Baked potatoes, mashed potatoes, pasta, yogurt, steamed veggies, lots of rice dishes, pulled pork, chicken, venison, Thanksgiving turkey breast when it’s just the 3 of us

It’s extremely helpful when I forget to thaw meat for dinner (which is more often than not)

There is a trick to the pasta, but it saves me from panic dashing into the kitchen when the pot boils over because I forgot to check it

I cook most of our meals in it. We even have 2 so I can cook the meat separately since I’m vegetarian

But wait! There’s more! (not really, I just know I sound like an infomercial)

Nor can I find where I wrote it down so I wouldn’t forget

While it may not put on much in the way of body fat, chickadees’ brains gain weight to remember where they hid all their food for winter. This may apply to tits as well since they’re related but I haven’t seen any studies for them specifically.

Cherry for me. Common flavor in lots of fruity candy mixes but not my favorite. I do like cherry sours on their own though

Canid and canine generally mean any of the dog-like animals: domestic dogs, wolves, fox, coyotes, dingoes, jackals, wild dogs

Parrot applies to members of the Psittacine family: parrots, macaws, parakeets, cockatiels, cockatoos, parrotlets, lorikeets

Herps and herpetofauna are used to collectively refer to amphibians and reptiles: frogs, salamanders, newts, lizards, turtles, snakes

Bear means all actual bear species but is also often used in reference to pandas and koalas (just don’t say it in front of my scientifically accurate kid)

Waterfowl is ducks, geese, swans

Depending on why or how you’re using categories, you can also group by characteristics: Do they have fur, feathers, or scales Do they lay eggs or give birth Are they predator or prey Do they eat meat, plants, fruit, pollen, or some combination

southsamurai has a great overall explanation. I would add it also depends on the age and any medical conditions of each.

We have a 45 pound dog (age 12) and a 15 pound cat (age 17). The dog is on senior/old man food but is otherwise in good health. The cat has kidney disease so we have to get only specific kinds. Per month the cat’s food is about $5 more than the dog’s, but that’s for a smaller amount.

Shows from my youth I’ve watched with my kid: The Muppets Full House Animaniacs

$0.13213 per kWh plus a $0.58915 per day “customer charge”

I don’t know the actual answer. My theory is it’s this confusing so it’s hard for the general population to catch the mistakes. This allows insurance companies get out of paying as much as they’re supposed to. And hospitals don’t really care who does the paying, as long as they get paid

All very valid points and part of why American health insurance is such a joke

I had an incident recently where my spouse had to go to the ER because of a life threatening incident. One of those fix it right now or they might die things. (They’re fine now, thank goodness.)

We went to an in-network hospital and all doctors were also in-network. However the one who actually did the life-saving procedure was a specialist. Under our insurance plan seeing a specialist requires a referral, which of course we didn’t have time to get. So insurance tried to nope out of that doctor’s entire bill.

You need to know both your deductible and out of pocket maximum numbers. You’ve said your deductible is $1500. For the sake of this example let’s say your out of pocket max (OOP from now on) is $2500.

For simplicity, we’ll go with your insurance’s negotiated rate for the procedure is $1000*. Meaning at the end of the day you and your insurance combined will pay the hospital $1000.

Basically any bills up to $1500 for the year you pay 100%. Between $1500 and $2500 (or your OOP), insurance pays 50% and you pay 50%. Over $2500 insurance pays 100%.

Some examples to illustrate:

1. You’ve paid $400 this year so far. You pay the full $1000: $400 + $1000 = $1400 which is less than your deductible of $1500
2. You’ve paid $1000 so far this year. You pay $750 and insurance pays $250: $500 gets you to the $1500 deductible limit so you have to pay all that, plus you pay 50% of the remaining $500 bill = $250.
3. You’ve paid $1700 so far. You pay $500 and insurance pays $500. $1700 + $500 = $2200 which is less than your OOP of $2500
4. You’ve paid $2300 so far. You pay $200 and insurance pays $800. 50% of $1000 = $500 but $500 would put you over your OOP of $2500. $2500 - $2300 = $200. You pay $200 and insurance pays the rest.
5. You’ve paid $2500 so far. Insurance pays $1000

• If your insurance’s negotiated rate for the procedure is $1000, this means that’s what the hospital and insurance have agreed to pay. A lot of times you’ll see the hospital “charge” a larger number and then have an insurance “discount” but ignore this. It doesn’t factor into deductible or out of pocket maximum calculations.

And then you go put more peanuts out, I assume

For bills that are due on a regular basis but not monthly (car registration, oil changes, pet’s annual check up, HVAC check ups if you own a home, etc) - figure out how much each costs per year, add them all up, divide by 12, and set up an auto-transfer to a savings account for that amount every month. Don’t forget to include that amount in your monthly budget too.

I will look into those. Thank you for taking the time to type it all up, kind stranger

This is a really good idea. What program did you use to convert them?

Mostly dramas: Bones, House, Criminal Minds, NCIS. Plus Stargate SG-1

Freezing your credits means you (or anyone else) cannot access your credit report to open new lines of credit. No credit cards, mortgages, car loans, nothing.

I watch a tv show on my phone. I know it goes against all the traditional advice, blue light is bad for sleep, blah blah blah. For me, it means I can get 7 or 8 hours of sleep instead of 3.

I don’t watch just any tv though. It has to: 1. Be a show I know well enough where I can tell which character is speaking when I’m only listening. 2. Have a good amount of seasons (8 or more) so I don’t get to where I’ve memorized the episodes and my mind starts to wander. 3. Is one I know in general what’s gonna happen with the characters (so I don’t have to stay up and find out what happens) but isn’t one I love so much that I can’t stop watching. And 4. Doesn’t have a bunch of nonverbal stuff that’s important to the plot.

I have a sleep headband with little speakers in it so it doesn’t keep my partner up. When I’m ready for bed, I make sure my screen brightness is turned all the way down, I put on my sleep headphones, and I lay down and close my eyes to listen to the show. Usually I can fall asleep in less than an hour, as long as I keep my eyes closed. Otherwise I get caught up watching the show and before I know it I’ve watched 3 episodes and I’m still awake.

I’m the same way, I wouldn’t even try it if I was a passenger in a car

If you have insurance through your employer, then no the insurance company can’t raise your rates. And part of the reason for the Affordable Care Act (ACA, sometimes called Obamacare) was to make it so people who are getting the insurance themselves also can’t have their rates raised or get turned down for insurance because they have pre-existing conditions. However insurance companies can raise everyone’s rates when the insurance is up for renewal each year.

Most insurance plans have several different costs: 1. The monthly premium you pay to have insurance coverage. Some employers pay this themselves, otherwise it gets taken out of every pay check.

2. Co-pay: Usually a set amount ($30, for example) you pay to see a doctor for office appointments that aren’t an annual check-up*. So say I get an ear infection and see my primary doctor to get it treated, I’d pay the co-pay for that visit. Sometimes things like x-rays, blood work, CTs can be a set amount, other times it’s something like insurance will cover 65% of the cost. For some plans, co-pays are included when figuring out if you’ve reached your deductible.

3. Deductible: The amount you have to pay before “co-insurance” kicks in. Co-insurance being the percent of your bill insurance will pay (for us it’s 75% after we pay $3500 in a calendar year).

4. Out of pocket max: When you’ve spent this amount in a calendar year after that insurance covers 100%. Often plans have both individual and family maximums, with the family amount being higher.

Usually the more you pay in monthly premiums, the lower your deductible and out of pocket maximums will be. So each year people have to try and decide what they think their health bills will be next year when picking their plan (you can’t change plans mid-year unless something happens like changing job, getting married/divorced, having a kid). If you’re pretty healthy you might pick a lower monthly plan with higher out of pocket amounts because you don’t expect to have to pay much out of pocket. If you’re someone with a chronic condition or you’re expecting to need surgery or a costly treatment you might go with the higher monthly plan so you don’t have as high of out of pocket amounts.

For example, my spouse had to go to the ER a few years ago for what turned out to be a collapsed lung. They didn’t have to stay in the hospital overnight. I forget the total bill (or I’ve just blocked it from my memory), but our part ended up being about $5,000. Insurance kicked in after the bill got to $3,500, and they covered 75% of everything that was over $3,500. The most we would’ve paid was $6,000 (the individual out of pocket max), however we would still have to pay bills for myself and our kid up to $12,000 (family out of pocket max).

*Another part of the ACA was to make annual preventative screenings (like annual physical, mammogram for women over a certain age, prostate screening for men, etc) free.