u/Tweetchly

We have Fepblue (BCBS), but I don’t think it covers Silver Sneakers. Do any of the other healthcare plans cover this program? It would save us a bunch of money at our health club.

EDIT: I’m not looking to drop FEHB. I’m wondering if any other FEHB plans cover Silver Sneakers. BCBS (Fepblue) does not.

My husband was finalized last month and received his first full pension payment this week. No sign yet of any retroactive pay for the interim before he was finalized. After insurance and taxes, he should still get additional money.

Those of you who have been finalized, when did you receive your retroactive pay?

Looking for a liquid hand soap that won’t further dry out my lizard skin. I’ve been using Caldrea’s Sea Salt Neroli forever (love the scent), and it’s not bad. But I’d love to find something more moisturizing.

My formerly curly hair has been straight and blah for years. I thought it was just age. But I recently stopped taking a couple meds, and my wavy hair is back! I’m wondering if there’s a link. Have you noticed a loss of curl due to meds, and if so what were they?

For the past few days, the archive dot ___ sites all seem stuck on captcha loops. Anyone else experiencing this? Any idea what’s going on? (I’m using an iPhone.)

I started Medicare in May. In April I prepaid for May, June, and July, paid to Medicare.

I start Social Security this month. I start receiving payments next month.

Today I got a letter from SS telling me what my check will be next month. No IRMAA. All good.

Near the end of the letter they mention they will be withholding $881 in “past-due Medicare premiums” from my check.

There are no past-due premiums. Apparently Medicare and SS aren’t communicating.

Has anyone else had this happen? How did you solve it?

(I’ve been on hold with SS for 2 hours just trying to make an appointment. The earliest appointment I could make online was mid-July.)

UPDATE: Talked to someone at the national SS office (after fruitlessly waiting over 3 hours to talk to someone locally). The upshot: he can see in my file that I paid Medicare and has no idea why I’m being charged $811. Told me to check back later. Great.

I dearly miss my beloved Sandalwood Vanilla Wallflower plug-ins. Loved the dominant sandalwood note with just a touch of non-sweet vanilla. (Not a fan of sweet vanilla fragrances.)

What current BBW fragrances smell most like it?

We got notice this morning (6/3) that my husband’s pension has been finalized! He retired just two months ago at the end of March. We were expecting nothing until at least August or September based on timelines we’ve been seeing here. So this is quite the (welcome) surprise!

For context, his federal career was very straightforward — worked at one job (at the VA), no divorce, no TSP loans, etc. The only mildly unusual bit was his initial years at the VA were part time.

My husband gave 60 days’ notice. The HR person we worked with was great, very responsive. We filed everything before he retired (electronically), and she jumped right on it. During verification I noticed she had made a mistake on his application, and when I submitted his appropriate Notices of Personnel Action she corrected it immediately. (That was good advice to download those before he retired!) Payroll was also quick in submitting everything to OPM shortly after he retired.

His (net) interim payment was about 65% of what his (net) final will be.

So there we are. Maybe OPM is catching up at last?

My husband has received two interim payments so far. The second is a little higher than the first. Since it’s a direct deposit, I don’t have a pay stub that might show me why it went up.

Has this happened to anyone else? Any ideas why it would change?

His status says his account is in review after adjudication.

We are going to move my (recently retired) husband’s TSP 401K over to Vanguard for reasons that are best addressed in another thread. My question: would you move his G fund money into Vanguard’s money market account (VMFXX) or would you leave it in the G fund, and why? I keep hearing that the G fund is special and unique, but I’m not sure if it’s worth keeping.

I know little about investing so if possible please explain to me like I’m 12. Thanks.

We are going to move my (recently retired) husband’s TSP over to Vanguard for reasons that are best addressed in another thread. My question: would you move his G fund money into Vanguard’s money market account (VMFXX) or would you leave it in the G fund, and why?

I know little about investing so if possible please explain to me like I’m 12.

I just soaked some towels in a bucket with hot water and Biz for an hour. I also added a scoop of DNAse (Dirty Labs brand). Wow, did they stink afterward! Like fish or urine. Terrible.

The towels had been laundered normally last week, but one of them had had pee on it which I thought I could still faintly detect, so I decided to soak it and wash it again. Did Biz just amplify the pee for some reason?

I am now running the towels through a cycle in the washer and am hoping this will remove the stink.

We have very hard water, in case that’s a factor. But I’ve used Biz a number of times without this happening. (Though I’ve never soaked anything in it for an hour before.)

Really hoping washing these in Tide liquid with a scoop of DNAse and OxyClean will get rid of this smell.

UPDATE: Sure enough, washing in a regular load afterward eradicated the smell. It’s enlightening to me that a regular wash cycle with Biz and Dirty Labs in the past didn’t have this effect of pulling out all the stinky stuff. But soaking for an hour did. I guess those enzymes really do work best when you give them time to do their job.

Now I’m wondering what awful crap is still hiding in the rest of our laundry! 😳

I'm an Evernote refugee due to their insane price jump. I exported about 10K notes from Evernote into Bear on my Mac, which went quickly and relatively smoothly (except for all the duplicate notes, but that's another discussion).

But trying to sync my iPhone 14 is taking days. Literally. The notes came in, but the pictures are trickling in at a glacial pace. I started more than 24 hours ago, and I'd say maybe 10 percent of pictures have come in.

I have the app open on the iPhone full time at the moment, and I've stopped other apps from doing background uploading. My wifi connection is good. Is there anything else I can do to move this along?

My husband just retired, and we’re planning to move his TSP over to Vanguard. (My investments are in Vanguard.)

Is there any benefit to keeping any money behind in TSP?

My husband just retired, and we’re planning to move his TSP over to Vanguard. (My investments are in Vanguard.)

Is there any benefit to keeping any money behind in TSP?