Budgeting for the rest of us

Month: August 2012

  • How to Get Free Prescription Drugs (or nearly free)

    How to Get Free Prescription Drugs (or nearly free)

    Are your prescription drug prices going through the roof? Do you wonder sometimes, even if you have great health insurance, whether you’re going to have to make a choice between eating well (or eating at all) and taking your medicine? Has your doctor prescribed a medicine for you that you just don’t think you can afford? Well, you are not alone.

    Even in the younger set, prescription prices appear to be at an all-time high, and it doesn’t seem that there is any relief in sight. So here are some tips to help you find ways to reduce your prescription medicine costs. If one doesn’t work for you, maybe another one will. Keep going until you get some help!

    Get free or nearly free prescription drugs

    Did you know that doctors often aren’t aware of the cost of the medicines they prescribe?  Your first step when given a prescription slip, should be to ask the doctor for some samples. They get free samples all the time from visiting drug salespeople, so there should be at least a few to get you started. That way, if you discover that the medicine doesn’t work for you, or you have a bad reaction to it, you haven’t spent any money at that point, and you can move on to the next medication

    Generic pharmacy programs

    Surely by now you have heard of the low-cost generic prescriptions you can buy at discount stores like Walmart or Target – usually at a price somewhere around $4.00 per 30-day supply or $10 for 90 days’ worth. Be sure to pick up a brochure in the store where they detail the generic drugs that are available at those low prices, or go online to their prescription website to either search for your medication or download a complete, up-to-date list. From that list, you can talk to your doctor to see if any of the generics can be substituted for the pricey brand-name drug the doctor already set you up with.

    Online discount and bid pharmacies

    Another way to lower your costs is by using online pharmacies that are known to be reliable.  BidRx.com is an online pharmacy that will bid to reduce your prices for prescription drugs. There’s a short sign-up procedure to go through (when asked for a referrer, use “clark” as the name**) and an explanation of how the process works. You can enter the medication you are taking and get instant bids from competing pharmacies. You can choose the bid you prefer (shipping charges differ, so be sure to check those), and when you decide which price you prefer to take, you can Reserve the medication. If you don’t see a price you can live with, you can cancel the procedure and back out with no problems. After you confirm your prescription, there are several ways to get your doctor’s prescription and your payment to BidRxDirect.com and your prescription will be on its way.

     TogetherRX Access Card

    Another resource to check out if you need help with your medicines, check out TogetherRx Access Card, which offers a 25% to 40% discount on your prescription drugs. To be eligible, you must be under 65 and receive no prescription drug coverage from the government or an employer. There are some income limitations based on the number of people in your family, but you can get more detail and start the enrollment process by visiting TogetherRxAccess.com or call 1-800-444-4106.

     Drug company assistance programs

    Every drug company has a prescription assistance program that they administer for truly needy people that use very expensive prescription drugs. For example, I Googled “Glaxo Smith Kline free program” and came up with a list of approximately ten programs for people, both under and above age 65 to help with drug costs.  That was just for one drug company, but I have heard that all the big pharmaceutical manufacturers have a similar program.  Here are a few names to try:  Johnson and Johnson, Pfizer, Roche, Novartis, AstraZenica.  Here is a link to an article on Wikipedia that has links to all the big drug companies.

     Wholesale Clubs

    Finaly, don’t forget your local Sam’s Club, Costco, and BJ’s. Did you know that despite the people they have guarding the door from entrants without membership cards, you do not have to have a membership card at any of the warehouse clubs in order to use their pharmacies? Just tell the door guard that you are visiting the pharmacy and they have to let you in!

    So, if you are looking at the prospect of having to pay a huge proportion of your salary in prescription drug costs, don’t despair! Get busy and see how you can help yourself. One of the programs above may be just the answer for you!

    **I first heard of BidRx.com in one of Clark Howard’s excellent books, Living Large in Lean Times, available on Amazon.com. When he discussed the BidRx.com site, he said he had set up an access code of “clark.” Since he has one, and I don’t, and he shared his publicly, I am sure he won’t mind if you use it. Neither he nor I get one penny from a referral to BidRx.com (but the link to the book IS a referral link to my account at Amazon, so if you use my link to purchase the book, I’ll get a small commission.)
     

  • How I Make Money Blogging – Book Review

    How I Make Money BloggingIf you are new to this blog, you aren’t alone. I am too! Although I have several other blogs that I write for and administer, both by myself and with my husband, I am really late to the party with a personal finance blog. That may seem a bit strange, since I am a licensed Certified Public Accountant. It seems like finance and budgeting would be native language to me.

    And they are.

    So, why didn’t I start a personal finance blog a long time ago? I think the main reason I didn’t was that there are already so many excellent personal finance bloggers, I felt like my little “me too” voice would get lost in the wilderness, since I am very new and there are so many.

    And maybe it will.

    So, why me and why now? There are a couple of reasons.

    For one, I have been following Crystal Stemburger at Budgeting In the Fun Stuff for several months, and the detailed income and expense reports she used to provide in the blog to track her success drew me like a bear to honey. (Due to some rude readers, she is no longer comfortable publicly providing that information in as much detail, but for me, that’s OK. I got the gist of it the first time she wrote about it – she’s a success!)

    And then, there’s my friend Wendy, of The Budget Professional. Besides just being a friend I know in person, Wendy is a very accomplished writer and extremely well versed in the tax and finance arena. She has a long history of internet marketing, writing, and is, well, just an awesome person! I mentioned Crystal’s blog, Wendy looked at it, and that’s when things started popping. Crystal was looking for new bloggers to mentor, Wendy volunteered, and together with four other bloggers, they are working through Crystal’s plan as detailed in Crystal’s new book “How I Make Money Blogging: The Beginner’s Guide to Building a Money-Making Blog.”

    So, just in case you see something either here or there you don’t like, feel free to blame Crystal and Wendy! :-)

    Since I already knew that Crystal was successful, I wasted no time picking up her ebook and and reading it from beginning to end. It’s a relatively short book (printed, about 32 pages, and yes, I did print it). While Crystal is chatty in her blog, I think she pared the book down so people could get the information they need and want without wading through a bunch of personal information and asides. As a result, she has produced a book that is very utilitarian without being dry and boring. (Although the question arises: who would be silly enough to be bored when someone’s telling you step by step how to be successful as an internet marketer?)

    Topics Crystal covers are

    • Choosing a name, a host, and a platform
    • The basic elements of a successful blog
    • Search boxes: who needs ‘em (answer: you do, and she tells you why!)
    • Disclosures are important
    • How to get traffic, with a slightly different and refreshing take on SEO
    • Essential plugins
    • Ads and how to get them
    • Tracking your efforts
    • Other ways to get blogging income

    Crystal finishes up with a numbered and detailed action plan that will tell you exactly what to do and how (and when) to do it, followed by some additional suggestions on how to get help if you need to outsource some of your work.

    There are many things I like about How I Make Money Blogging. Among them are the fact that it is:

    • Concise
    • An easy read
    • Interesting (who doesn’t like reading about how to make money?)
    • Not a sales gimmick to get you to buy a bunch of extras
    • Short, sweet, and to the point: no hyperbole!
    • Covers all the really important things you need to know

    There are also a few things that I think could be improved in future versions:

    • This book needs to go on the Amazon platform to get wider distribution  Update:  I just heard from Crystal – the book IS on Amazon, but in a very basic format.  The original purchase from the link on this page includes an Excel spreadsheet that shows you how to keep track of all your work. It’s excellent and makes all the difference between just the book and the book with a true-life example of how-to!
    • At $27.00, the price is a bit higher than what you normally see for this type of book (but keep reading for a discount!)
    • While it’s impossible to detail all the plugins available, there are some pretty useful ones she doesn’t mention. I would recommend a wider range of plugins and a description of how they’re used.

    Since the book is relatively new, Crystal has generously offered a $10 discount to anyone who purchases her book during the month of August, so the total price is $17.00 instead of the original $27.00. Use the code “thankyou10” at checkout. After the end of August, the price will rise to its normal $27.00.

       To Recap:
    1. The book is for beginners, but has instructions that help even a seasoned blogger get a better handle on the money-making process
    2. It’s written clearly and doesn’t have a bunch of extraneous junk – just the facts, ma’am
    3. Ok, this isn’t a recap of something I said previously, but the truth is that this book has made me want to do even BETTER and work more efficiently on my own blogging efforts

     

    Buy This Book! You won’t be sorry (but if for any reason you are, Crystal will give you a no-nonsense refund!)

    (As a reminder, I have an affiliate relationship with Crystal on this book. However, if I didn’t like it, I wouldn’t risk my reputation just to get a few bucks!)