November

Wow! We have less than 2 months till the end of the year. Already! I don't like how quickly time is moving.

Anyways, hubby and I sat down this past weekend to go over our budget! Yay! Is it dorky that I look forward to a date that consists of talking about a budget? I guess a date is a date, huh? I could tell that it's been way too long since we last did one because we ended up adding 5 or 6 new categories! Not cool because it means less money saved. But I guess it's better to be prepared than to ignore them. I'm sure our HOA would love it if I didn't send them a check each month because, well sorry, it wasn't in the budget. Or the water company. And now that we have the house, we need an expense fund for that. And one for the baby. And one for doctors/medical, because we were both extremely healthy so we never had medical expenses (except my insurance premium, but that's pre-tax). I'm lucky that my health plan covers the majority of my expenses, but I still have my prenatal prescription every month and the occasional ultrasound, and if any problems arise or when the baby comes if they have any extra doctor visits. Is it common on most plan to have "well" checkups covered with no co-pays? With my plan the baby can go to the doctor for all it's normal monthly checkups at no out of pocket cost to me. And an adult can go once a year for an annual checkup with no co-pay. I think it is such an awesome idea! Very preventative. Just wondering if it's an Aetna thing, or if most health care policies offer that.

This month is starting out an expensive one. Maybe it should be under last month, but I'm a bit behind. I had to get my car inspected. I knew of one major issue that needed fix (my shocks/struts), and I knew of a few minor things that they might have issues with (my passenger mirror is broke, my e-brake isn't tight) plus mechanics always find other problems. I had told hubby that I would be surprised if it cost less than $1,000. My car's a '96 and as much life as she has left in her, she still is getting older and needs a bit of work every year. I'm just glad it's not all at once. They did need to replace the shocks and struts like I had thought and they also need to replace the lateral link(?) or something like that. It's some how related. The bill came to $932, so under what I had planned! Yay! But still a nice chuck of change. Boo. They had to order a part, so she had to stay overnight. Which means that we are a one car family. Props to everyone out there who can survive on one car! No one at hubby's work was coming remotely close to our way yesterday, so I had to drive a half hour down to pick him up. Luckily, his partner teacher only lives about 10 minutes from us, so I could get up at the butt crack of dawn (actually, it was way before dawn even thought about getting up) 5:45 to be exact, to drop him off at her house so she could drive him to school. Hopefully my car will be finished so he can drive it home tonight. I got to work 45 minutes earlier than normal, does that mean I can leave 45 minutes early?

I'm just hoping that is our only big expense this month and we can stay on track with our spending and start to replenish our savings.