Medical Expenses

For almost 2 years I took a daily medication (beta blocker) to help keep my migraines under control. It worked pretty well, but I still had quite a few bad days where I had to break out the Maxalt. The beta blocker was only costing me $10/month, but the Maxalt fell into the most expensive tier of my insurance, so it would cost me $40/month and that was only for 10 pills. The typical migraine took 2 pills to fully clear up. After ruling out physical reasons for the migraines, my Dr strongly urged me to start eliminating some things from my diet and also going off of the beta blockers to get a "base" of what was going on. My previous Dr had the dose on the beta blockers so high my BP was super low and all I wanted to do was sleep. I hated it! Not only was I constantly tired, but I was STILL getting headaches! I had some other medical things going on and the specialist flat out tell me to stop drinking Diet Coke because it was causing me all kinds of other problems. I figured it was worth a shot to give it a try and see if something as simple as eliminating Diet Coke could make that big of a difference. If it helped even one of the problems I was having, it would be worth it. No more beta blockers I gave up caffeine, except for one cup of "real" coffee per day I was still drinking a significant amount of Caffeine Free Diet Coke Then I gave that up As of January 1, I have not had a single drink of carbonated beverages. No Diet Coke (caffinated or otherwise) and switched to pretty much just drinking water and a very limited amount of brewed iced tea. Because I had weaned down on the caffeine, giving up the soda wasn't as hard as it would have been a few months earlier. The good news, I've not had to take ANY medication for my migraines since giving up carbonated drinks! It's AMAZING! I drank my last Diet Coke on New Year's Eve and it's April 15, NO HEADACHES! I was having at least 2-3 per week, so going this long without one is a huge accomplishment. The weather is getting nicer and I've not had to waste a day in bed nursing a migraine. I'm spending time with my kids outside, I'm working on training for my first 5K and I am LOVING every minute of it! Oh and as a hidden bonus, I'm saving money on my grocery bill by not buying soda

Two Birds, One Stone

I have been struggling since my pregnancy with Nick with some weight gain, or I guess the more appropriate phrase would be struggling with weight loss since I have no problem gaining. I was finally starting to feel human again and then BAM, pregnant again! Lauren's 3yrs old now and it's a bit hard to consider my excess weight to be "baby weight" when I am shopping for her in the girls section and not the baby section any longer!

One of the items on my bucket list is (and has been) to run a 5K. I don't really care for running all that much and I have never gotten that "zen" like feeling that people talk about, but it's something I would like to accomplish. I started the Couch to 5K running plan this past fall and made it over half way through the program and then got side tracked by some medical stuff and weather.

Now that I have declared my bucket list as public knowledge, I am more motivated to get some things crossed off. Is there anything worse than a to-do list that has NOTHING crossed off? I think not! It's officially time to DO WORK SON!

Tonight when Matt woke up I put on ye old running shoes, grabbed my charged up iPod and hit the road. I am starting over at week 1 and I am hoping to finish the program by running in the 5th 3rd Riverbank Run on May 14. This puts a tight timeline, so I am going to have to really stick to it to make it happen. I sent a message to the person at work who is organizing our team to see if I can still get in as part of that, otherwise I'll just register on my own and meet up with the people from work when I get there.

So how is this a dual purpose bucket list item? Well I was thrilled to look at the list of charity partners affiliated with the race and find some of my most favorite charities are benefiting from the money race by the race!

Charity Partners

My very open ended bucket list item is to "feed the hungry" and I hope that I never ever cross that off. We support a local food pantry with money and donations as much as we possibly can. By using coupons and shopping sales, I can sometimes come across things that I know my family won't eat, but I can still pick up for pennies and donate to the pantry. Just because we won't eat it doesn't mean that someone else doesn't like it!

Bucket List

I try and keep the focus of this blog on financial goals and activities, but all considering, this very much ties together a lot of financial and personal goals. I have been thinking about putting this "Bucket List" down for quite some time and finally got my thoughts organized enough to begin it.

A lot of the reason why Matt and I have been so eager to be debt free is because we want to be able to use our finances to glorify God. What better way to be the hands and feet of Jesus than to be able to freely give to those in need when we are blessed with so much? Of course there are always way to do kingdom work without money, and we actively work towards that, but not having the stress of debt and the obligations tied to us will certainly open up doors for ministry that we might not otherwise be able to perform.

This is my first draft of my personal bucket list. Matt doesn't have one that I am aware of, but he is very much a part of many of these. Some are personal, some are family, but they are all things that I very much look forward to crossing off.

• Run a 5K


• Sing in a choir


• Read the entire Bible


• Go on a missions trip


• Open a B&B


• Visit Ireland


• Go on a cruise


• Give my Christian testimony


• Finish a master's degree


• Go in a hot air balloon


• Take my kids to Disney


• Be completely debt free


• Learn to ski


• Be in a movie


• Be a mentor


• Visit South America


• Visit Europe


• Visit Asia


• Visit Australia


• Visit Africa


• Visit a National Park


• See Mt. Rushmore


• Go to Vegas


• Blog my life story for my kids


• Feed the hungry


• Go to an NFL football game


• Stay at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island


• Visit Niagra Falls


• Attend service at Saddleback Church


• Meet my dad

Anyone else brave enough to blog what their bucket list is? Will you share?

Another Exciting Purchase!

I've been holding out for some time now on replacing my digital camera. I've had mine about 6 years or so, and it wasn't doing so well anymore. It's gone through a lot and has served us well and I will forever be impressed with Canon products after this. We spent some time researching digital cameras and decided on what we wanted:

1. Digital SLR
2. Canon
3. XSi, T1i, or a T2i

While we preferred to have a camera that took video clips, it was not on the "absolutes" list, so it did open up our options a bit. We've been scouting out the Canon website for refurbished models since they have an excellent reputation, and missed a great deal a few weeks ago. We've also been scouting out our favorite deal websites for any odd coupons or such out there with not much action. Target clearanced out a bunch of floor models on Monday and I missed them.

Well today I did my usual and found through a deal alert that Meijer of all places had the Canon T1i for 30% off on clearance! It was my lunch hour so I hit the road and went to the usual Meijer I shop at and they had the card on display, but the actual camera was gone. I was so bummed! The associate was incredibly helpful though and looked up to see what stores in the area had the camera and the one right down the road 15 minutes away had it, in fact they had 2! I hopped in my car and got there and my camera is MINE!

Another pretty major purchase that we've wanted to make and we've (well I've been patient, Matt not so much!) been patiently waiting for the right time to jump. Our patience saved us well over $200. I have no regrets about the purchase because I've had plenty of time to research and understand what I was getting. I knew my price point and I stuck to it. That $200 that we saved will surely be put to good use!

New (To Me) Wheels!

Matt and I have been planning on getting rid of our Pontiac Aztek for quite some time because having 2 large vehicles for our family just seemed so silly. Whenever we all go out as a family, we go in our minivan, so we really didn't need another large vehicle. I was driving the minivan to work every day and that also seemed pretty wasteful.

I was pretty specific in what I was looking for: Honda Accord, Honda Civic, or a Toyota Corolla, 4 doors, under 150,000 miles and an automatic. I also had a magic number that I absolutely wouldn't pay more than because we were paying cash for the car. Tax return time was our plan and it all just fell nicely into place. My brother wanted to buy the Aztek, and was able to sell his car pretty quickly. I test drove a few small cars, but nothing really jumped out as "the car".

As I was getting down to the wire, as in the day I was handing the keys to the Aztek to my brother, I happened to talk with my sister Jamie on Facebook and suddenly remembered that my brother Scott used to manage a used car lot! I don't know why I hadn't thought of him before! Turns out he happened to have a Honda Accord that he was selling and it was exactly what I was looking for!

It has certainly been an interesting few weeks, but our patience and determination paid off! We have the car we wanted, we paid less than we had budgeted, and we did not take on a penny of debt to do it!

Long, Long Overdue Update

A friend of mine from work commented to me yesterday that she was reading my blog and I admitted to her that I felt bad because I hadn't updated it in so long. What can I say? Life caught up with me and life certainly got crazy really fast.

We made it through another "cash only" Christmas with much success. It's not as hard as I thought it would be and it was fun to try and find those best deals for the kids and also get them the things they wanted.

In December, Matt accepted a new full-time job and that's made our lives very interesting. We had to line up full time daycare for Lauren, part time daycare for Nick, and transportation for Nate, and juggle all the bus schedules for Nick. It was crazy there for a few weeks especially since Matt was working day shift for a bit, and then was switched over to third shift. He's been on third shift now for a couple of weeks and we are slowly getting used to the "new".

Before he even accepted the new job, we were thinking about our car situation and how we were being pretty wasteful by having 2 larger vehicles that take a lot of gas to run, especially since I am driving by myself every day to Grand Rapids in a minivan. We didn't have the cash on hand right away to make any changes, but we started saving up furiously to get a small economy car for me to commute to work with every day and keep the minivan for those times where all of us are in the car together. Since the Aztek doesn't really fit all of us all that well, we made the decision that it would be the car to go. Now we are on the hunt for a used Honda Civic within our budget, and we'll hopefully be able to get that taken care of in the next couple of weeks. Someone might buy the Aztek from us and we'll have that cash towards the car, or if that falls through we can just trade it in.

Another pretty big thing that hit our financial radar since my last post is that Nate has braces. Kind of bad timing, but it is what it is. Our plan year for flex spending has open enrollment in August and becomes effective in September, so I totally missed the window when we went to the orthodontist in October. When we went the previous year for our first consult, it was hard to know if he would need braces this past October (2010) or if we could wait another year (October 2011) and because of all the changes to flex spending and the healthcare reform, I decided not to guess high on my flex election and lost. I guess it's better than guessing wrong and being stuck with a bunch of money in flex that I lose, but it still would have been nice to have that money set aside. We did set up a payment plan with the orthodontist to pay it off rather quickly, but it was certainly medical expenses that we were not really counting on paying. I am just glad I could set it up on a payment plan because I was NOT going to open any sort of line of credit in order to make it happen. My dental insurance covered a small portion of it, we're making monthly payments, and when tax return money comes in, a nice chunk will go to the balance. If we owe anything when August comes up, I can flex the balance then. Nate better thank me later in life for all this juggling I'm doing to give him a nice smile!

Speaking of tax returns, I got those taken care of this past week and filed. We are getting back a nice return and have made a plan of attack as to what we are going to do with that money:

1. Economy car
2. Replace my digital camera
3. Eye exam/contacts for me
4. Orthodontist

Not very exciting, but all things that we need to take care of financially. I've been pricing the camera I want to get and missed a couple of great deals, so I am just biding my time and watching for the next one to come up. I have patience so I will wait a bit if it means saving a significant amount of money.

Breaking Up...It's Hard To Do!

Dave Ramsey talks about how you develop an emotional attachment of sorts to your first credit card, it's like your first teenage love! I never really got what he was talking about until I got a credit card in the mail awhile back for a credit card we have not charged on in YEARS. It was *that* card, the first card that took a chance on me and Matt and gave us credit. The first card that offered us a *gift*, which was a watch that I still have for some strange reason. But, I looked at that shiny new platinum card with the pretty gold letters on it, "cardholder since 1998". Wow! That card and I sure went back some years. More years than I've ever worked at a job, more years than I've had kids! So I almost held onto it, you know, just in case. But then I came to my senses and realized I don't NEED that card! I don't need Chase to give me any sort of assurance in my financial future. I called the number on the back and boldly asked to cancel the card, just close the account, we're DONE. Thankfully the break-up went pretty well, they didn't try and persuade me to keep the account or anything. It was a pretty touchy moment there so had they offered, I might have even fell for it.

Over the past few years I've held onto a bank acount that I wasn't really using for much. Granted I was getting a pretty good discount on my car insurance by being part of the group and when we used the account for all of our banking, it was great. But once we moved and started over in our new neck of the woods, the account pretty much just stayed open for my car insurance withdrawls. I've watched the account creep up from no service charge to $3/month charge, $5/month charge, and then last month it took the leap to $10/month! That was enough to push me over the edge. My car insurance savings needed to be at least $120/year to justify having this extra credit union account and I just wasn't seeing it. I called my insurance agent and explained the situation to her and we did some digging around and found a comparable group that I am already a part of that brought my discounted amount down a little, but even so, I am coming out ahead because I am not losing $120/year to keep open another bank account. The credit union apparently was fine with losing me as a 14year customer over $10/month, so good riddance to them. I am not paying anyone to hold my money for me!

So at this point, we are really moving towards our financial indepdence. We have our few household utility accounts and a single bank account, and not an open line of credit to be found. Our emergency fund is safely tucked away and growing and the Earth is still moving steadily around the sun. It is possible to live in a world without credit and we're doing quite well at it, something I never imagined I would be saying!

I've also taken the HUGE step to move my banking to almost strictly online. My goal is to write as few checks as possible. The bank (yes bank, not credit union) we are using at this time has a great FREE bill pay program where you can enter all of the places you need to pay bills at and they will either transmit the payment electronically on the due date, or print and mail a check by the due date. Not only do I not have to pay for paper checks, I don't have to pay for postage to mail them either. How can you go wrong with that? No more running the waterbill over to the payment station or even dropping a check in the offering at church. I just log in on payday and set up everything for the next 2 weeks and let it rip.

In the process of breaking up with our credit union and starting at the bank, there was a month where I didn't make my student loan payment, and then a month where they took the minimum payment due instead of the amount I was having them withdraw. Sadly, that makes my "ticker" look like we haven't made much progress, but we did fully fund our emergency fund this summer again plus beef it up a little, so it's not all that bad in retrospect.

August Status
Starting debt: $39,216.30
Amount paid: $26,093.98

$13,122.32 until we are debt free!!!

The student loan people sure make it hard to make extra payments! I have my account set to autopay out of my checking account every month and I couldn't just go to my online account and manage it. I had to send in a written request with my signature on it stating how much I want coming out every month. So starting next month, my auto pay is going to be nearly FOUR TIMES the amount of my minimum payment! At that rate, I should have my student loan completely paid off in about 2 years instead of the 13 they have me projected to pay off at!