Grocery Spending in December

[SiouzQ.]

I've been messing around on Quicken as I usually do around this time of year in the effort to get organized - I've created a separate catagory for fizzy drink things that K. consumes. I hardly ever drink fizzy stuff with the exception of an occasional Diet Coke.

This is what I worked on yesterday in preparation for tax time. I kept scrupulous records of my medical expenses in 2024 due to the sheer amount of stuff I went through with my TOS surgery. I'm hoping that maybe, just maybe we get to itemize on our federal taxes this year but I'm not holding my breath. However, the state of New Mexico lets you itemize so that will be a help. We also installed solar panels and will get a tax credit for those.

Here is a post I made yesterday on my Facebook page:

I'm kind of a nerd and enjoy doing spreadsheets so this year I kept a to-the-penny account of all my healthcare needs for tax purposes because it was a BIG one - a visit to the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, the surgery in St. Louis and all the other appointments for imaging and such I've had locally like physical therapy, etc. etc. The numbers are very sobering but I am so very grateful I've had the resources to get to the bottom of things (but it NEVER ends, unfortunately). This doesn't even take into account the health insurance premiums that are taken out of every paycheck of K.'s.
So here is the breakdown ~
Deductable & Out-of-Pocket Payments: $6,412.28
(this includes paying off ALL medical debt that I've owed for the past two years)
Auto Mileage to and from all medical appointments: 6,233.70 miles
Airfare to St. Louis (four separate visits) $2,817.86
Lodging in Phoenix/St. Louis $1,311.35
Uber Rides in St. Louis $386.70
The grand total being ----------------------------------$10, 928.19
Like I said, I am very grateful that I was able to go to the very absolute best of specialists for my weird shoulder & arm condition. That being said, I am far from being healed. I will never be 100 % and then stupid things happen to cause a setback, like slipping a little when getting out of the hot springs on Xmas day, causing my arm to splay out at a weird angle and causing a bad flare-up...

[pinkytoe]

SiouxQs post is a reminder to consider healthcare when relocating. Although we are healthy now, growing old usually means more health-related visits. Though I'd love to move further west, I have heard too many stories (brother included) about having to travel great distances at much expense to get specific treatment. Ditto groceries - limited selection in rural areas. I guess it's a trade-off though.

[rosarugosa]

It is a trade-off indeed. We are about 10 miles from the world class hospitals in Boston, but traffic around here is getting more and more horrible, and it can take 1.5 hrs to get to those hospitals. We use the highly-rated smaller hospital system that is affiliated with those Boston hospitals that we can get to in 30 minutes.
We have a wealth of grocery store options within a 5-mile radius.

[Tybee]

We live in a very rural area and have discovered that we do better going to New Hampshire for healthcare stuff. The little rural hospital there is with the big Portland system unlike the one nearer that is closer to Portland. So check out what system the hospital is in, as the little one in New Hampshire gets you access to the big system stuff like the electronic records and specialists. The other system is kind of awful and we have been much happier since switching to the Portland system. You still have to travel long distances to see the specialists, although they say they may start coming out to New Hampshire. The little hospital is full of retirees every time we go, so lots of business for them.

Rosa, I did not see your post, but basically, we were writing the same thing at the same time! Synchronicity.

[iris lilies]

Our healthcare needs are simple, we don't use specialists—yet—so we are very happy with our little hospital up the road. DH is having a colonoscopy there this week, performed by the same guy who fixed his appendix.

If we were in St.Louis I’m sure he would have gone to the colonoscopy center, the specialists, who perform that procedure day after day.

[rosarugosa]

We live in a very rural area and have discovered that we do better going to New Hampshire for healthcare stuff. The little rural hospital there is with the big Portland system unlike the one nearer that is closer to Portland. So check out what system the hospital is in, as the little one in New Hampshire gets you access to the big system stuff like the electronic records and specialists. The other system is kind of awful and we have been much happier since switching to the Portland system. You still have to travel long distances to see the specialists, although they say they may start coming out to New Hampshire. The little hospital is full of retirees every time we go, so lots of business for them.

Rosa, I did not see your post, but basically, we were writing the same thing at the same time! Synchronicity.

Great minds thinking alike! Our "little" hospital is Salem Hospital, AKA North Shore Medical Center. It's actually pretty big, but small compared to MGH and the Brigham, and they are all part of the same system. When I needed a surgeon a few years ago, I had an MGH surgeon who spends 1 day per week at Salem Hospital, talk about having the best of both worlds.

Isn't it fun how our threads evolve? If I look for this conversation in the future, I'm sure it will never occur to me to look in the grocery spending thread!

[Tradd]

Healthcare is one big reason to stay in the Chicago area.

[SiouzQ.]

That is an interesting discussion we've had about the many people moving to New Mexico in the past few years, wondering if they've remembered to do their due diligence about their healthcare needs because the system here can be pretty frusrating. Only because I've been here for eight years now I have finally assembled a fairly decent medical team but it still takes a long time to get some appointments, especially as a new patient.

I could have had my TOS surgery in Albuquerque but when I got an "in" with one of the reknowned experts in the field it was worth it for me to spend the money. I chose the surgeon who has done thousands of these surgeries over the course of a very long career, the guy who wrote in the medical journals about it vs. the younger surgeon in Albuqerque who has been doing these for seven years, about two per month. I'm grateful I cobbled the resources together to spend that amount of money.

Now I need to figure out what I am going to do about the torn rotator cuff and labrum tear in that same shoulder. It feels like my recovery is going backward right now. Very frustrating to not yet feel the benefits of that awful surgery last summer.