HAPPY NEW YEAR!

It really is a happy new year for me.  For one thing, after suffering a heart attack toward the end of last year, I'm still here!  Not only am I still here, but I'm doing pretty well with my recovery and luckily managed to avoid wrecking my finances with medical bills.  As soon as I hear back from the emergency room physicians billing office, I'll pay my final two bills and I'll have all medical expenses paid in full. 

I did have to dip in to my stock account to come up with enough cash to pay my cardiologist, but it was a small price to pay to be alive.  The guy does good work and I'll be relying on him for my future well being, so I definitely want to make sure he's paid!

At any rate, I was able to pull all this off by taking advantage of assistance programs from the hospital and calling the other billing offices to request discounts for private pay.  What I found is that most of them were quite willing to accept reduced payments (as much as 50% in some cases) and some even wrote off the entire amount, simply because I called and asked!  Makes me wonder if we really needed any kind of health care reform after all?  I'm thinking probably not.

I've already got a plan in place to rebuild my stock portfolio and replace the money I withdrew.  It will be a monumental task filling out my federal and state taxes for 2010 due to all the stock trading I did last year, but I'm still expecting a refund.  So I've earmarked any refund as a means to jump start my portfolio rebuilding plan and am planning on starting a new side business in flea marketing this summer.  I've located a good local flea market and will rent a booth to sell items I've picked up from rummage sales.  My goal is to buy items I believe I can quickly resell at double what I paid.  I'll get my initial inventory from items I no longer want or use from my own home.  By selling these and converting them to cash, I'll have the money I need to start my business without using any cash out of pocket.  I've done this before, back in my younger days, so it's not really new to me.  I'm excited about getting back in to the business.  It's a great way to make extra cash and a great way to meet a lot of interesting people and it's fun for me, so it's not really like work at all.  If it goes well, I may decide to cut back my work schedule at my job and concentrate on building the business.  Profits will go towards reducing what little debt I have left and building my investment portfolio.  I estimate that I should be able to recover all the money I've spent on medical expenses and then some by the end of 2011. 

So it really is starting out as a very Happy New Year for me and I hope it's going well for all of you as well!