Saving money on medical bills

I recently had a big personal victory on a medical bill I received. In May, I got a bill from the company that did my youngest son's newborn hearing screening when he was born-- the problem I had was that he was born in March 2009- and they were sending me the bill (for the first time) in May 2011. When I called (the first time- after multiple attempts and waiting on hold for extended amounts of time) to question the bill, they claimed that my insurance company denied the claim and that they have resubmitted multiple times and not gotten any response. The bill was for $226.00.

Now, I could have just paid the bill and been done with it. But, I knew that I did not owe them $226, and if I owed them anything, it was much less and that they needed to do something because I had not been notified of the claim in over two years. I called my former health insurance provider (we have a different provider now) and they were very nice and willing to send me the Explanation of Benefits Statement showing they approved the claim in June of 2009. I faxed that to the provider two separate times, with notes on the fax to please contact me- no response. I called again about 3 weeks later and they said they had corrected the account and that I owed them $84.44 and they were not sending a bill. I let them know I expected a bill before I would send them any payment-- and the next day I got one (it had already been printed- they just didn't know what they were talking about).

At this point, I could have just paid the $84.44 bill. However, by then they had really made me mad. Not only did they wait 27 months to bill me, they billed me for something I didn't owe, and I wasted so much of my time calling/ faxing/ etc. that I was not going to pay the entire balance. I called them and asked if due to the circumstances they would be willing to waive 50% of the balance because of their errors and inabilities. They offered to waive $15- only if I paid that day. I declined and figured I'd call back later and hope for better luck with someone else. A month passed- and I did not receive another bill.

I called about this balance this week- and was pleased to find out that as a courtesy, they waived my entire balance due to all the issues. Again, they didn't notify me.

The moral of the story- LOOK at and QUESTION your medical bills!! This is NOT the first time I had fought a medical bill (and won!). When my first son was born, I was charged for an extra night in the hospital- I got the hospital to pull my medical records and they were able to see that I was indeed overcharged and this saved me over $400.

Do not assume that medical facilities are correct. If you look at your Explanation of Benefits statements and medical bills, question every single charge. For hospital visits- did you really get all the medicines that you were billed for?

Understand that medical facilities often do have the ability to "write off" or "waive" portions of your balance. But, they're not going to volunteer that- you have to ASK!

Have you challenged a medical bill? Have you won??? So frustrating but so rewarding when you win!

What is a good sale? Becoming a smarter shopper...

One of my pet peeves is all the different advertising techniques retailers use to get you to spend more money than you expected or make you think you're getting a better deal than you really are. Have you ever really thought about the different ways deals are advertised and what really is a good deal and what's not?

These are a couple that I often see:

Buy two, get one FREE!!
Buy one, get one HALF OFF!!
Buy one, get one FREE!

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Buy two, get one FREE- This is the same as 33% off- but you're having to buy 3 items to get that- is that really a good deal?? This is a sale that I often see at Kohls- and if you would just wait, within a week or two the same item would probably be on sale 50% off, and you'd only be buying one so it would be a better deal. The buy 2 get 1 free makes you think you're getting a great deal but what the retailer is really doing is getting you to buy more than you intended or need....

Buy one, get one HALF OFF- This is only 25% off- but by advertising buy one get one half off you think it's a great deal. Kohls often does this sale (as well as many other stores!) but it really isn't a good deal- a 25% savings for us bargain shoppers is nothing- I usually aim for at least 50% savings.

Buy one, get one FREE- This one is a decent deal- it's 50% savings, but if you only needed one of the item, you'd be better off waiting for it to go on sale on it's own instead of paying full price for the one item you needed.

Realize that marketing and advertising companies use these tactics because they work- people see the sale sign and usually don't analyze the discount too much. You see free and think it's a great deal. Be a smarter shopper and don't fall for their tactics. Before you make a purchase, look at the savings- is it really a good savings or not?

See more of my shopping tips here.

FREE coupon already and a coupon refresher...

I posted Monday where to go for a coupon for a free coupon for Advil. I got mine already yesterday!

I'll definitely be saving this one for a deal at Rite Aid- I love turning free coupons into money makers!

I posted tips some time ago but thought I'd post them again for any newbies to my blog..

What do you do when you get a free product coupon? Do you rush to the store to get your free product? Not anymore!

Some time ago I got four free product coupons from Children's Tylenol and Motrin for their recalled medicines. Before that I got coupons for seven free jumbo packs of diapers Pampers (my son got a horrible rash from their new Cruisers). What do I do with these coupons? I hold onto them until I can make money from them!

Here's what I suggest to maximize your free product coupons:

-Save the coupons for a buy one get a gift card free deal. Target often does this with diapers, so that's what I did with some of the Pampers coupons. Usually every couple weeks they do a buy 3 jumbo packs, get a $5 gift card deal, so if I used 6 of my free diaper coupons I could have 6 jumbo packs of diapers PLUS $10 in gift cards.

-Use the coupon at Walgreens when the product has a register reward. I did this a few months ago for a razor rebate. I had a full rebate for the razor, so I figured if I bought it at Walgreens during a register reward, I'd actually make money off the deal- which I did- I got a $7.99 rebate for the razor and a $5.00 register reward. (Register rewards are coupons that print at Walgreens for buying a particular item or combination of items that you can use on your next order). Meijer is another place to try- there may be a Cataliana promo where you get a checkout coupon for money off your next order.

-Use the coupon at Rite Aid when the product has a rebate or an +Up Reard.

-Use them as your filler items at Rite Aid or other stores if you have a $5 off $25 purchase or similar coupon. As long as you give your store coupon before the manufacturer's coupon, this usually works and will maximize your discount.

-If you're not using the coupon for any of the other reasons I mentioned, use the coupon at a local store to support your local economy. Maybe you don't normally buy that particular product at that store because their prices are higher, but if you have a free product coupon, let the local store get the reimbursement from the manufacturer.

Before I was good at couponing, I'd get a free product coupon and hurry up and use it... but with a little planning and waiting for an incentive- holding onto free product coupons can put extra cash in your pocket!

If you have any other suggestions, leave a comment and let me know and I'll add it to the list.

Subscribe by email...

Did you know that you can subscribe to my blog by email? I know it's more fun to check the site constantly (I'm constantly checking all the blogs I follow), but getting emails is a great way to make sure you aren't missing any deals.

In the top left corner of my blog there is a box to enter your email and you'll receive a daily email with a brief description of my posting. If I don't post anything that day, you don't get an email... but this way you won't miss any postings.

Getting it together...

So, just to fill you in on the past couple months- it's been a little crazier than normal and my blog (and many other things) have been a bit behind. Since June I've taken two classes to finish my Master's degree- one online and one a two week class and now I'm done! I haven't taken classes since I've had my kids so it was a little more challenging- but I did great in both classes and am relieved to be done. We also took a great week long vacation a couple weeks ago on a lake up north- the trip was long overdue and we enjoyed every bit of it! After that I had family in town from out of state and spent as much time as I could with them, and now things are finally calming down and I'm starting to get things back on track.

After all that, my coupons are a mess! I've still been doing pretty well with couponing during all this- great at Rite Aid, not as good at Meijer... so tonight I decided I'd start to get my coupons back in order so I can get my grocery shopping spending down.

My project is not done, but I figured I'd show my progress as I start to show you how I organize my coupons. Lately, I haven't been doing much coupon clipping when I get the inserts, I just grab what I need from matchups I find and figured I'd deal with the rest later. Well, it's later now and it was time to do a coupon cleanout and organize.

I use a binder to organize my coupons and I use 2- 3-ring binders to store my newspaper inserts. They were a mess! Here are before pictures.









I had inserts going back to April, and I usually on a pretty regular basis take out any expired coupons and get the binder cleaned out. I went through the really old ones and cut out any coupons not yet expired that I might possibly use. I did this for most of May and June's inserts. I didn't have too many coupons to clip since most had expired... those were in my white binder. Here's how that ended up looking and what was left...



a small pile of coupons to put in my coupon binder, a bag of expired and cut inserts and a bunch of empty inserts!

Then I started working on the newer inserts and got through most of them!




I still have to go through and cut coupons from the past 2 weeks inserts, but I made it through the rest. I put all the to be recycled inserts in a bag (on the left on the picture) to be recycled--that's a lot of extra inserts I've been hanging onto! Tonight I hope to finish getting through my August inserts and then put them in my clipped binder. I'll post pictures of that and show you how that's organized in a later posting. It's nice to see two thin, organized binders again!

Did you know?

Buy one, get one free coupons
Did you know that at most stores, you can use two coupons with a buy one, get one free coupon?

For example, yesterday at Rite Aid, I bought two Oral-B toothbrushes. Here's what I did:
2 Oral-B toothbrushes- $2.99 each
$2.99- used $1.00 off coupon= $1.99
$2.99- used BOGO coupon= FREE
paid $1.99 for 2

In the above scenario, the BOGO coupon is attached to the free item so you can use a separate coupon for the item you are paying for, bringing down the cost of the item you're paying for and getting you a second for free!

Most coupons state "one coupon per purchase." What that means is that you cannot use multiple coupons on the same item- you cannot buy one toothbrush and use two- $1.00 off coupons. Many people also think that the phrase "one coupon per purchase" means they can only use one coupon for one item that day. That's not true either- if you are buying five bags of diapers and have five coupons, you can use a coupon with each individual bag of diapers.

Subscribe by email

Did you know that you can subscribe to my blog by email? I know it's more fun to check the site constantly (I'm constantly checking all the blogs I follow), but getting emails is a great way to make sure you aren't missing any deals.

In the top left corner of my blog there is a box to enter your email and you'll receive a daily email with a brief description of my posting. If I don't post anything that day, you don't get an email... but this way you won't miss any postings.

Hopefully I'll be back to blogging as normal next week. The past few weeks... or month it's been crazy and now things should finally be settling down and I should be able to keep up with deals.

Mustard

I needed to buy mustard when I went to Meijer this week. I had a $.50 off French's mustard coupon. I knew they had Meijer brand mustard on sale for $1.00, so I figured I'd buy whichever would be cheaper- store brand without a coupon or French's with a coupon.

They had a big yellow "PRICE DROP" sign on the 8 oz bottle of French's mustard advertising a price of $1.38. Under that shelf, there they had the 14 oz bottle with a normal tag showing the price of $1.25. I could have bought a containuer of 6 oz less and paid $.13 more for the bottle if I hadn't been paying attention.

The moral of the story is to PAY ATTENTION to the prices and sizes in the store. You would think that a big yellow sign saying PRICE DROP would mean that the product is a good deal, or a better deal than the rest of the items on the shelf. Sometimes this is true, but often it's not- you just have to look and see what is the better deal.

Did you know?

Did you know that when many stores have their sales you don't have to buy the quantity advertised? For example, last week Meijer had corn 8 for $2.00. Did you know that you don't have to buy 8 to get the corn for $2.00? It's just their way of encouraging you to buy more.

Meijer and Target: You do NOT have to buy the quantity advertised. If a sale is 2 Tide detergents for $11.00, you CAN buy just one for $5.50. Meijer's 10 for $10 sale- although you get the best deal if you buy 10 items since then you get the 11th item free, you can buy any number of those items and still pay $1.00.

Walgreens and Rite Aid: You DO have to buy the quantity advertised. Their computer systems are set up to mark down the price once you buy the quantity advertised. I suggest that you closely watch the registers just to make sure this happens. With the new Rite Aid Wellness Plus program you have to watch even more closely because unless your Wellness Plus card is scanned, certain sale prices will not mark down.

Stores do this kind of marketing for a couple reasons- they try to make you think you're getting a great deal when you're really not and they try to get you to buy more of an item than you intended and what you would normally buy.

If you are walking through a store and see big sign that says "SALE- 3 for $5!!" not only might you buy the item, but you'll buy more than you normally would. The regular price of the item might only be $1.75- and the sale price of 3 for $5 makes the item only $1.66- which is not a significant savings. Most cell phones have calculators on them, and if you're not a math person, just pull out your phone and figure out the individual cost to see if the sale item really is a good deal. When shopping at Meijer and Target where you don't have to buy that particular quantity, don't buy more of the item than you intended on unless it is a really good price.

When do you buy?

One of the biggest changes you need to make when you start couponing is changing the way you buy items. Stockpiling is a term you hear a lot when couponing. To me, stockpiling is buying enough of a particular item when it's at a rock-bottom price to hopefully get you through until the next time it's on sale. I don't try to buy enough to have certain items for a certain number of months or anything that organized- I just focus on stocking up on my normal staples when I can get them cheap.

What's rock-bottom and when do I stock up? Each item varies. My overall savings goal is 60% for groceries and household items. Certain items are easier to get at lower prices than others.

Fruits, vegetables and meat are harder to save on- harder, not impossible. By contacting companies, I've been able to get some coupons on these type of products (Earthbound Farms, Mann and Smart Chicken are a few I've had luck with). Meijer andd other stores often have Catalina coupons for $? off a $? meat or product purchase that can reduce those costs as well as using Catalina coupons you've earned for $$'s on your next order. I'm pretty picky about buying meat, and will pay more for better quality meat- which I'm okay with since I've saving so much on other areas.

Cereal/bars/snack foods are an easy place to save money. I usually try to get my cereal for less than $1 a box- and when I can do that, I usually buy 4-8 boxes of cereal. Cereal deals seem to be pretty frequent. Anytime I'm running low I always seem to find another cereal deal. Bars and snack foods are always on sale somewhere too..

Personal care & household products are also EASY places to save money. Pretty much every week you can get some type of personal care or household product for free. Start shopping at Target, Walgreens and Rite Aid if you don't already. These are great places to get freebies or close to free items. Before getting into couponing, I'd buy Bath & Body Works soap for myself- not because I found that brand to be superior or had problems with others, but out of habit. Once I started couponing and seeing all the free name brand products I could get, I started trying different store brands and realizing they worked just fine for me. I've tried Nivea, Olay and Dove body washes and have been fine with all of them- and all have either been free or I've made money "buying" them. What a better reason to try a new product than it being free! Why not? If you don't like it, you don't have to buy it again- and you aren't out any or much money.

What to do with a free product coupon... part 2

I thought of a couple more things I wanted to mention about yesterday's posting- What to do with a free product coupon?

Deidre left a comment and reminded me of another great way to use your free product coupons. Use them as your filler items at Rite Aid or other stores if you have a $5 off $25 purchase or similar coupon. As long as you give your store coupon before the manufacturer's coupon, this usually works and will maximize your discount.

I also wanted to suggest that if you're not using the coupon for any of the other reasons I mentioned, use the coupon at a local store to support your local economy. Maybe you don't normally buy that particular product at that store because their prices are higher, but if you have a free product coupon, let the local store get the reimbursement from the manufacturer.

If you have any other suggestions, leave a comment and let me know.

What do you do when you get a free product coupon?

What do you do when you get a free product coupon? Do you rush to the store to get your free product? Not anymore!

Yesterday in the mail I got four free product coupons from Children's Tylenol and Motrin for their recalled medicines. Two weeks ago I got coupons for seven free jumbo packs of diapers Pampers (my son got a horrible rash from their new Cruisers). I'm holding onto these coupons so I can make money from them!

Here's what I suggest to maximize your free product coupons:

-Save the coupons for a buy one get a gift card free deal. Target often does this with diapers, so that's what I'm hoping for with my Pampers coupons. Usually every couple weeks they do a buy 3 jumbo packs, get a $5 gift card deal, so if I used 6 of my free diaper coupons I could have 6 jumbo packs of diapers PLUS $10 in gift cards.

-Use the coupon at Walgreens when the product has a register reward. I did this a few months ago for a razor rebate. I had a full rebate for the razor, so I figured if I bought it at Walgreens during a register reward, I'd actually make money off the deal- which I did- I got a $7.99 rebate for the razor and a $5.00 register reward. (Register rewards are coupons that print at Walgreens for buying a particular item or combination of items that you can use on your next order). Meijer is another place to try- there may be a Cataliana promo where you get a checkout coupon for money off your next order.

-Use the coupon at Rite Aid when the product has a rebate. Rite Aid does their own monthly rebate program so you could make money this way too.

Before I was good at couponing, I'd get a free product coupon and hurry up and use it... but with a little planning and waiting for an incentive- holding onto free product coupons can put extra cash in your pocket!

What's the better deal?

I saw a posting last week and wanted to share it with everyone. I posted awhile ago about checking the per item prices on diapers and other products. Totally Target has a great posting about this with Angel Soft toilet paper last week at Target. You have to look at the per item price and not fancy packaging!

Here's the difference:
Angel Soft 36 Double Rolls $14.99= $.41 cents a roll
Angel Soft 12 Double Rolls $4= $.34 cents a roll

When looking at the pictures at Totally Target, you'd really think that the 36 double rolls were a fantastic price- but looking per item, that's a significant difference. If you used a coupon with the 12 double rolls it would be even cheaper. You have to look at the item and not just the fancy packaging.

The cycles of sales...

One of the blogs I follow is The Coupon Project. It's where I got the really cool savings tracker that I use to track my coupon and sale savings.

Angela put together a pretty nice posting on what went on sale last year and when. These are the items she found to stock up on because they were at rock bottom prices. It's a pretty interesting list- you'll see that usually each season brings great sales on the hot items of the season. This is because the manufacturer wants you to buy their products and not the store brand products or the competitor's products. We do a lot of grilling on the spring and summer so hopefully we'll start seeing lots of good BBQ sauce and summer food coupons and sales,

When I first started couponing, I'd be really disappointed if I couldn't get a deal I was looking for, if the store was out of the product or if I just didn't make it to get the good deal. Now, I know that if I miss a sale, there will be another soon and it could be an even better deal!

Are you an email subscriber yet?

Did you know that you can subscribe to my blog by email? I know it's more fun to check the site constantly (I'm constantly checking all the blogs I follow), but getting emails is a great way to make sure you aren't missing any deals.

In the top left corner of my blog there is a box to enter your email and you'll receive a daily email with a brief description of my posting. If I don't post anything that day, you don't get an email... but this way you won't miss any postings.

Some of my thoughts on couponing... part 1

I thought it was time to take a minute and share my shopping history/ strategies with everyone. I have always used coupons... but it never really made a difference until last year when I started "couponing."

What's the difference between using coupons and what I refer to as "couponing?" Before, I'd buy a big box of diapers for $29.99 at Target and use a $1.50 off manufacturer coupon and think I got a good deal... What would I do now? I'd wait until there was a sale or promo on diapers and use the coupon with a sale to get an even better deal... like last week, jumbo packs of diapers were $8.99 and when you bought 3 you'd get a $5.00 gift card.

I never used to buy small packages of diapers because I thought it was a better deal to get a bigger box. When you do a little math, you'll see that most often you'll spend less when you buy smaller quantity because it's a higher percentage off... does that make sense? When I first started couponing, I started figuring the per item price (my cell phone has a calculator on it so it's pretty easy to do quickly in the store) and was surprised at the difference.

Here's an example:
Huggies Diapers- box of 108 size 4 diapers- $34.98 (Walmart online price) or $.32 per diaper
Huggies Diapers- jumbo pack of 27 size 4 diapers- $8.99 (regular price most places)- or $.33 per diaper

Using the $3.00 off 1 coupon scenario since this was the most recent big Huggies coupon:
Use the coupon on the box= $.30 per diaper
Use the coupon on the jumbo pack= $.22 per diaper

That's a significant difference! To make a deal like that even better (which I did last week at Target), I'd use Target store coupons with my manufacturer coupons. Last week I had 3- $3.00 off Huggies manufacturer coupons and 3- $2.00 off Huggies Target coupons that had came in some wipes packages a couple months ago. So here's what I was able to do:

3 Jumbo packs @ $8.99 each= $26.97- $9 (3- $3 off manufacturer coupons)- $6 (3- $2 off Target coupons)= $11.97 for 3 jumbo packs of diapers. Plus, last week Target was giving a $5 gift card when you bought 3 jumbo packs- so after gift card- I got 3 jumbo packs of diapers for $6.97!! That's only $.09 per diaper!! I hate to even think how much money I wasted on diapers for my now 3 year old! If only I would have learned how to do this sooner...

There's more for me to ramble about but I figure I better end this post here so it's not too long and I'll continue this later...

I was thinking...

Would anyone like to see more details about my shopping trips? I usually go to Target and Meijer each week and sometimes Walgreens and Rite Aid and I wondered if anyone wanted to see a breakdown of each item and what coupons I use and where they come from (online, printable, direct mail, etc.)... Is that something you would like to see? Would that be helpful?

Let me know by leaving comments or emailing me... Thanks!

Ordering Coupons

My Coupon Hunter is a great site for ordering coupons that have been in the newspaper. I subscribe to the Kalamazoo Gazette and we don't always get some of the high value coupons that some are in papers at bigger cities.

At My Coupon Hunter, you can order single or multiple coupons from newspapers. You can also order the whole inserts. This is a great way to stockpile when there are deals. It does take a couple days to get the coupons when you go through the cheapest shipping ($.45 for first class mail). The first order I placed on a Monday and received it on a Friday, so make sure to order early in the week if you're buying for the current week's sales.

You are paying for the service of clipping the coupons and postage. The coupon cost varies based on the face value of the coupon, some are better deals than others. I've looked into ordering from a couple other sites but have found this one has the best selection and the lowest prices and shipping prices. Some of the others charge additional handling and other fees.

Don't miss out on deals!

If you see deals or coupons that you want or might want, make sure to get your prints while you can and download rebates when you see them. Many of these deals go quickly and have limited prints... The rebate I previously posted about Seventh Generation is no longer available for print and the rebate at Diapers.com changed from $14.97 back on any order to $10 back on a $75 order.

Even if you're not completely sure you want a particular deal, get your prints so you don't miss out! I have started saving some rebate form when they're a pdf so if you miss one, feel free to email me and see if it's one I saved.