qbteachmt
Level 15

I tend to review with my clients all their money functions and needs, such as umbrella coverage, E&O, business auto insurance, key employee, medical and retirement (I do benefit planning), investment management, vendor accounts, even business purchase and selling evaluations. A lot of these are because I realized no one else was working with my small business bookkeeping students as an overall perspective, trying to get themselves into business or stay in business or break through an expansion bottleneck.

Local resources are available pretty much everywhere. We have local classes provided by the County Aging Services (a Federally funded program in all counties, by the way, and ours just got a tax mill levy passed for additional support) and they include a reference manual for the year you qualify, and they review all the options. I sent my spouse and that provided enough info for me without having to attend the class, to counsel my clients:

https://missoulaagingservices.org/get-help/medicare-finances/medicare-medicaid-assistance.html

We also had a couple of one-day conferences with workshops over the years sponsored by our State insurance commissioner, which I attended the local one, with breakout sessions for financial topics, provided by the State and in conjunction with MSU (Bozeman) extension office (example):

http://www.mtmfec.org/penny-money-matters-for-montana-women-conference-in-billings/

The MSU extension people are amazing. They provide online access to resources and recordings and web-based sessions and you can sign up and get email schedules, all free:

https://www.montana.edu/extension/solidfinances/pastrecordings.html

Back in the dark ages when I worked for a legacy State minerals, metals, extraction and refining company (which became part of ARCO, now part of BP), a coworker told me about an MSU offering where they mailed Q&A and survey packets every week and you did home study. Basically a personal finance course. I would not be where I am today if not for these resources.

There is one from 2021 for Medicare, at that site.

Marketplace just released some great info on this, because it is open enrollment:

https://www.marketplace.org/2022/12/05/whats-the-difference-between-traditional-medicare-and-medicar...

I listen to NPR and a lot of podcasts:

https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/how-advantageous-is-the-private-option-...

Cable TV is Ad-driven, so you know it's biased.

 

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