The New Year, 5 days in...

We are 5 days into 2011, and I have been smacked in the face.


I am trying to kick some major booty in the financial department of my life: savings, debt, budgeting, just overall better money management.

Two days ago, I updated our financial spreadsheet that I keep, and realized how valuable that piece of paper is to me. It helps keep me on track, and I can see everything at a glance. My spreadsheet includes our monthly bills, the monthly payment, the total amount owed (in the instance of our mortgage, cars, and such), the interest rate, the balances in all our accounts, our monthly grocery expenses, and the yearly grocery average.

Josh and I agreed to start chipping away at our remaining debt this year. Of course we started this last year, following the Dave Ramsey plan, and made some good progress, and then got off course.

Things have been going well so far...coupon clipping and shopping for sales, squirreling away small bits of money in each of our accounts, and starting back with the DR plan...until today.

I got smacked in the face today at Jansen's allergist. Now of course, I know, it is the new year....thus our medical bills will be a little higher until our deductibles are met....but our health insurance has changed. And that just ticks me off.

Thank you God that we have health insurance. Thank you God that our family is relatively healthy.

But Jansen has horrible allergies and asthma, and gets weekly allergy shots. He takes Allegra, Nasonex, Flovent, and a rescue inhaler as well. So now his allergist visits went up from $30 to $50, and his allergy shots went from $4 a week to $25. Ugh.

Caleb sees a psychiatrist for his monthly medication and so his visits have gone from $30 to $50 as well.

Again, thank God that we have health insurance. But I just HATE it when I have my family budget all worked out perfectly and have a debt repayment plan in place, and that famous curveball is thrown in.

Guess what I will be working on tomorrow?

I might sell a kidney.....