DON'T READ THIS; IT'S BORING!

Saturday, March 9, 2024

It Has Begun!

If you know, you know.......

Sluggy

Friday, March 8, 2024

Frugal Friday....the March 8th Edition

There are very few Frugal wins(more like a week of medical frustrations)this past week but here goes....

* I tried to use the Dental Discount Plan that came with my United Healthcare Supplement this week to schedule a dental checkup and cleaning. After an inordinate number of phone calls over the coarse of this week and texts to United Healthcare and various Dentists here who "supposedly" accept this discount , I gave up. They basically lied, there is no Discount Plan in this area because there are no Dentists who accept it. So frustrated! Why offer this "perk" if you buy this Supplement but you can't use it United Healthcare??? United Healthcare will be hearing from me and possibly won't get my money next calendar year for a Medicare Supplement.

Anybody out there know of a good dental insurance plan for us old foggies 65 or more? Please send me a message. Thanks!

* I had a follow up with Pain Management. One week out and the Ablation is not helping much yet. The PA there had written me an Rx in January for a muscle relaxer while I waited on having the Ablation done. I got a Denial letter from my Part D saying I get one "courtesy" fill but they will not cover this medicine going forward as it's not in my formulary.(I double checked before signing up for a Part D plan that ALL my normal meds are in the formulary but how are we to know what random Rx some doctor will prescribe and whether it's on your formulary? You can't unless you bring a computer to your appointment and look that drug up before he/she sends that script and you can advise said doc on this and they can try another drug.) So frustrating!

So I let the PA know I have to refill this Rx totally OOP next time and she says the office can contact my supplement provider and ask for an exemption. Fine. So I go to Walmart to pick up the Steroid pack the Ortho put me on and the pharmacy tech hands me TWO prescriptions and there is no charge. ??? I see one is the Pain Management Rx(insurance said they wouldn't fill again), but filled in tablet form(not the capsules the PA wrote for this drug last time). I am reading the paperwork you get with your drugs and it says, "Do not change from the capsule form to the tablet form and vice versa. ??? So I call the Pain Management office to advise them of all this. A nurse calls back and tells me don't worry about switching from capsules to tablets and that Medicare supplement insurance plans never cover the capsule form but they do cover the tablet form of this drug. Sooooooo, WHY on earth did the PA write the script for capsules in the first place? They KNOW how old I am and I'm on Medicare! Just another cluster you-know-what. I've got to laugh because crying does no good.....

* I also saw the Orthopedist about my shoulders again. He wants to see MRIs of my shoulders before he injects anything else into me because x-rays don't show you the whole story internally. I might be more a candidate for PT(or if it's really bad, a candidate for surgery bleh)but he can't know until he looks at MRIs.....and he believes there is more going on in there besides Bursitis. So we are waiting on approval from Medicare for MRIs while I spend this week on Steroids(which aren't helping my shoulders so far but I'll continue the med and hope for the best).

* I also had a week of trying to get 2 regular prescriptions filled that I am on. Our HSA debit card wouldn't go through for my ultra-expensive specialty drug. At first we thought it was because we got new debit cards and they changed the security code on them unbeknownst to us. So I had to delete the old card on my rx plan account and then add the new debit card with the correct security code. But the payment still wouldn't go through so we had to go back to the bank that handles the HSA account and it turns out there is a $2,500.00 limit on any one drug charge. So we had to go back to the bank and have our limit raised so I could fill this $2,612.08 prescription.

Then I couldn't get another less expensive non-specialty drug filled at Walmart. I texted on March 3rd to refill. Walmart replied it's out of stock and will be 1-2 days to get it back in stock and they will contact me. Walmart never texted me back so I had to go in person to the pharmacy counter and ask again at the end of the week. and Walmart pharmacy I use tells me it's back ordered and no Walmart or Sam's Club pharmacy(which are in my Part D network)can get it in my area. Fan-so-tastic!

I ended up having to go to my approved mail order pharmacy to finally get this drug.....after contacting the PCP AGAIN(had to contact him before about a pre-authorization)that he had to write a new prescription so mail order could fill it. Hopefully it arrives before I run out. I really don't like to cut it this close.

* I've already blogged about what groceries/toiletries I picked up last weekend. I did get picked for a Dove campaign and picked up these new products on Wednesday........

It's through a company called "The Insiders" I joined(don't need a code to sign up). I do have to review the items, etc. but I will received $34.00 in a rebate for purchasing these. The items cost me $19.94 OOP making it a $14 moneymaker.

* We picked up some produce(and a couple of steaks for $3.47 lb,)at a grocery store while over in Texas after having BBQ there for lunch, All fresh produce, best prices and it actually looked good too-broccoli, green beans, yellow squash, sweet potatoes and a cuke. We also bought Hubs a pack of English Muffins they had reduced to .47¢, and the bill totaled $14.00.

AND to top it all off there was NO sales tax on food in Texas and since it was Thursday I got a 5% Senior discount at this grocery store. That seems to about the only perk of being old lately. lolz

* I found money!

At Walmart last Friday there was .17¢ in the coin return of the checkout machine I was using. Then I found another penny on the floor nearby.

Last Weekend I was going through stacks of old papers and found this Birthday card my youngest made for me years ago. It was written in cursive so he was about in 5th or 6th grade(not that they even teach cursive writing in schools nowadays but they did back in the early 2000's).

Inside the card, on the page opposite where he wrote a message, was a dime taped to the card. I am counting this as "found money". ;-)

Another 2 pennies found as I strolled out of Walmart on Tuesday evening after picking up an Rx.

I ran into the crappy Kroger on Tuesday while we were out seeing the Painful doctor and found another 2 pennies in there by a register.

Stopped for gas at the Walmart on the way home and found a penny by the pump.

That grocery store we stopped at in Texas? I found this penny in the foyer while leaving the store.

Total Found in last Week.... .34¢

Grand Total Found this Year.......$1.89

That's all I got.

Any frugal wins in your neck of the woods? Let's hear all about them!

Sluggy

Thursday, March 7, 2024

The Great Road Trip of 2017......Part Twenty Eight/Day Twenty

Part One of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE

Part Two of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Three of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Four of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Five of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Six of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Seven of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Eight of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Nine of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Ten of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Eleven of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Twelve of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Thirteen of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Fourteen of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Fifteen of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Sixteen of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Seventeen of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Eighteen of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Nineteen of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Twenty of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Twenty One of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Twenty Two of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Twenty Three of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Twenty Four of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Twenty Five of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Twenty Six of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Twenty Seven of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE

So spent the night in Pierre SD.

A yummy breakfast there-oatmeal, yogurt and bacon.

Sluggy looking bright and bushytailed in the morning?

Here is the room towel I used after I showered that morning. Notice the thread bareness of that towel. It was a disgrace to still have a towel in this condition in use rotation.

A little friend on the hood of the car when we went to leave. Looking it up now it was a mayfly. He/she was probably feeding off the raindrops on the car.

After gassing up(and I found some vape juices for my 2 kids who used vapes then on sale in that convenience store)we hit the road North to North Dakota.

Since it was early, near sunrise we saw this glowing sky as we left. Notice the white layer in the sky closest to the ground? I couldn't tell if it was fog burning off or smoke from wildfires.

Driving further along and it became clear that the glow and haze was caused by wildfires in the area.

Trying to find a radio station on the car radio and everything up here was Country Music.

Gee, I thought I was in the South driving out here. lol

Passing an old storefront of some kind out on the Plains north of Miller SD./

A lone tree out in a field.

Yet another field of Sunflowers......

Saw this water tower soon after..........

Signs heading back to Miller and toward other places.

Ahhhh....Now I get why all these fields of Sunflowers around here. There is a sunflower receiving station nearby.

TThen we went through the little town of Redfield, South Dakota.

Lots of road construction in town. I guess, given the Winters here all this road work needs to be done in the Summer.

The Redfield water tower. Notice a piece of a pheasant painted on the left side of it.

We stopped at a gas/convenience store in Redfield and I found more of those Snicker bars with funny stuff on the wrappers......

This one is dedicated to Kim *snicker*

Some alcoholic libations.....peach ale. Didn't sound very good at least to me.

They had a local message board in the store and we could have bought a purebred puppy by calling a number posted but we didn't.

I did see these interesting bandana/scarves that said, "Big Cock Country" on them.....I think the local high school sports teams are the fighting cocks. At least I hope so! lolz

Spotted in town was this huge pheasant up on a pedestal, with lights for night illumination along side an American flag. Redfield bills itself as the "Pheasant Capital of the Worrld" so yeah, it's fitting.

We bypassed all these towns on the sign ahead, moving to the East and then North again, hopscotching our way to North Dakota.

Passed by a field of identical red, rag top old American cars. Sort of like the "Cadillac Range" down in Amarillo Texas, it looked like a public art installation........

Not long after passing that we saw the "Clark Ringtail Lodging" facility. I guess folks out here go on Pheasant hunts as a regular thing and hunters stay in group lodgings like this one.

Nearby was the Clark County WWI war memorial.

We passed by a medium sized lake.....

Then hit the town of Henry SD, population 268 back in 2017.

Passed by a farming operation with a tractor on a short billboard advertising some companies farming equipment nearby.

The "big" intersection of Rte. 20 and 212 in Watertown SD. Silos for days.........

We stopped in Watertown at a liquor store as Hubs likes to peruse regional selections in parts of the country we don't get to go to often and this was our first time in South Dakota

I found half a shelf of Boone's Farm(Sonya's go-to drink)here.

But "Mommy's Time Out" wine made me chuckle. Notice it's sitting next to a selection called, "Mad Housewife" too. I like a good funny name on an alcoholic beverage. 8-)