Zoe: Never used or were aware of HSBC. I can say that ING has performed better (for me) than WaMu, First Union (before the buyout by Wachovia), Wachovia, Bank Atlantic, Bank of America, and SunTrust. I maintain my WaMu account simply to transfer money back and forth.

On Jane–geez, people are really so judgmental and harsh on her. Pretty unfair, I think.

Coincidence they are one of Ramit’s sponsors?

On the other hand, there are plenty of people banging down the US’s doors trying to get in to get the quality of health care available here. And free coverage for certain classes of people…unfortunately, most people don’t fall into those classes.

We don’t do everything right, that’s for sure…I’d sure appreciate the 6-months maternity leave given in Canada…and other countries that have 1-3 years of maternity leave…in the US, you’re lucky to get 3-months…but that doesn’t mean that we do everything wrong, either, or that the gov’t is out to damage you for your choice to populate the planet.

I agree with you about the health care bit, I’m really glad for the level of health care I receive here in Canada.

While everything sounds rosy, I doubt I’m the ideal role model either. I accumulated a significant amount of debt in years past from bumps I’ve had in the road and a significant amount of time spent in school. (Approximately $20k in student loans and another $15k in credit card debt.) These are things which I’m not so proud to mention, but they were decisions that I do not regret. They’ve made me much more careful with how I spend my money right now when it’s most important. Since the new job, I’ve been able to apply larger payments toward my CCs (largest APR first, of course) and reduce the amount of money I accept in student loans for my final two semesters.

RT Wolf: Retirement and College funds are definitely something I want to work toward, but aren’t a part of my budget currently. My wife and I maintain a 3 month cash buffer in a savings/emergency account. Once I graduate, I can work more hours and this extra income will be divided between paying off debt more quickly, a better/longer term savings solution (thinking Roth or foreign markets), and hopefully a little toward personal desires. Work to live…not live to work, you know?

We also want to look into health insurance for our new family, but looking at the prices, it is simply not realistic on our income. We primarily only want something for the big incidents (emergency room visits, accidents). The cheapest we can find are PPOs starting at $150-200/mo which have a $2mil lifetime cap/person and $10k deductibles. Useless and horrible ROI, in my opinion. If we can’t find something better, we’re just going to start a separate account for health incidentals and invest into that. Better there than some uber-corp’s coffers. I just hope I’m not dreaming with what I’m looking for.

Dylan: Ive done a LOT to make sure our plan was cost effective. We setup a T-Mobile family plan. We pay $85/mo for 600 shared minutes between the two of us. We call each other for free and have 400 texts on each line. (Texts are a great way to reduce the minutes used! Quick messages which take less than 30 seconds are better as texts.) We have free nights and weekends and calls within my carrier are also free. Despite being sure I did the best job on this, I still submitted my bill to them. They only recommendation they had was not using carrier based 411.. (which I admonish my wife for accidentally using!) 800-GOOG-411 for anyone who doesn’t already know about this. It’s better and free, if you just need a number or directions.

rkt: I don’t plan on leaving my programming job anytime soon. I currently only work for them part-time which allows for my school schedule and some semblance of a life. I know what I have but at the same time, I understand my potential is not going to be fully realized through a regular 9 to 5, desk-jockey position. After school, I will continue to provide my best until I better opportunities come along or I feel I’m becoming stagnant there. Job hunting is too stressful to push myself into that situation more than I absolutely need to.

Cecilia: The “government shafting us” could be misinterpreted as though I felt they owed me something. Without going into details, it was questionable whether my wife and son would have their medical costs covered through pregnancy and birth. I knew that we didn’t have enough money to afford any major costs from complications if they popped up. And even if everything went fine, it was costing us $150 per obstetrician appointment (who happened to be a horrible doctor, anyway), he kept throwing tests at us which we felt were unnecessary and expensive, and constantly overbooked his office which made visits unbearable. The hospitals wanted ridiculous amounts of paperwork and insurance forms filled out. The whole process was frightening. It put us in a better position mentally and financially if we had Isaac in Norway and decided that would be the best option for our family. I kind of look at it as though our countries are corporations. America, Inc didn’t do as good of a job to meet my family’s needs and so we went with the competition.

I realize not everyone has an opportunity to be provided with a great health care system, but things here in Norway were much smoother overall. And don’t get me wrong I love America and the principles it stands for and it has some great things that you don’t find anywhere else…but health care is not one of those things.

If anyone has some suggestions regarding health care options, I’m all ears.

Hmmm…how exactly is the American gov’t shafting you with support? Just curious.