How to Do Medical Tourism for Prescriptions in Canada

May 6, 2019 By Deanna 4 Comments

I’ve done a little experiment in medical tourism specifically as it pertains to prescriptions. While it didn’t work out for me, I learned a lot in the process and will share the details here for your benefit. My big takeaway from this experiment is that many Americans are filling their prescriptions in Canada for a fraction of the cost in the U.S.

Why Are the Cost of Prescriptions Drastically More Expensive in the U.S.?

I think the short answer is that they can be. The pharmaceutical companies are pretty powerful and if they know they can get private insurance companies to foot the bill, they charge more.

I recently wrote an article about the astronomical costs of prescriptions in the United States. In the article, I get transparent about a condition I’ve been diagnosed with. Additionally, I’ve been prescribed an expensive specialty medication. It was a bit of a rant article where I share my growing frustration of how the pharmaceutical companies get away with charging such exorbitant prices in the U.S.

Anyway, with the help of my doctor and boss, I set out on an experiment.

How to Hack a Ski Trip

February 21, 2019 By Deanna 7 Comments

I first learned to ski in middle school and then participated in ski club in high school. Additionally, I skied several times in my adult life but didn’t really pick it back up until about 6 years ago.

When I was in debt, I took a break deciding to focus most of my income on paying off my debt. However, now that I’m debt-free and saving for financial independence, I’ve decided to add this lovely hobby back into my budget. The goal for 2019 was to plan a trip out west and ski some powder and that is exactly what I did.

8 Tips to Help You Reduce Your Expenses

January 10, 2019 By Deanna 4 Comments

Having a high savings rate will help you achieve your retirement goals faster. There are essentially two sides of the equation where you can focus –

Driving down your expenses
Increasing your income

Both are really important and many will argue, myself included, that the income side is the better thing to focus on because it really has unlimited growth. I’ve written on career hacking and negotiating for a raise before and I plan to write more on the income side. However, today we’ll focus on driving down expenses.

The Benefits of Walking to Work

October 29, 2018 By Deanna 22 Comments

I completed my debt pay off journey on December 29, 2017. Just like my sobriety date, I’ll never forget it. I lived with my parents during the final 15 months and once the debt was gone, I started making plans of where I’d live next. The whole world was my oyster and so I had choices. I ultimately chose to live where I could walk to work.

Clean Slates & Strategies

My parents are awesome and encouraged me to stay with them through the winter months to save some more dough. I acquiesced to their suggestion and by not being in a hurry to move out, I was able to:

Build up my emergency fund to a sizable amount (something I managed to not have for the first 44 years of my life).
Buy some stuff for my new apartment.
Celebrate my debt pay off by attending CampFI Mid-Atlantic.
Enjoy more time with my parents.

When I started looking for apartments I knew one of my goals was to lessen my commute time to work. You see while living with Mom & Dad, I had a 45-60 minute commute one way to work. I took advantage of that time by listening to podcasts but I was ready to be done with the loooong commute.

When you have a clean slate a whole world of choices opens up to you.