Lifetime member

There are many advantages to getting older.  One of them is my natural parks senior pass (used to be called the Golden Eagle pass which I liked the name of much better) that allows for free access to all natural parks, forts, monuments, etc.  Next is probably all those senior discounts that you see at restaurants, shops and other retail outlets that provide me with anywhere from 10 to 20% discounts on services.  The next in line would have to be my new Medicare card that covers my health insurance costs.  It was something that concerned me quite a bit but my health insurance costs dropped by over 80% by going onto Medicare.  Certainly a nice financial surprise, but the most important asset for getting older for me personally is that I just received the attached letter from the American Dental Association.  It indicates that I have been a member of the Dental Society for 40 years and have turned 65 years old, so therefore I am now “Life Member.”  To put that in perspective, the SDDS, the local component of the ADA has over 1,400 dentists and only about 20 of them are life members.  It says in the letter “when you receive your life member pin please wear it with pride.”  I will definitely do that and the next time I see you at the office I will be wearing my life member pin, as I do believe it reflects my many years of work to prove the dental health of our community. In addition, I no longer have to pay my membership dues which is once again a nice financial advantage for getting older.  See you on my next blog.

Why Solar?

Many of you will have already noticed that we have solar panels on the roof at the office and you might be thinking that I have “Gone Green” despite my previous blogs regarding climate change.  Actually, that would not be correct.  I am a firm non-believer in global warming as I stated before.  I believe there are variations in our climate that are definitely not primarily caused by man/made issues.  Mother nature is the one who controls the planet for us visitors and in 10 million years (a blink of an eye to Mother nature) we will all be gone and she will still be here doing her thing without us.  Instead, the reason for our solar panels is primarily financial.  While most of you that have residential SMUD service you pay between 11 and 12 cents per kilowatt hour our rates can be almost 30 cents a kilowatt hour.  That leaves me with a $1000.00 a month SMUD bill pretty much all year round on a building that is approximately 3500 square feet.  We have already completed many title 24 processes to try to decrease our bills, like our R-58 attic insulation and new HVAC unit.  Therefore, it is now time to hop onto the solar power band wagon to cut our costs. We use the Sacramento county Ygrene program for financing so I can get the tax credits as well as writing off the financing in order to make the project affordable.  I would not say that the process is been devout of challenges.  But I firmly believe that it will pay off for itself in the end. As for those of you that are contemplating solar I do agree with my SMUD advisor that chasing pennies with dollars is not a great idea. Do everything you can to save energy costs prior to attempting solar. You would be surprised how high efficiency appliances or insulation, new HVAC and windows or shade trees, etc. can cut your bills.  But if you do decide that solar is the way to go, shop around there are tons of suppliers and a huge variation in prices and features.

See you at my next blog.