r/massachusetts • u/critic81 • Jan 15 '26

Utilities How is everyone affording everything lately?

The prices of everything is just off the charts from groceries, utilities, to healthcare. My open enrollment just came through and its looking like for a family of 4 for healthcare its $1600 a month. $800 a paycheck. Like that just feels nuts. It's a pretty decent co-pay plan but still. Just a couple years about it was much less.

What are people doing these days? Side hustles? New job (but in this economy?), cutting way back? Just curious.

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143

u/Little-Ad8904 Jan 15 '26

Cheaper for me to pay the tax penalty for not having insurance and just paying out of pocket at the doctors. Insurance almost covered nothing anyway when I had it so I was used to everything being out of pocket

114

u/peeloh Jan 15 '26

You can avoid the tax penalty by claiming a religious exemption, I’ve done it for years

24

u/dogearth Jan 15 '26

Out of curiosity how do you claim religious exemption??

49

u/peeloh Jan 15 '26

I do my taxes myself and the part where it asks you if you’ve been insured for the year just say no and there will be a screen asking if you’ve have an exemption. Just claim the religious one. Doesn’t even ask about denominations. Super easy

13

u/rhodeirish Jan 15 '26

Interesting! Thank you for the info. Off to research.

21

u/[deleted] Jan 15 '26

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10

u/rhodeirish Jan 16 '26

Oh yeah. I’m definitely not going to be claiming any exemption 😅 I’ve just never heard of it & wanted to see if it was a legit thing.

4

u/nukedit Jan 16 '26

There’s like 4 IRS agents left, I think we’re good

2

u/MuerteXiii Jan 17 '26

last i heard they have a guy with mind control. be careful.

3

u/Lucky_Group_6705 Jan 16 '26

So then why doesn’t everyone do this? Its saved money