Emily, this vote is likely NOT to pass the House, where it is scheduled for a floor vote today. Yesterday it was postponed, which is huge. That means they did not have enough yes votes to carry on and needed to do more “whipping” or negotiating. Then we heard that trump is insisting the vote be held today, ready or not and Ryan, the speaker, who has the power to schedule the votes, reluctantly agreed. If it fails it will be a huge loss to Trump and Ryan. They are in control of all both houses of congress and the executive branch and they cannot get their “flagship” legislation passed. The bill was rushed through and knocks too many people off their healthcare and is not the “repeal and replace” that Trump had promised. Some are saying they bit off way more than they could chew scheduling healthcare first. We will know more today.
I think you’re getting backlash because it’s very off putting when people make statements such as
It may not have been your intention, but it sounded as though you were looking down on those who do things like accept instant bookings as just being money hungry, like that’s somehow a bad thing. I understand and respect your hosting style. I think you may be getting this negative feedback because it sounds as though you don’t hold the same respect for hosts that may need to do things differently than you do in order to get the bills paid.
That is simply your opinion and is based on a few words and you know nothing about my intention. I had total respect for this forum until I started getting dumped on and trashed on by people who could not respect my hosting style and feel they have the right to attack me when they don’t even know me or the tone of what I am saying. Judgment is all I have experienced here. Based on nothing. I shared a way to protect one’s safety a little better that’s all. I believe in safety first and not money first and that is all I have to say. Take those words for what they are and take them any way you like I no longer care. I am done with this forum.
I agree partially. This is why we have a health savings account. We were just underfunding it and paying heavily to pay off other debt. We’ve been living (to quote Dave Ramsey) on “rice and beans” for the last 6 months or so, cutting every expense down to nothing and overpaying on our debt. We should be debt free other than our house in just over a year, and then our house should be paid off within 4-5 years after that. So we just have to rearrange things now and are getting set back a bit with this injury.
The high premium, cover everything plans are only worth it if you have any chronic or recurring illnesses in your family as you might pay $10k+ in premiums in a year. Even with this injury, we’ll still be paying less with our high deductible plan. Last year we thought our son was going to get a diagnosis of juvenile diabetes (it turned out to be a digestive issue easily fixed with chiropractic), but in the case of that the high premium plan would have been more affordable for our family. But for many families, often the high deductible plan is still cheaper because there is an out of pocket cut-off and after a certain point you pay nothing. With the high premium plans, you have to pay a premium every time and their out of pocket max once you factor in the premiums can be higher.
Every year at open enrollment we have so much to read over as the plans and amounts change every year. I’m worried about this new healthcare change because it means that for the next few years there will be even more changes, limbo, costs, reading, etc. Even if they think this will somehow drive down the costs of healthcare, it will make insurance coverage more expensive, at least in the short-term while dropping people from coverage.
And there are too many people that just don’t have a head for the numbers at all. I too was in finance, so I can read this stuff and do the math and figure out the potential costs, etc. My husband’s work has a neat calculator where you can put in family size and existing conditions to see potentially which is the best option. Until our family has like 2 conditions in it, the high deductible is cheaper, we just need to save the premium difference each month as a buffer.
And indeed, I said as much. You’re not getting it. Get the chip off your shoulder and try again.
So I guess you won’t see this comment. You aren’t the first (and won’t be the last) to arrive to the forum on your high horse and leave the same way. I will never understand people who think it is perfectly acceptable to make snide comments about other hosts but then can’t take it when people call them on their BS.
In case you decide to respond… Have you ever cancelled on someone who instant booked your place and then wouldn’t provide their social media account or showed up looking different than their profile picture? I’m curious because I’ve had people show up who looked nothing like their profile picture. One in particular I recall must have been using an old picture. The person who showed up at my door looked much older and much heavier than their picture. That would be a lovely conversation. “Sorry but you don’t look like the person who I saw on Facebook. You look 10 years older and 100 pounds heavier.” You’d probably get yourself kicked off Airbnb.
@aeriol I think you are overreacting and don’t quite understand the profile of Airbnb guests. I would say about 70% of my guests/inquries are new to Airbnb
About half of these don’t have a proper profile or reviews. Why would they change their picture or close their account because one host says no?
I too am a single woman who lives alone when I have guests so I understand the need to protect yourself.
Just put common sense actions in place
-
Only take those with verified ID
-
Ask them to upload a profile with full photo
-
Ask about their plans for their stay
-
Never give out your contact details or accept stays which aren’t overnight
-
Ask why they chose your place
Taking into account 70% of my guests are new I have never had any of the problems you face.
So perhaps my vetting procedure is something worth considering.
That’s horrible. I’m all for ethical hunting, but this isn’t it. I would think even the NRA wouldn’t be happy with this? Who benefits, where’s the money? That’s what I want to know. This was probably hidden in something that had some sort of agenda that “was worth passing, who cares what else is in here” crap.
The NRA is happy with this.
This just makes me angry.
So the Republicans, facing defeat, pulled the healthcare bill.
The NRA is famous for its stand that there should be no regulations at all on firearms. They oppose bans on armor piercing bullets, smart guns and assault weapons to name a few of their more egregious stands. They even oppose bans on the sale of ivory, because some antique guns would become illegal. Bear in mind that in addition to elephants becoming extinct in some places due to ivory poaching; the proceeds of ivory poaching are being used to fund terrorism.
Sorry @anon67190644, I can’t bring myself to use the Oxford comma.
That sounds great! I e not heard of that. You are definitely doing the right thing looking into all this as you clearly have, congrats on getting your debts paid off (nearly!!!) 
‘Gassing dens’! A new low for the humans
Very much so. There’ll be nothing left and ya all know that saying
While this now is of course totally hypothetical, I think Sanders could have beaten Trump. I got the strong impression that he had/has a lot of support. I still don’t really know why he didn’t get the nomination, but I suspect the machinations of the Democratic party, the DNC and so forth, had a lot to do with it. The Democratic party has, of course, zero interest in allowing a true progressive reasonable person to get the nomination.
And for reasons I’m not totally clear about, the Clintons seem to get a remarkable amount of antipathy from the US electorate. Of course, they’re horrible people, but still…
(Just a bit of rambling on a Sunday afternoon…)
Yeah, both parties are in control. It could have turned out a whole lot differently had those in the parties not tried to manipulate the entire election process. Trump was the worst Rep. candidate but there were too many middle ground “not so horrible” candidates to split the vote. The Dem. party decided Hillary needed to win no matter what and lost the election because she’s in all honesty fairly horrible. And the 3rd parties didn’t have a chance because the major parties have brainwashed the majority of the voting public into thinking a 3rd party vote is a wasted vote because they know if just 1-2% more voters had voted 3rd party then the 3rd parties would be allowed into the debates and automatically be put on the ballots in all 50 states. They’re power hungry and pretty much no one in power seems to actually care about people. Because those who actually want to help aren’t corrupt enough to win it seems.
They also try to make it hard for third parties to be put on the ballot. At least in places like NC it’s fairly terrible. They require some ridiculous conditions.
And I think some third parties have come quite close to being put on the ballot, but it hasn’t happened yet. Maybe a tipping point will arrive eventually. The white proportion of the US population continues to decline, and some minorities, at least, are relatively progressive. Though maybe just because they see themselves as the underdogs; I dunno.
Third parties will never make inroads. They just serve as spoilers (Nader, Stein). Hillary was obviously promised the nomination in 2016 by party leadership after she lost to Obama in 2008… but came with tons of baggage. They pushed her on us in many ways. Younger voters such as my sons did not want to vote for her, no matter what!!! They predicted a year before the election that Trump would win. And they were right!
The electorate wanted, demanded, a “change” candidate – and the only change candidate was Trump.
Also it’s worth noting that she won the popular vote by 3 million. Low voter turnout in the battlegrounds handed the election to Trump. I think Hillary would have been a decent president although I disagreed with a lot of her policies, was dismayed by her baggage and found her too hawkish.
This historic upset will make interesting reading in the history books of the future. The Trump presidency will also go down as one of the bad ones, full of corruption, self dealing, nepotism, chaos, bad decisions, crazy foreign policy, constant, unhinged lying statements by the president and much more. If we live through it, and manage not to get a nuke lobbed our way, we can tell our grandchildren about it.