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Welcome to Money As If, the surprise 15% discount your favorite retailer just offered you at checkout. Today’s coupon codes:
It’s health insurance hunting season
BNPL haunts me
Good gifts under $50
— Jeanine
IN THESE, OUR (POSSIBLE) END TIMES
Welcome to Health Insurance Open Enrollment season!
It’s a doozy, because as you may have heard, health insurance prices are increasing pretty much across the board next year.
2026 Affordable Care Act (ACA) plan premiums are more than doubling for the average enrollee, thanks largely to the looming expiration of key subsidies (a major point of political contention driving the ongoing government shutdown).
Wah, wah.
Employer-sponsored health care plans are weathering the largest jump in health benefit costs in 15 years, and Medicare is facing its own challenges, including higher premiums, increased catastrophic thresholds, and slimmer networks.
In other words …
There’s a good chance you’ll pay more for coverage next year, so it’s probably worth at least checking your options during open enrollment this year, even if you weren’t planning to. You could save yourself some necessary funds by making changes to your elections.
As you may recall, we had to switch plans this year because our old one was canceled. I was pleasantly (?) surprised to find coverage on the New Jersey ACA exchange that was decidedly more affordable. Still very, very expensive, mind you, at $1,274 per month or a whopping $15,288 per year, but yes, more affordable than the $1,713 we have been paying, and a relief, TBH, given that other families are facing much, much worse.
Yes, these prices, for me and for Mark, are absolutely ridiculous. No, there is nothing I, at least, can do about it, unless Congress extends enhanced ACA subsidies and loosens eligibility verification, which the One Big Beautiful Bill just tightened, so we don’t run the risk of spending a year uninsured. Health insurance in America, my friends! It's… not good. Anyway …
If you’re worried about sky-high coverage costs
Here’s a crash course in shopping for and finding an affordable — or at least “more” affordable — health care plan.
Bookmark these dates. ACA open enrollment started on Nov. 1 and runs through Jan. 15, 2026, but you’ll need to enroll in a plan by Dec. 15, 2025, if you don’t want to experience a coverage gap. Medicare open enrollment began on Oct. 15 and ends on Dec. 7, with a second enrollment period for Medicare Advantage beneficiaries running from Jan. 1 to March 31, 2026. Most employers run open enrollment for the new year in November.
Know your PPOs, HMOs, and EPOs: Preferred Provider Organizations (PPOs) offer more flexibility and have better networks than Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs), but HMOs are generally more cost-effective. Exclusive Provider Organization (EPOs) fall somewhere in between.
Check provider networks, because they are changing across ACA, Medicare, and employer-sponsored plans as insurers look for ways to
increase profitscurb costs. You’ll want to ensure your primary physician and preferred doctors are covered, or at least know if you have to make a switch to be eligible for coverage.Look into high-deductible health care plans (HDHPs). Labeled as Bronze plans on the ACA exchanges but also sometimes offered as an option by employers, these plans require you to pay a lot out-of-pocket before your coverage kicks in, but they’re monthly premiums are (usually) much lower. HDHPs could be an option if you’re young and healthy and want or need to skip a big monthly bill. You should open a health savings plan (HSA), however, if you decide to enroll in one.
HDHPs aren’t quite the same as Catastrophic health insurance, no matter what the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) tries to tell you. The latter only covers the ACA’s ten essential benefits after you pay your deductible, which matches the annual maximum out-of-pocket spending limit of $10,600 for individual coverage and $21,200 for a family plan. (Standard HDHP deductibles are generally not that high.)
There are still ACA premium tax credits. They just only apply to people whose household income is at least 100% and no more than 400% of the federal poverty line (FPL) for your family size (as of right now at least). There are also cost-sharing reductions (CSRs), which help with deductibles, copays, and out-of-pocket maximums for people with a household income between 100% and 250% of the FPL. You must enroll in an ACA Silver plan to get CSRs.
Got health insurance shopping questions? Email [email protected] and I’ll try to help!
Find your customers on Roku this Black Friday
As with any digital ad campaign, the important thing is to reach streaming audiences who will convert. To that end, Roku’s self-service Ads Manager stands ready with powerful segmentation and targeting options. After all, you know your customers, and we know our streaming audience.
Worried it’s too late to spin up new Black Friday creative? With Roku Ads Manager, you can easily import and augment existing creative assets from your social channels. We also have AI-assisted upscaling, so every ad is primed for CTV.
Once you’ve done this, then you can easily set up A/B tests to flight different creative variants and Black Friday offers. If you’re a Shopify brand, you can even run shoppable ads directly on-screen so viewers can purchase with just a click of their Roku remote.
Bonus: we’re gifting you $5K in ad credits when you spend your first $5K on Roku Ads Manager. Just sign up and use code GET5K. Terms apply.
RECEIPTS
Bad
I’ve grown so accustomed to seeing "Buy Now, Pay Later" at checkout that I usually gloss over it, but this was the first time I saw the option proudly advertised on a targeted Facebook ad. And, reader, I hate it.
It’s not so much the payment option itself. I can concede that, on some level, BNPL may — may — help people who can’t obtain traditional financing or allow them to avoid the high annual percentage rates (APRs) associated with credit cards (though I have some strong, more nuanced thoughts about that, too).
But what I can’t take, at all, is the retailer’s implication that you can or should pay this way. I mean, I’ve never seen a Facebook ad suggest I buy stuff with my credit card, but maybe someone else has?
Anyway, these Cole Haan shoes are $69.95, and you can Klarna them for four bi-monthly payments of $17.49, three monthly payments of $23.86 (which adds $2.88 in interest), or six monthly payments of $12.14 (which adds $2.88 in interest).
That might sound relatively reasonable, but a debt is a debt, so consider this a friendly reminder to not let Cole Haan or Klarna or any other company suggesting BNPL for non-essential goods or services convince you otherwise.
FRESH GREEN
Nowadays, most financial takes are boilerplate. These aren't.
ICYMI: The Fed cut rates by a quarter of a percentage point on Money As If’s off-week. Here’s what that means for your money.
If you’re looking for a "glass-half-full" way to think about the AI boom (or bubble), well, look no further: Economists say the tech could curb inflation … but mostly by causing so many job losses, businesses will have to lower prices so unemployed and underemployed people can actually buy things.
THIRST TAP
In preparation for the holiday season …
Good
Screenshot from KateSpade.com
I give you the That Sparkle Princess Cut Large Studs, which look like a million bucks, but cost $48 — and Kate Spade, in general, which I’ve long found to be a reliable source of impressive, but not prohibitively expensive holiday gifts. (I gave my mom this masterpiece a few years ago. If I recall correctly, it also cost around $50.)
Shop its sale tag or "Gifts Under $100” page if you need a little inspo.
Got questions, comments, receipts, tips, thirst traps, etc. you’d like to share? Send them to [email protected].
This article is for educational purposes only. We don’t recommend or advise individuals to buy, not buy, sell, or not sell particular investments or other assets, as everyone’s circumstances are different. Also, it’s your money and ultimately up to you to decide the best use for it.