*LC
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Posts posted by *LC
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The opportunity to play high school sports as a homeschooler became an option for one of mine who was already in high school. After talking it over, we "reclassified" the student so they would have 3 years to play. (This kid had never played in a school setting and have not attended a public or private school, so this worked for us.)
This team opened up tons of friendships and opportunity for my student. This happened right before COVID, and this meant my kid didn't graduate in 2020, which turned out to be an unexpected bonus.
Someone mentioned friends graduating and leaving kid behind. My kid stayed close to the "older" players and hung out with them even after they graduated and was allowed to do activities with a group at a nearby college that the friends attended.
All kids are different but super senior year was great for one of this kid.
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I knew that it would be too easy of a solution.
Another possibility for working within changing availability would be something with convention/conference centers. Does indeed have a PT option?
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I love surprise birthday and Christmas gifts, which isn't my family strong suit. I don't think I would appreciate someone making decorating decisions for my home without my input.
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I'm sorry that things are still so stressful and tight.
Not sure when you will have kids, but this festival is hiring a variety of temporary workers. If it is doesn't conflict with visitation, it may be a way to pick up some extra money.
You may have addressed this in a different post, but is your job eligible for over time or just extra hours? If so, make sure the schedule makers know you are open to more work. (I know a salaried worker who supplements his income by being available for weekend projects that his company has to take on from time to time for scheduling reasons. I don't know if your job would have something similar when they have folks leave or host special events.
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I'm sorry.
Can they still do your federal taxes? If they can't or won't, AARP also has virtual tax preparation service.
https://taxaide.aarpfoundation.org/
If I remember correctly you moved late in the year, how many times did you get paid in new state? You may want to use the virtual AARP service to prepare your taxes for your old state and your federal taxes. Then you could have the local AARP do taxes for your new state.
Good luck
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On 2/22/2024 at 2:30 PM, Clarita said:
The bride and groom need to initiate these conversations, Well bride and groom talk to each other about their visions for the wedding then, they go to their respective parents and talk to them about cost and vision. There is such a blending of cultures in many places a lot of people are just sitting around waiting for direction so they don't offend anyone.
I had one that did this about their vision. I listened and accepted what was said. However, the plan is outside our cultural norm and it could easily be adapted. I wanted to make sure the existing plan wasn't being made for "wrong" reasons, so I sent a text to clear up possible assumptions. I fully understand the reasons for the plan, but I wanted to make sure I addressed things I know will be asked by others if current plan/ or something similar stands as it will definitely disappoint some/many/most family members.
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I'm sorry to hear about the high hold your credit card is placing. I've never noticed a hold that high when I buy gas on a CC. Since your new CC isn't working well, I wonder if opening with 0 percent interest balance transfers might work better for you. Of course, you would need to check fees to make sure it would be less in long run than the interest you would pay on your original card while paying off the card.
Also, you had mentioned applying to be a substitute teacher, and that gave me a different idea for a part -time gig job. This is one I found in your area, but there may be other companies that do the same thing.
I know the money issues are hard, but I want to remind you are making progress in so many areas.
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3 hours ago, *LC said:
We have Samaritan, and I simply have my Bible study leader sign the form each year, and I've never been questioned. (I've never heard of our church having anything called good standing.)
I apologize, because my post was not clear. My Bible study leader is not on staff at our church; she is simply a member who agreed to lead a class when asked many years ago. Our annual Samaritan form has never been questioned even when I changed who signed my form from from my minister friend who moved to a different state to the leader of my Bible study.
To the OP: I completely agree that health shares are not for everyone. However, if you are interested, please talk to people you know that are health share members just like one would speak to homeschoolers when deciding whether or not to homeschool.
We have been self-pay for insurance for more than 25 years, and we have had many health episodes. Sometimes health insurance worked great and sometimes it failed miserably. There are plenty of people with traditional health insurance, who still end up in debt or bankrupt.
We started with a health-share plan, when marketplace started and our traditional sources of self-pay insurance went away. None of the plans available at that time had a high-family deductible and affordable premiums like we had prior to marketplace.
We also had been burned by recent changes to our self-pay high-deductible plan around the same time. A bunch of my kids had vaccines, including flu and some other ones, at their well visit that year. (They weren't babies, so I scheduled all well checks at same time.) Our plan had changed and no longer covered vaccines. We ended up paying thousands of dollars for shots that had previously been covered.
That same year or the next, my oldest had some health issues that required a visit to a specialist and testing. She was referred to a hematologist associated with a local children's hospital for a consultation and testing. Our insurance plan at that time had $20 doctor visits. (I can't remember the details of what the testing, but it was a good plan and we had hit our high deductible.) Turns out this doctor had recently moved his office into hospital from the clinic across the street where my kids had seen a variety of doctors over the years with normal coverage. Unfortunately, the insurance treated the doctor visit as a hospital stay instead of 20-30 minutes doctors visit, and the visit was subject to our-high hospital deductible. It also meant all the testing was not covered.
That is why we changed to a health share. Luckily, we are healthy and have not had to use it often. We just self pay for most things and a lot of doctors/hospitals give a generous self-pay discount. Samaritan does require you ask for a self-pay discount, which at first made me uncomfortable. I've found most places offer their self-pay price as soon as I say we don't have insurance.
Like I mentioned earlier, we had self-pay high deductible insurance for many years that covered tons of expensive procedures and hospital stays for us. I never thought I would be comfortable without insurance. However, things changed. I do know Samaritan will reach out to a member if their share wasn't received by the person with the need, because they reached out to us when someone didn't mark that they received our share.
They also assign/ publish special needs for people with health needs that aren't covered, such as dental expenses or care for pre-existing conditions. There are at different levels of coverage, and if someone with the lower level has medical needs exceeding the amount the lower level covers, maybe 250,000, Samaritan will assign/publish the extra as as a special need.
Before I sound too much like a commercial, I will say our share went up this year, and I looked on marketplace to see what plans were available and what they would cost. Unfortunately, due to weird tax stuff last year marketplace thinks we are eligible for government paid insurance and wouldn't show me any plans. Instead, they forwarded our information to our state for them to provide state insurance, but we haven't heard anything.
One last thing, kids can stay on Samaritan until 25/26. They send a letter when they turn 22, I think, but you just have to say they want to stay on and meet eligibility. They are covered under the signing the parent receives from their church. It doesn't matter if they don't live at home. One of my kids was injured playing baseball at an out-of-state college, and his bills were covered by Samaritan members.
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6 minutes ago, Ditto said:
I'm relieved you are doing better and are home. Do you have some help for at least a few days? Will you be able to be off work for a while to recover? T
I ditto everything Ditto said. I hope you are feeling better super soon.
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1 hour ago, Halftime Hope said:
Back to Samaritan: their requirement is that you be a church member in good standing. That doesn't mean that you have to "have your butt in the pew every week" 🙂 just that the people on staff know you, and you have a relationship as a member of the church. If you're not a church member type, this would not be for you.
We have Samaritan, and I simply have my Bible study leader sign the form each year, and I've never been questioned. (I've never heard of our church having anything called good standing.)
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You are in an incredibly hard situation, and there may not be time right now to build close friendships.
However, I have some thoughts on creating friendships. (I saw the adult friendship thread, but I wanted to address this specifically to you.)
In your posts, it is obvious you are a wonderful cook, so all my suggestions are related to that interest and gift. It also seems you live in a big city, so some are based on that assumption.
Does your church have a time on Sunday or a different time in week when folks can eat together at church? If so, if this fits into your schedule this may be an easy to be around other people on a regular basis in a setting that leads to conversation. (I have been in churches where this would work and others where it was a frustrating failure.)
I know folks who have been part of a group at church that got together to make meals to freeze, so the church could give them to folks with a new baby, an illness, etc. The ladies I know who did this definitely considered it a bonding experience.
I'm on the mailing list of someone who has started a monthly dinner group. The host picks a place they want to try, makes a reservation for x people, and sends an email to all their contacts with the details and tells them to how to RSVP. Some dates/places fill up fast and others do not. Everyone orders their own food /pays for their own, but from what I understand, people like the opportunity to try new places without having to make a decision of what new place to try.
Take a cooking class. There are many places to take a class. I know finding time is hard, but you may be able to find a one-time class that fits Do you live near a Williams Sonoma? They have in-store cooking classes, some are free. To increase odds of building a friendship, you could invite someone to go with you. If you don't have a person in mind, you could text a group you are in or post on social media, "hey, does anyone want to learn how to make xyz. I'm going to sign up for this class, if you are interested, let me know and we could carpool."
You are such a great cook that you could even host your own cooking class. Think of the food that people are always ask how do you make it? Invite folks to come learn how. This invite could be a group text, online or just to those who have expressed an interest.
Years ago, a friend found there were super cheap group tickets to something she wanted to do with her kids. She made some calls and quickly had enough people to qualify for the group rate. In the days of email and texting and social media, and electronic tickets, putting together a group to attend whatever ever you would like to attend would be easy.
On a different note, about making friends after/during trauma. Is there a teen grief group or camp in your area? This could be a place for your kids and you to find support and maybe even friends.
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3 minutes ago, *LC said:
If she married or married after age 60, she will/would be eligible for ex-husbands social security benefits.
No, she was about 40 when she married him.
....,.
Sorry, my post wasn't clear. If she marries someone else after she is 60, she will not lose social security benefits through her ex-husband's social security. You can see that information on the website I posted. I have a good friend who remarried later in life, who was extremely concerned about this when she fell in love with a wonderful man.
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This is the SS website with the details. https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/survivors/survivorchartred.html
However, even it says: "If a person receives widow's or widower's benefits, and will qualify for a retirement benefit that's more than their survivors benefit, they can switch to their own retirement benefit as early as age 62 or as late as age 70. The rules are complicated and vary depending on the situation. Talk to a Social Security representative about the options available."
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If she married or marries after age 60, she will/would be eligible for ex-husbands social security benefits.
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This is from social security.gov benefits website.
If your ex-spouse is deceased, you can
receive benefits
If you’re divorced, you can receive benefits based on your deceased ex-spouse’s work if:• At age 60, or age 50 if you have a disability, if your marriage lasted at least 10 years, and you aren’t entitled to a higher benefit on your own record
She can call and ask SS if she needs his SS number if she has marriage and divorce records.
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If you can enroll now for rest of the 23-24 school year, I think this is great time to see if it will work long-term. Even if you decide it isnt a good fit long-term, enrolling him for this term will get you through this busy season at work.
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I understand. I thought you were meaning he was looking to start getting on coaches radar right now, and for immediate push for a strong student & athlete needing aid, I would suggest starting with those highly rejective schools that meet financial need.
However, since we are talking about August. I would suggest your son go through the list of D3 soccer schools and prioritize which coaches he wants to reach out to first.
In theory, below is a list of all D3 men's soccer teams. The school website is listed at the top of each entry, so he could simply click it to see if the school has engineering. If it does, then he can put on list to reach out to coach or to research about financial assistance and/or scholarships, whatever makes sense for him to help rank/rule out schools.
https://www.ncsasports.org/mens-soccer/division-3-colleges
Good luck..
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For some reason the original topic has been running through my mind, and I want to address this from a different angle, based on years of watching my kid's friends talk about playing college sports.
If this son thinks he wants to play sports in college, it is not too early to reach out. Nothing he does/says will commit him until he actually signs paperwork senior year.
If you think a highly rejective engineering college would be a good fit for him academically/financially/geographically, those are the schools he should reach out to now, because sports can be his acceptance hook.
If I remember correctly, this kid is academically advanced and will have great scores, that is helpful for these coaches when building their teams.
In hearing recruiting stories over the years, I understand that schools like great test scores to help overall team scores. Someone in my circle, who had a superscored 27 ACT, is currently playing a sport at an Ivy. Years ago, a sports acquaintance was told by an equally rejective school that a similar score is what he needed for acceptance there as a recruited athlete.
So, if your son wants to start the recruitment process, I would suggest letting him reach out to engineering schools that interest him that are known to meet financial need and not worry about acceptance rates at this point.
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In my experience with a. Venture card, you simply book the flight with the airline. After the bill is posted to the credit card, you click on use points (or something like that) and see what expenses are eligible for reimbursement. Your plane tickets will be listed there.
You would then click on your flight costs to have them covered by your CO points.
We went on a trip recently, and I followed the above process to pay for our VRBO and our flights on a budget airline. When I originally opened the card years ago, I used the welcome bonus points to pay for Disney tickets. ( I remember there was a bit of a concern on how tickets would be coded by seller for that to work.)
On our recent trip, anything charged by the airline showed up as available to be covered by points.
I have booked hotels through venture site, but I've never noticed if you can book flights.
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A friend's kid played a sport at a D3 school with an automatic transfer to their state engineering school. However, when it came to transfer he was put into a lesser-known in-state engineering school than had been talked about during recruiting. I understand a 3-2 program isn't the plan, but just wanted to share a cautionary tale.
I searched D3 soccer. Below is a list of the top 10 D3 soccer programs from the first non-sponsored result. It says "To help student-athletes and their families identify which of the 410 NCAA D3 schools with men’s soccer programs are the right fit for them, NCSA has created our own Power Rankings. NCSA analyzes and ranks D3 schools that offers men’s college soccer based on factors that are most important to student-athletes, such as cost, size, location and academics. Below is a list of the top 10 D3 schools with men’s soccer programs.
With 410 D3 soccer programs, I don't think your ds will have problem finding a D3 school offering engineering majors.
This is the top 10 on the list.
Amherst College
Johns Hopkins University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Emory University
Franklin & Marshall College
University of Chicago
Tufts University
Carnegie Mellon University
University of California – Santa Cruz
California Institute of Technology -
2 hours ago, Heartstrings said:
Does it download transactions from the bank or do you have to enter them all?
I enter my transactions, but it is super easy and remembers places you have paid previously.
It looks like you need the non-free one to link to bank accounts.
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I didn't read everything, so I may be too late.
I use the free version of Every Dollar from Dave Ramsey website.
Since I simply want to keep track of spending in categories, I simply set all my budgets to $0. Everything is red, but it it tells me exactly what I spent in all my categories by month and year.
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18 hours ago, heartlikealion said:
I get the kids tonight so last night I went to a laundromat. I liked the laundromat better than the other location but they required a laundry card and min loading fee was $20 🙄 I washed the sheets and tried to put up the twin I inside the trundle. It would not close!! The mattress is too thick. So plan B - I ordered some furniture risers. They are wooden (I’ve had plastic before and after time they can’t handle the weight). That should solve that issue. I got short ones. I don’t want the couch way up high. It’s already tall.
I’m going to see that the repairman says before looking for a new set.
the door literally will not stay closed unless the lock is engaged and it is very difficult for the lock engage. I lean my full weight on it and it still won’t lock so I don’t think a prop will help much.
I'm going to be somewhere with a stacking washer/dryer set with bored teens this week. We'll look at the locking mechanism.
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2 hours ago, heartlikealion said:
Just got a text from xh with his new address. I asked dd when they moved and she said, “you know about that?” I know he is always making them keep secrets 🙄 They are still in the process of moving in and he’s now a homeowner I guess. It’s not far from the previous home. Just funny to me I get a “here’s our new address text” every Dec now.
My heart stopped when I read the first sentence.
I was worried that he had moved them far away again with no notice.
I'm sorry to hear about your son's decision not to visit. You're doing great. When my kids have made decisions to skip things that are important to me, I try to quickly text them that I'll miss them when/while everyone else does whatever with a reminder that I love them. Sometimes, I'll send them pics of the activity/event they skipped.
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We need prayers right now (update in OP)
in The Chat Board
Posted
Praying