Hi Jonathan...I enjoyed your post. I too dream that one day I will have my own business. However, I have to somewhat disagree with your point about having a web site and maintaining a blog. Not all people are web savvy enough to start a web site, and not all businesses require a web site, thus having one could be more trouble than it's worth.
As one poster said, you have to look closely at the neighborhood. I think that the "bad" parts are usually not as bad as their reps. Often it is a racial issue and a bizarre idea that a black person must dress twice as nice as a white person to be considered half as good. I , too, live in a "bad" neighborhood but find that most of the people who live here are just working slobs like the rest of us. No, I wouldn't want to live in the worst neighborhood in Chicago, but there are many, many places between that and the toniest neighborhoods. There may be a "sweet spot".
Oh, and who is more likely to kill a woman in any neighborhood? A husband or boyfriend. That danger is mostly in your home, regardless of where you are...
Sharon
i agree with seriously cuz this is getting crazy and what if your own kids ate some chinese products like the one where the chinese were putting 60% cardboard in their dumplings if your kids ate that you would wanna boycott them am i right cuz even though there is the war we should boycott cuz all they are doing is making any products with anything in it just to make money i mean they could be risking someones life or even your childs life and think anti-freeze in your childs mouth or them eating dumplings with cardboard in it i mean come on people citizens and children we DO need to do something ,peoples lives are at risk im not 18YRS old yetnot even close yet but i know what im talking about and i think that if we dont do something about them importing foods and products from china it will lead to a crisis for they are literally poisoning the country of the united states and i belive that if we do not do something soon and we just sit around doing nothing about it we WILL have a major crisis on our hands in a couple of years or so and if you took the time to read this i soon hope you understand just how serious this really is it might not seem serious yet but over the years it will.
I don't think I can begin to top the curry story, and I'm very thankful for that.
My frugal disaster was when I decided that my 8-year-old son and I would take the bus from Guanajuato, Mexico to El Paso, Texas. It ended up being a 36 hour ride, during which I got no sleep, my son got locked in the bathroom and the passenger next to us vomited several times. Nuff said. Next time we'll fly.
and that his point is to stimulate discussion, so there's no need for anyone to get offended. Nobody really brought up how horribly bad suburban sprawl and commuting to work in pretentious, larger-than-necessary vehicles is for all of us?
Also, why don't more employers allow at least part-time telecommuting?
Admittedly it's a very complicated problem, which has yet to be solved effectively.
We were a young military family with little money to spare. My husband had a temporary assignment for 6 months and we couldn't afford to move our furniture so we decided to rent. We found a nice house to rent but it was unfurnished so we hit the want ads, trying to find the basics to get us through. We answered an ad from someone selling a rather nice-sounding sofa and chair for little money. They told us to come that afternoon and to bring a truck so we rented one and went there, as instructed. The furniture had those plastic slipcovers on it, the kind your legs stick to when you sit on it. The price was right and the furniture looked good so off we went and put the furniture right in place in our house. We decided we couldn't stand the plastic covers so we took them off and all was well until later that night.
We decided to go enjoy our new furniture so we went to the living room, flipped on the lights and.....roaches running everywhere! Dozens of them, hundreds of them! Roaches gone wild! The furniture was infested but we didn't know until it got dark and they came out, happy to be free of their plastic prison!
I have a great phobia of bugs. We tried calling the people from whom we bought the furniture but they wouldn't talk to us. We begged them to take the furniture back and they hung up on us. They were free of their problem and now we were stuck with it. They didn't seem to care at all.
e had to have the house exterminated and then needed maintenence visits every month after that. We had to get rid of the disgusting furniture and I was so traumatized that I had to sleep with lights on all night, trying to keep away any stragglers.
It was a mistake we never made again. The next time someone wants to sell you their furniture, beware of plastic slipcovers and be sure to inspect the bottom of it at night,....and bring a flashlight.
We have turtles. They cost about $5 each when we got them. They've lasted 5 years so far, we keep them in an old fish aquarium. They are the ultimate low maintenance survivor pet- once during a move we forgot and left them in the car overnight (in December). I guess they just hibernated or something, because they were alive under the ice!
And, they'll eat crickets, spiders, and moths caught around the house; my husband even taught ours to swim up to the glass and "knock" for food.
This is a great analysis, but it is true that there are a lot of other factors that would need to be factored in (amenities in the area, other crimes such as robbery, etc.), as some commenters have pointed out. It's amazing how few people are able to tell the difference between REAL and PERCEIVED risk. I don't think most Americans realize just how dangerous driving is, probably because it's an activity we engage in so often.
A great example of how this lack of understanding and the clouding of the mind by emotions occurs is the reaction to the events on 9/11. How many people died on 9/11? About 3000 or so? Well, over 3500 *innocent people* die EVERY YEAR due to drunk drivers. Yet most people, especially our lawmakers, thought that the appropriate response was to spend billions of dollars to fight wars, establish a Department of Homeland Security, erode our rights as citizens via the PATRIOT Act, and so on. If these people are so affected by the loss of 3000 strangers' lives, why aren't they rallying for things to be done to catch these drunk drivers? How about forming a Department of DUI? How about requiring breathalyzers in every vehicle? How about stationing our troops outside of bars to catch those "terrorist" drunk drivers before they kill more Americans. Why aren't we spying on our citizens by monitoring liquor-store video to see who's engaging in suspicious alcohol purchasing activities? Where's the war on drunk driving?
Or is a foreigner killing an American somehow worse than an American killing an American? It's sad that some deaths are deemed "worse" than others. Further evidence of this bias can be found when the media makes a big issue out of some pretty, young, blond girl goes missing in Aruba, while many other people go missing each year without getting such an outcry and outlay of resources.
If protecting American's lives and quality of lives is supposed to be such a priority, how about spending those billions of dollars on issues that are REALLY a threat, like fighting heart disease, or cancer, or diabetes?
If you're in a pinch, conditioner also doubles well as shaving cream. I always take about four times as long to finish a bottle of conditioner (probably well over a year), so I sometimes use it this way.
Also, I wanted to mention that instead of buying fancy masks or facial cleansers, there are many natural ones that can easily be made from the pantry. Like with oatmeal, honey, egg white or yolk, etc. I love doing this and there's no scary ingredient list to read.
I partially agree. Statistically, you're correct. Just like it's safer to fly than drive. However, there are so many other factors to consider in your analysis that play into the big picture (and the little picture). For violent crimes, is this primarily gang-related? Are the murders random? Really, what are your chances of being randomly murdered in the neighborhood? Probably zero. However, as a "nicer resident", what are your chances of break-ins, car thefts, etc.? Likely greater than average.
For the commute, how safe of a driver are you? I'm willing to bet most accidents can be traced to not paying attention, and while you can't factor in the crappy drivers around you, eliminating yourself as a potential driving threat probably decreases the percentage greatly.
Personally, I live far enough from work to where I have to drive, but in a neighborhood that, while not suburbian, is also not too entrenched in crime to where I feel really unsafe. My apartment faces a road that police use often, at no more cost than the ones in dark, shady locations. If I had children, you bet I would be deep in the suburbs. Just the risk of violent crime is enough to sway me to a longer commute.
So, I think you're right in some ways, but you also have to factor in a lot of other things to make a decent decision about it (as in, how much are you willing to pay extra per month, both monetarily and emotionally, for personal feelings of security).
I lived in poor neighborhoods for years - getting cat-called by men while I walked to laundromats, being stared down while walking past convenience stores, pawn shops, liquor stores, dollar stores on the way to the grocery store. Being woken up at 3am by violent argument outside my door in the parking lot including threats of stabbing. Rental apartments where cockroaches run over your hand while you sleep.
We're quite happy now with our 20 min. commute from a treed, nice neighborhood where kids ride bicycles, thank you very much. Especially now that we have a child.
About twenty years ago, when I was five or six, my family went on a trip to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. This was long before Pigeon Forge became what it is today; back then, it was pretty small, and there weren't a lot of shops and restaurants around. My mother, in one of her flashes of frugal brilliance, booked us into a motel miles from anything, because it was the cheapest in town.
Of course, our car broke down just in time for dinner, so we set out to walk. Unfortunately, we walked in the wrong direction, away from the few places there were to eat. We made it about five miles or so (probably less than that, but it seemed like it to me) before we realized what we did, and turned around to go in the other direction. We made it back to the motel, exhausted, and still hungry, so we had to just keep walking. The first place we came to that we could get something to eat was a small convenience store. Apparently, someone else had the same problem, because all they had was a container of ham salad and a package of hotdog buns. So, we ended up exhausted, eating ham salad on hotdog buns, miles from anywhere.
Moral of the story: Cheap is nice, but never book into a hotel without food within smelling distance.
My father is a "DIY" guy as well, and actually a good one. Us kids, however, who were always nominated to be his helpers...were not as good as he. But, as his children, we were automatically his cheap help. Why hire someone to do the job when you have 3 kids? One summer, we got an above ground pool, which, to save money, he was going to put up himself..unfortunately, we got the job of helping. We spent an entire summer digging the hole. I will never forget that summer, I was only 12, my Sister 14 and my brother 15. Yes, you have to dig a hole for an above ground pool, not a deep one, but a hole nonetheless. Disgruntled workers we were, spending our summer digging a hole in the Florida heat, and then having to "sift out all rocks, sticks and debris" to ensure the liner would not tear....as young kids, we did a half-hearted effort to say the least, especially since he was at work and not there to supervise. There were many kool aid breaks! After the hole was done and the pool was up.....he ended up having to drain entire the pool 3 times to get rocks out from under the liner, (which we missed in our half hearted effort, and he found with his bare feet trolling the bottom) to ensure they did not rip the liner! He probably could have hired 2 guys to do the job for less than the cost of the water to refill that pool twice!
...that the dangerousness of driving is underrated.
I also get to feel good because I've chosen to live in an 'iffy' area that has a very short commute rather than live further out and commute further. And if I'm completely honest, I'd rather be the victim of violent crime than die in a car crash.
Thank you for the inspiration. I am beginning to realize how important it is to follow your dreams. I cannot stay comfortable just getting by saving money and holding back on my passions because of complacency. I have started planning things out myself, (The "six-to-twelve month plan")
If I am fortunate to have kids one day, I wouldn't want to tell them, that you can be anything or pursue anything that you want in life and not have me as an example of that.
There was so many things distracting me from pursuing my dreams, like fear.
the comments about not wanting your child to be offered drugs when living in a lower-income/higher crime area are unfounded. your child(ren) will be exposed to all manner of drugs, over and over growing up irreguardless of where you live. you cant control that, you can only try to give your kids the kojones to resist the temptation to use them.
as far as safty goes, taking your personal safty and that of your family serious is obviosuly an important thing to do, living in a low crime area may technicly reduce your statistical chances of being victimized but it doesnt rule them out. for anyone really concerned with this issue I'd reccomend takign a closer look at what you can do as far as self defense, does your state/municipality even allow you to do so? personally I'd rather live in the dankest most crime ridden city that doesnt punish me for defending myself or my family then the nicest picket fence suburb that does.
dave p.
Short commutes are safer; that is fairly intuitive. However, I don't think it is fair to gloss over many of the other problems with inner city living. That daily hassles of more people, noise, fear of crime, et cetera can be detrimental to health in a far more profound manner than any one stressor in the long run.
Don't get me wrong, I think it is a great idea to encourage middle-class families to return to the city. One middle or upper class family is a poor community greatly can greatly impact the health of the entire community.
I'd be sad if what everyone takes from this post is "That guy thinks we should live in dangerous neighborhoods."
I'd be pleased, though, if a few people come away thinking, "When I make one of the most important decisions of my life, it might be worth doing some serious thinking--maybe even some research and analysis--rather than just going with gut feel."
I went with the extreme case of a really dangerous neighborhood, because I thought it provided an upper bound. The interesting cases are where the neighborhood may be a little iffy, but also has plenty of positives. The same kind of analysis works in those cases. I think it's worth the effort.
Thanks for your stories. Where I live, it seems that the physicians/offices (most of which are owned by the large healthcare organizations) let the insurance companies drive their practices rather than the other way around (and this does drive me crazy). For example, I was looking for a dermatologist not too long along and I was debating between two, both of which I had heard good things about. One was listed on a website with skin cancer info so I called and asked to make an appointment. I was told that I had to have a referral from my physician, who had told me to see a dermatologist if I was concerned about a certain skin spot (which turned out to be innocuous) a few months earlier. By the time I paid for the primary doctor's visit, any money that I would have saved on my medical insurance from getting the referral would have been cancelled out. The dermatologist #1, I suppose, wanted to make sure that she would get paid by the insurance company. I didn't try to convince #1's office staff that its policy was silly, unprofitable, and counter-to-preventive medicine, so I went with the other dermatologist.
My concern, though, is that someone would build up a nice-sized portfolio and then suffer a major illness (cancer, heart attack), and lose their investments to pay for medical bills.
I have heard that medical illnesses are a leading cause of bankruptcy but here's an interesting study that suggests that lack of coverage (rather than initial lack of insurance) is the culprit.
Hi Jonathan...I enjoyed your post. I too dream that one day I will have my own business. However, I have to somewhat disagree with your point about having a web site and maintaining a blog. Not all people are web savvy enough to start a web site, and not all businesses require a web site, thus having one could be more trouble than it's worth.
As one poster said, you have to look closely at the neighborhood. I think that the "bad" parts are usually not as bad as their reps. Often it is a racial issue and a bizarre idea that a black person must dress twice as nice as a white person to be considered half as good. I , too, live in a "bad" neighborhood but find that most of the people who live here are just working slobs like the rest of us. No, I wouldn't want to live in the worst neighborhood in Chicago, but there are many, many places between that and the toniest neighborhoods. There may be a "sweet spot".
Oh, and who is more likely to kill a woman in any neighborhood? A husband or boyfriend. That danger is mostly in your home, regardless of where you are...
Sharon
i agree with seriously cuz this is getting crazy and what if your own kids ate some chinese products like the one where the chinese were putting 60% cardboard in their dumplings if your kids ate that you would wanna boycott them am i right cuz even though there is the war we should boycott cuz all they are doing is making any products with anything in it just to make money i mean they could be risking someones life or even your childs life and think anti-freeze in your childs mouth or them eating dumplings with cardboard in it i mean come on people citizens and children we DO need to do something ,peoples lives are at risk im not 18YRS old yetnot even close yet but i know what im talking about and i think that if we dont do something about them importing foods and products from china it will lead to a crisis for they are literally poisoning the country of the united states and i belive that if we do not do something soon and we just sit around doing nothing about it we WILL have a major crisis on our hands in a couple of years or so and if you took the time to read this i soon hope you understand just how serious this really is it might not seem serious yet but over the years it will.
I don't think I can begin to top the curry story, and I'm very thankful for that.
My frugal disaster was when I decided that my 8-year-old son and I would take the bus from Guanajuato, Mexico to El Paso, Texas. It ended up being a 36 hour ride, during which I got no sleep, my son got locked in the bathroom and the passenger next to us vomited several times. Nuff said. Next time we'll fly.
Hannah, that's TERRIBLE.
And it's giving me inspiration for a "How to deal with people who have screwed you over" post.
and that his point is to stimulate discussion, so there's no need for anyone to get offended. Nobody really brought up how horribly bad suburban sprawl and commuting to work in pretentious, larger-than-necessary vehicles is for all of us?
Also, why don't more employers allow at least part-time telecommuting?
Admittedly it's a very complicated problem, which has yet to be solved effectively.
-Billy Bathgates Protection Services Inc.
We were a young military family with little money to spare. My husband had a temporary assignment for 6 months and we couldn't afford to move our furniture so we decided to rent. We found a nice house to rent but it was unfurnished so we hit the want ads, trying to find the basics to get us through. We answered an ad from someone selling a rather nice-sounding sofa and chair for little money. They told us to come that afternoon and to bring a truck so we rented one and went there, as instructed. The furniture had those plastic slipcovers on it, the kind your legs stick to when you sit on it. The price was right and the furniture looked good so off we went and put the furniture right in place in our house. We decided we couldn't stand the plastic covers so we took them off and all was well until later that night.
We decided to go enjoy our new furniture so we went to the living room, flipped on the lights and.....roaches running everywhere! Dozens of them, hundreds of them! Roaches gone wild! The furniture was infested but we didn't know until it got dark and they came out, happy to be free of their plastic prison!
I have a great phobia of bugs. We tried calling the people from whom we bought the furniture but they wouldn't talk to us. We begged them to take the furniture back and they hung up on us. They were free of their problem and now we were stuck with it. They didn't seem to care at all.
e had to have the house exterminated and then needed maintenence visits every month after that. We had to get rid of the disgusting furniture and I was so traumatized that I had to sleep with lights on all night, trying to keep away any stragglers.
It was a mistake we never made again. The next time someone wants to sell you their furniture, beware of plastic slipcovers and be sure to inspect the bottom of it at night,....and bring a flashlight.
Yeah, but how much more dangerous is it to drive in S. Chicago vs. the suburbs?
We have turtles. They cost about $5 each when we got them. They've lasted 5 years so far, we keep them in an old fish aquarium. They are the ultimate low maintenance survivor pet- once during a move we forgot and left them in the car overnight (in December). I guess they just hibernated or something, because they were alive under the ice!
And, they'll eat crickets, spiders, and moths caught around the house; my husband even taught ours to swim up to the glass and "knock" for food.
This is a great analysis, but it is true that there are a lot of other factors that would need to be factored in (amenities in the area, other crimes such as robbery, etc.), as some commenters have pointed out. It's amazing how few people are able to tell the difference between REAL and PERCEIVED risk. I don't think most Americans realize just how dangerous driving is, probably because it's an activity we engage in so often.
A great example of how this lack of understanding and the clouding of the mind by emotions occurs is the reaction to the events on 9/11. How many people died on 9/11? About 3000 or so? Well, over 3500 *innocent people* die EVERY YEAR due to drunk drivers. Yet most people, especially our lawmakers, thought that the appropriate response was to spend billions of dollars to fight wars, establish a Department of Homeland Security, erode our rights as citizens via the PATRIOT Act, and so on. If these people are so affected by the loss of 3000 strangers' lives, why aren't they rallying for things to be done to catch these drunk drivers? How about forming a Department of DUI? How about requiring breathalyzers in every vehicle? How about stationing our troops outside of bars to catch those "terrorist" drunk drivers before they kill more Americans. Why aren't we spying on our citizens by monitoring liquor-store video to see who's engaging in suspicious alcohol purchasing activities? Where's the war on drunk driving?
Or is a foreigner killing an American somehow worse than an American killing an American? It's sad that some deaths are deemed "worse" than others. Further evidence of this bias can be found when the media makes a big issue out of some pretty, young, blond girl goes missing in Aruba, while many other people go missing each year without getting such an outcry and outlay of resources.
If protecting American's lives and quality of lives is supposed to be such a priority, how about spending those billions of dollars on issues that are REALLY a threat, like fighting heart disease, or cancer, or diabetes?
Very sad.
If you're in a pinch, conditioner also doubles well as shaving cream. I always take about four times as long to finish a bottle of conditioner (probably well over a year), so I sometimes use it this way.
Also, I wanted to mention that instead of buying fancy masks or facial cleansers, there are many natural ones that can easily be made from the pantry. Like with oatmeal, honey, egg white or yolk, etc. I love doing this and there's no scary ingredient list to read.
I partially agree. Statistically, you're correct. Just like it's safer to fly than drive. However, there are so many other factors to consider in your analysis that play into the big picture (and the little picture). For violent crimes, is this primarily gang-related? Are the murders random? Really, what are your chances of being randomly murdered in the neighborhood? Probably zero. However, as a "nicer resident", what are your chances of break-ins, car thefts, etc.? Likely greater than average.
For the commute, how safe of a driver are you? I'm willing to bet most accidents can be traced to not paying attention, and while you can't factor in the crappy drivers around you, eliminating yourself as a potential driving threat probably decreases the percentage greatly.
Personally, I live far enough from work to where I have to drive, but in a neighborhood that, while not suburbian, is also not too entrenched in crime to where I feel really unsafe. My apartment faces a road that police use often, at no more cost than the ones in dark, shady locations. If I had children, you bet I would be deep in the suburbs. Just the risk of violent crime is enough to sway me to a longer commute.
So, I think you're right in some ways, but you also have to factor in a lot of other things to make a decent decision about it (as in, how much are you willing to pay extra per month, both monetarily and emotionally, for personal feelings of security).
I lived in poor neighborhoods for years - getting cat-called by men while I walked to laundromats, being stared down while walking past convenience stores, pawn shops, liquor stores, dollar stores on the way to the grocery store. Being woken up at 3am by violent argument outside my door in the parking lot including threats of stabbing. Rental apartments where cockroaches run over your hand while you sleep.
We're quite happy now with our 20 min. commute from a treed, nice neighborhood where kids ride bicycles, thank you very much. Especially now that we have a child.
these are very big in Australia! these guys have them heaps cheap on sale too. My bf and i got a pair each!
they're fun!
www.adeptgear.com
About twenty years ago, when I was five or six, my family went on a trip to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. This was long before Pigeon Forge became what it is today; back then, it was pretty small, and there weren't a lot of shops and restaurants around. My mother, in one of her flashes of frugal brilliance, booked us into a motel miles from anything, because it was the cheapest in town.
Of course, our car broke down just in time for dinner, so we set out to walk. Unfortunately, we walked in the wrong direction, away from the few places there were to eat. We made it about five miles or so (probably less than that, but it seemed like it to me) before we realized what we did, and turned around to go in the other direction. We made it back to the motel, exhausted, and still hungry, so we had to just keep walking. The first place we came to that we could get something to eat was a small convenience store. Apparently, someone else had the same problem, because all they had was a container of ham salad and a package of hotdog buns. So, we ended up exhausted, eating ham salad on hotdog buns, miles from anywhere.
Moral of the story: Cheap is nice, but never book into a hotel without food within smelling distance.
My father is a "DIY" guy as well, and actually a good one. Us kids, however, who were always nominated to be his helpers...were not as good as he. But, as his children, we were automatically his cheap help. Why hire someone to do the job when you have 3 kids? One summer, we got an above ground pool, which, to save money, he was going to put up himself..unfortunately, we got the job of helping. We spent an entire summer digging the hole. I will never forget that summer, I was only 12, my Sister 14 and my brother 15. Yes, you have to dig a hole for an above ground pool, not a deep one, but a hole nonetheless. Disgruntled workers we were, spending our summer digging a hole in the Florida heat, and then having to "sift out all rocks, sticks and debris" to ensure the liner would not tear....as young kids, we did a half-hearted effort to say the least, especially since he was at work and not there to supervise. There were many kool aid breaks! After the hole was done and the pool was up.....he ended up having to drain entire the pool 3 times to get rocks out from under the liner, (which we missed in our half hearted effort, and he found with his bare feet trolling the bottom) to ensure they did not rip the liner! He probably could have hired 2 guys to do the job for less than the cost of the water to refill that pool twice!
...that the dangerousness of driving is underrated.
I also get to feel good because I've chosen to live in an 'iffy' area that has a very short commute rather than live further out and commute further. And if I'm completely honest, I'd rather be the victim of violent crime than die in a car crash.
Alot of these topics here have crossed my mind at some point, thanks.
Thank you for the inspiration. I am beginning to realize how important it is to follow your dreams. I cannot stay comfortable just getting by saving money and holding back on my passions because of complacency. I have started planning things out myself, (The "six-to-twelve month plan")
If I am fortunate to have kids one day, I wouldn't want to tell them, that you can be anything or pursue anything that you want in life and not have me as an example of that.
There was so many things distracting me from pursuing my dreams, like fear.
Thank you all
Is to find the 'sweet spot' of where your commute is not long but the neighborhood is not bad.
the comments about not wanting your child to be offered drugs when living in a lower-income/higher crime area are unfounded. your child(ren) will be exposed to all manner of drugs, over and over growing up irreguardless of where you live. you cant control that, you can only try to give your kids the kojones to resist the temptation to use them.
as far as safty goes, taking your personal safty and that of your family serious is obviosuly an important thing to do, living in a low crime area may technicly reduce your statistical chances of being victimized but it doesnt rule them out. for anyone really concerned with this issue I'd reccomend takign a closer look at what you can do as far as self defense, does your state/municipality even allow you to do so? personally I'd rather live in the dankest most crime ridden city that doesnt punish me for defending myself or my family then the nicest picket fence suburb that does.
dave p.
Short commutes are safer; that is fairly intuitive. However, I don't think it is fair to gloss over many of the other problems with inner city living. That daily hassles of more people, noise, fear of crime, et cetera can be detrimental to health in a far more profound manner than any one stressor in the long run.
Don't get me wrong, I think it is a great idea to encourage middle-class families to return to the city. One middle or upper class family is a poor community greatly can greatly impact the health of the entire community.
It's not Morse Code for "I'm an idiot," but does happen to spell out "I M EMS" in Morse. "I am Emergency Medical Services (EMS)"? Interesting.
I'd be sad if what everyone takes from this post is "That guy thinks we should live in dangerous neighborhoods."
I'd be pleased, though, if a few people come away thinking, "When I make one of the most important decisions of my life, it might be worth doing some serious thinking--maybe even some research and analysis--rather than just going with gut feel."
I went with the extreme case of a really dangerous neighborhood, because I thought it provided an upper bound. The interesting cases are where the neighborhood may be a little iffy, but also has plenty of positives. The same kind of analysis works in those cases. I think it's worth the effort.
Thanks for your stories. Where I live, it seems that the physicians/offices (most of which are owned by the large healthcare organizations) let the insurance companies drive their practices rather than the other way around (and this does drive me crazy). For example, I was looking for a dermatologist not too long along and I was debating between two, both of which I had heard good things about. One was listed on a website with skin cancer info so I called and asked to make an appointment. I was told that I had to have a referral from my physician, who had told me to see a dermatologist if I was concerned about a certain skin spot (which turned out to be innocuous) a few months earlier. By the time I paid for the primary doctor's visit, any money that I would have saved on my medical insurance from getting the referral would have been cancelled out. The dermatologist #1, I suppose, wanted to make sure that she would get paid by the insurance company. I didn't try to convince #1's office staff that its policy was silly, unprofitable, and counter-to-preventive medicine, so I went with the other dermatologist.
My concern, though, is that someone would build up a nice-sized portfolio and then suffer a major illness (cancer, heart attack), and lose their investments to pay for medical bills.
I have heard that medical illnesses are a leading cause of bankruptcy but here's an interesting study that suggests that lack of coverage (rather than initial lack of insurance) is the culprit.