Of Life...Finances, and Frustrations

Late on a Saturday night, kids are in bed, and I'm here posting to my blog.  I was going to write something about IS-IS, but then something of a revelation struck me.  I'll get back to IS-IS in a later post :-)

I am an extremely well paid (for my area) systems engineering consultant, focused on networking, storage, and virtualization technology projects.  I love my job, love meeting new people and having the opportunity to travel and work on interesting projects.  My days are always different, and I hardly ever have to worry about coming to work and being bored, vs spending my time as a silo'ed IT tech for a large company, stuck somewhere in a environment staring at ticket queues and always being worried about being outsourced or reduced by a bean counter that doesn't know jack shit about how important our work is.

Now that I've said all that, I'm feeling overly conflicted about my career future.  I struggle with systemic lupus (SLE) along with a myriad of related issues.  I live in a world of near constant daily aches and pains, which I can only explain to someone without it as telling them to imagine waking up to a feeling like they are getting the achiness of the flu EVERY single morning of your life.  There is no cure, there is only a weak treatment regimen of immuno-suppressants corticosteroids.  This brings me to my main point.

Health insurance is bar none the MOST important factor I look at when evaluating a potential career employment change or offer.  If you don't offer health insurance benefits, or what you do offer is very weak, then expect me to need a higher pay so I can find my own.  I simply can't afford to go with the "catastrophic plans" that a number of my age group peers have.  I can find myself frequently hospitalized if I overwork and get dehydrated and without good healthcare insurance, I would be bankrupt near immediately.

As I've previously mentioned, I love my job, and generally like working for the company I work for.  I've managed to make some good friends and colleagues in the short time I've been here and I hope to foster those relationships for a long time.  I must however, be pragmatic and practical about my financial situation.  Its becoming a large burden just to stay afloat from month to month.  We pay nearly $1100.00 / month in premiums for health insurance for myself and my family of four.  Coupled with the out of pocket expenses, plus expenses of owning a rapidly falling apart house with no way out of it, and we find ourselves on the verge.  Expenses pile up and our credit cards are nearly maxed out.

Even if we were to find a way to reduce that amount by 300 to 400 dollars / month, we would be in much better shape in a short time.  I've heard rumors that our premiums are going to rise again.  Immediately after receiving a recent small raise for meeting a personal professional goal, the payroll tax holiday expired, wiping out that increase and putting us back in the red.  I'm hoping that the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) might offer some relief as we can then shop around for more affordable alternatives.  Unfortunately we are a ways off from implementation of the state or federal based health exchanges.  If things don't change soon, we might be forced to make a more drastic move, though what that is, I'm not yet sure.  There are no real attractive options and no real winners in this.

/End Personal Rant

Okay back to JNCIP-SEC and ENT study time.  Got another exam coming up in a little less than a month.

Posted in: career,finance,healthcare,personal