One of my favorite things about this time of the year is looking out our kitchen window and seeing our vegetable garden. I love to watch it grow and really enjoy working in the garden throughout the summer.
This year we are growing carrots, tomatoes, string beans, peppers, radishes, beets, watermelon, onions, pumpkins, cabbage, and lettuce. My husband and I work on it together and have found ways to minimize weeds by putting down a plastic barrier, planting marigolds around our tomatoes to help with insects, and plant other flowers to keep the deer away. This year, we are also putting down Irish Spring soap shavings to keep the deer away from our plants. Last year, they had a feast on our string beans, lettuce, and beets.
We are also putting the lettuce next to our home as deer tend to stay away from buildings.
We also are trying a new project in our garden called a Tower Garden. There is space for 20 plants and it requires no dirt or weeding. You cannot grow root vegetables, but so far, it is doing great. It took us about an hour to set up and requires just checking the PH of the water each week. There are nutrients in the water that continually run through the roots of the vegetables. In it, we have three different types of lettuce (we love salads), peas, cilantro, cabbage, zucchini, eggplant, three different types of tomatoes, and melon.
Comparing planting a ground garden to the Tower Garden can only be summed in this way – The easy way or the hard way. 
Both ways do work, both take time, and both product results. Ground gardening takes much longer because weeds have to be pulled and watering has to be done each day. The tower garden literally takes me no time during the week except to check the PH which takes me no longer than two minutes. We planted some the of the plants on Memorial Day week-end and have already been eating the lettuce we planted that week-end.
Gardening is therapy to me so no matter how much work is involved, it brings me joy to be able to feed my family good healthy food while taking care of myself as well.
Working this week-end, I thought of clients that choose to investigate insurance products on their own. Medicare is one of the insurance products that many people tend to try to look at themselves.
If I counted how many people have called me to tell me how confused they are with Medicare, it would literally be in the hundreds. They attempt to read the mail they receive on Medicare companies and feel overwhelmed. They attempt to study what Medicare sends them and find themselves frustrated. They ask friends, family, and neighbors for advice and can be misinformed. Sometimes they do enroll into Medicare when they didn’t need to because they are still employed with benefits through their employer and become upset when they realize that they could have saved possibly hundreds of dollars.
They attempt to look at the different Medicare Supplemental Plans available and cannot calculate what their out of pocket costs will be with each plan.
They see that Prescription Drug Plans aren’t required, but when they enroll into a plan years later are suddenly hit with a penalty for a lifetime for not enrolling when they were first eligible.
Simply put, they went about Medicare the hard way.
Reaching out to Balanced Care, setting up an appointment about three months prior to becoming eligible for Medicare, and sitting down with us one on one is the easy way.
We have been told by several of our clients that after sitting down with us to discuss Medicare, they are relieved. One of the most common statements that I hear is that you have taken a big load off of my mind.
Like gardening, insurance is also therapy for me. It brings me joy to know that another family is properly insured, another person will get the health care they need, and that I am doing my small part to feed my clients education and information on every product that is discussed.
Go about your insurance needs the easy way vs the hard way. If the road is easy, it could likely be the wrong way.
Terri Trepanier is the owner of Balanced Care Health and Supplemental Insurance and a licensed insurance consultant and broker with Associated Brokers. Licensed in both Maine and NH, her specialty is working with small businesses, individuals, and families with their health and life insurance needs. She is certified to offer health plans both on and off the exchange and is contracted with every health insurance company that offers plans in both New Hampshire and Maine. Her other passion is assisting Medicare beneficiaries with their Medicare Supplemental, Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Plans, and Medicare Advantage plans. Terri has seen firsthand the importance of insurance products and how they help families. Her goal with Balanced Care is to “Insure Security and Peace of Mind One Family at a Time”.