Budget decisions

I found another expense that will be able to get cut in another month. When I upgraded our Dish service to have a Hopper dvr last February 1, it was cheaper overall to sign up for their Protection Service for 6 months at $8.99 per month. I could have either paid for a service call at $95 or signed up for the protection service for 6 months for a total of $54. I just had to remember to discontinue it after 6 months! Which of course, I will do. I had made myself a calendar reminder on Outlook.  With that 8.99 a month and the $15 a month saved by removing premium channels. We'll save $288 a year.

My little blog ads are slowly generating a little bit each month. One of these months I'll hit the $100 mark and actually get paid, haha!

We'll be getting our propane tank refilled probably next month. Apparently that is when rates are cheapest during the year. We still have about 30% left, so that seems pretty good. I don't know what the rates are other times of the year, but I'm sure it will be quite a bit of savings if we can fill up the whole tank when it's cheapest. We've never had propane before, so it's all new to me. We are supposed to be on "auto refill" with the company and I'm not really sure what that even means. Will they auto refill this summer, when rates are low, or do I have to call to have it done? I'll be calling for sure. There was a notice in the little county weekly newspaper to call by July 7 for a summer refill appointment (which is why I'm not really sure then what "auto refill" really means, then).

And then there is the decision on increasing a monthly expense....it's annual benefit renewal time at work. One thing I discovered is my benefits allow my dependent (DH) to get a free eye exam, even if I don't have him on my insurance plan. That's nice. I'm trying to decide if I should add some Long Term Disability insurance. To get 60% off my annual salary would cost me $36 a month (for a $3900/mo benefit)

I went online with my Social Security account and if I were to get disabled right now my monthly benefit would be $2100. Not really enough to cover until I could tap into my 401k. And once I turn 67, do I then get my regular social security amount or do I still just get the $2100 a month? Ok, so I just researched that and when I'd turn 67, it would switch to my social security retirement benefit amount.

If I'm getting $2100 a month in SS disability, I wouldn't really need to get $3900 a month from insurance, but it doesn't appear I have the option of choosing a lower benefit amount. Maybe it's possible to get a lower benefit amount from an insurance company directly. I did a quick search online and could qet some quotes but they all want my ph# and address and I really don't want to deal with sales calls trying to pressure me to buy their insurance.

So, still can't decide if I need to pay $36 a month for long term disability. I have until the 30th of this month to figure it out.

In looking at my SS estimated benefits, I now have updated amounts that have increased. If I retire at age 70 (currently the plan) my monthy benefit is $3030 and with DH able to get half of that, that would give us $54,540 a year in social security, plus 401k draw. If I retired at 67 our combined annual SS would be $43,056. Guess we'll see how I feel at 67! Maybe I'll be able to retire by then, but not holding my breath.