God for it. Costly? You bet. Coverage next year, just for me, goes to $945 per month and copays increase across the board. I’m increasing coverage to 90% ($1088 per month), because I need some procedures in 2016 that will make the higher monthly premiums pencil out to be cheaper in the end. Stratospherically expensive health care costs for one person? Absolutely. The alternative? There isn’t one. So, I’ll drop cable, wash on cold, avoid restaurants, stay home more (a lot more), and we will make it work. Ideal? Hell no. But how fortunate am I that the ACA passed at all? At least I can purchase a policy, get the care I need and protect our assets from catastrophic medical bills, and I didn’t have to get up today and go to work for anyone. For today I’ll call us blessed to have the option.
YES!!! I keep hearing from people like you who are SO HAPPY to have ACA because they’d be screwed without it, so I’m glad you stopped in to share your story too :) True it all comes with a price tag, but one that’s certainly better than the alternative as you’ve just described yourself. I was just talking to a woman yesterday about how she’d be bankrupt without ACA as her two kids have serious diseases and now are able to be covered! So there is a silver lining indeed, though it might take me a while to stop bitching about the costs still haha… Pros and cons like most things in life :)
I’m with you on ALL of those. I really need to get into action on the will/estate planning. But it sounds horrifying! And think how irresponsible that makes me! January… I’ll do it in January. And health insurance? We have awesome employer-sponsored from Mr. T’s work, but I do NOT look forward to navigating those waters.
On the plus side, there are TONS of places online you can go through these days if you don’t want to hire a lawyer to help you with it. I’m not sure how in-depth they all go, but something is better than nothing I’d think?
I hate the thought that this might look like shameless self-promotion for my career field, but as an estate planning attorney, I have seen a lot of these self-created online estate plans (and even some mail order ones), and they’re pretty terrible. We usually see them hit our desks because there’s been some big problem that we need to sort out, because something wasn’t done properly the first time.
If your estate plan is pretty straightforward, then you should be able to find an attorney to prepare a basic plan for between $2,000-3,000. That should include a trust, pour-over wills for you and your spouse, durable powers of attorney, advance health care directives, the whole shebang. I know it’s a lot of money, but believe me, the people who get stuck with poorly drafted off the shelf plans often end up spending far more because they forget to title their house in the name of the trust, or they cobble together paragraphs from different trusts online that conflict, or because the plan they bought from somewhere online is based on out-of-date or out-of-state law.
No worries at all – I’m glad you stopped by! I always wonder how good or not they are, but man – $2,000-$3,000 is just sooooo much. Can’t wrap my head around it even though logically it all makes sense. (And def. worth it if the $hit does hit the fan sooner than later!). Thanks for sharing the real-life insight :)
Those are some annoying parts of finance except the stock picking part, even though theres literally millions of choices, I like that part. 950 a month for healthcare hotdamm. Good luck Bro.
Sign me up for hating health insurance. I mean I love having it, just in case. But wow, dealing with the administrative side.
I’m currently doing battle with United Healthcare over a $60 immunization that’s clearly preventative care and should be 100% covered but that they are denying the claim.
I also have on my “to do” list to help my mother in law apply for the ACA coverage and subsidy. Fun times ahead…
I’m with you on taxes, and I’m a former accountant! I love getting help with this one as well. :)
I hate health insurance. We have no options for health insurance next year (not a single one, I’m not exaggerating), so we had to sign up for Liberty Healthshare. I’m a little nervous but we have no other choice…
haha nice rant! I dislike all that stuff too except for the stock picking since I dont invest in stocks. Although I probably should, I just like the whole real estate thing better.
But anyhow, here is what I hate and Im sure you dont have this problem.
1) Waking up at the same dang time every single day and driving to the same dang building to the same dang thing!
All i want is freedom, is that too much to ask for!!?? :)
Haha… I do have half of that problem (been waking up at 5 am for 90 work days in a row – thanks Benjamin Franklin!) but can’t say I need to report anywhere other than my laptop :) Until you hit financial freedom though you’re never truly “free.” I pretend I am cuz I blog for a living but there’s still $hit to do and money to be made… I’d die to just have fun blogging away my thoughts and not take care of any other sides of the blog/business!
Yep, I sub contract out all of the above!
I’m not a fan of taxes at all. I do need to learn a little bit about them until I am able to hire someone to do them for me.
I liked taxes up until last year. Before that it, I always got large tax refunds because of tuition credits – YAY! Last year, there were none… BOO! I’ve done my taxes for recent years using tax software, but now that I’m done paying student loans, and moving on to the next chapter (saving on taxes through retirement accounts), I may need to hire an accountant soon.
I helped my mom to sign up with Obamacare. It’s very helpful for her, but it’s PITA dealing with them. My mom’s case is a bit unusual and they keep asking for the same supporting document every 3 months.
I hate taxes too. I do my own taxes, but I probably need an accountant next year… It’s getting way too complicated.
Nice of you to help your mom out! I need one of you for here ;) They harassed me for months to provide proof that my two kids weren’t receiving income. I was like “Umm… cuz they can’t even talk?”. I considered uploading pictures of them to prove they were babies but didn’t want to piss anyone off :) So I kindly reminded them of their ages and eventually it was acceptable.
Ah, this is a good reminder that I need to sit down and take care of some of these items. I just got nominated to handle my parent’s estate when that time comes and I realized we haven’t set any of that up for ourselves. New Goal for 2016, get the Will done.
You could knock them both out at the same time! Maybe they will give you a discount too :)
I hate taxes, the paying part. But, I am glad that the company I am working for takes care of it, J Money. That said, I’d like to know how it is taken care of just in case I pay it myself.
My family kept encouraging me to create a will, and I kept procrastinating. Eventually I stumbled across http://willing.com/ which made it really easy and took away all of the hurdles for me. I’m no lawyer, but it seems good enough for my money (free!) to at least have something in place. Hope it helps some of you remove one more thing you hate from your life! :)
Rock on – will check it out :)