Sunday Morning Fun Ramblings

Posted: January 15, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: budgets, customer service, random, wisdom teeth | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

This post is going to be just a few things I’ve noted this weekend.

First thing: I sleep with my hand curled under my cheek.  This would not be a problem if I hadn’t just had my wisdom teeth removed.   It hurts a lot and makes mornings “fun”.   But the pain is mostly gone so yay to that!

Also, I updated my progress bar for my bank fund.  I’m excited about this.  I need to start figuring out which bank I will want to go with once I have this debt paid off.  I’m thinking the same one as my guy to make things easier but I still want to research it.  (I will love not having to pay $3 to cash my check every time!)

When I found out my guy got the job, one of the first things that popped into my mind was that I was going to get to play with my budget!  When his mom found out that he got the job, one of the first things she said was “You must be so excited to get to update your budget!”  Apparently my love of budgets is well-known.  I’m horrible at pay periods so I don’t really know exactly when  I will get to update it but I do know that his current job worked with him on when he could start at his new job.  So we are both really, really excited about the fact that we are going to get to start increasing our debt repayment savings and our savings in general.  One thing we need to buy him this time is khakis or jeans.  He has one pair of jeans that are not business casual–they have some wear on them and he has no khakis.  He does have a few nice black slacks to wear for Monday to Thursday though.  He thinks he’d rather have the khakis as he can wear those on Friday as well (in case I haven’t mentioned it, Friday is the one day we are allowed to wear jeans).

The other thing of note happened yesterday.  The dentist hadn’t prescribed me anything for pain but was thinking that Tylenol would do the trick.  I tried it for the day and it did not.  I called him Friday evening to let him know and on Saturday morning he called in a script for me to pick up.  When I went to pick it up, I turned in my insurance card as I haven’t picked up anything with insurance yet.  The clerk who helped me came back and said, “Well, that only took off $1.30. ” Now I know it might not be a whole lot for her, but every little bit I save helps us out.  When I gave my insurance cards I didn’t even know what it would take off, if anything.  And it keeps it on for future reference.  So I was  a bit taken aback about the clerk’s attitude–she acted like it was a horrible thing I did by giving her my insurance card.  But I decided I also didn’t care about her customer service skills.  I would be out of pain and at home soon enough!

How was your weekend? Any notable news?

Budget for this next two weeks

Posted: January 13, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: budgets, finances, wisdom teeth, work | Tags: , , | 1 Comment

So I just got back from the dentist and Wal-Mart.  I’m too loopy to really think but I have some excellent news.  My guy got the job offer!!! So woot to that.  We don’t know exactly when he is going to be starting but it should be within the next two weeks.  Ideally he will start either on Monday or Wednesday.    

Moving onto my budget.  So these next two weeks are going to be weird.  I had to buy a bunch of groceries already just due to general needing of them and also due to that we didn’t have any soft food for me to eat after getting my teeth pulled.  

Category Estimated
Utilities 300
Personal/Date 150
Gas 60
Car Insurance 40
Phone 30
Payment 60
Groceries 200

Those are my necessary costs this time.  I then have some categories for my various savings accounts: our emergency fund, car fund, medical fund, house fund, baby shower/gift fund and our Valentine ’s Day fund. This doesn’t include our debt payment funds either (minus the payment—that’s to a student loan company I have had to split up between pay periods).  The $150 for our personal is split evenly three ways.  I’m really excited to see how much we can get to our savings this time.  The only part I’m dreading is the groceries.  I already had to do what amounted to a mini shopping session in order to get “meals” for the upcoming few days.  And my “groceries” aren’t strictly groceries.  Those include any house hold items (toilet paper, paper towels, etc) and personal hygiene items or cat items (kitty litter, food, etc) 

I am going to stop for the day as I can already see this as rambling post. 

Wisdom teeth getting pulled soon

Posted: January 11, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: advice, health insurance, random, wisdom teeth | Tags: , | Leave a comment

This Friday I am going to get the last three of my wisdom teeth pulled.  I’ve saved up the money for it and will be paying for it up front, which I’m very proud of.  Thankfully I don’t have to get surgery done—they just need to be popped out.  I already had one pulled and learned my lesson from it.  I will not be going back to work that day and since I am having it done on Friday, will not be going back to work that day. That was a rough two days when I had the first one pulled.  Instead, I had my guy take Friday off to drive me to the store afterwards (I will need to get soup and whatever prescriptions they give me) and then I’m coming home to sleep. 

To prepare for my dentist appointment, I had them run a preapproval with my insurance company.  I wanted to make sure that there would be no surprises when I went in.  I’ve heard too many horror stories from where the person thinks everything should be fine and then has to pay more.   And since I’m doing this all with cash, I really don’t want a bad surprise—a good surprise being “hey you owe less than we thought you would!”.   After getting the notice in the mail, I then called up to the insurance office to double-check that everything was good to go.  Now, I might be a tad overzealous in my approach but I’m okay with that. 

My health insurance through work isn’t bad, at least compared to past insurance I’ve had.  I get dental when I sign up for medical at no added cost and the vision plan was for only a few dollars more.  And I like how my company is doing things with their medical insurance.  We get a discount for going into the doctors once a year and having a wellness exam done.  Oh and that wellness exam is 100% covered by the insurance.  So being healthy is helping me save money.  Which I am all for (hence this blog).  Besides this, they also had the company give a lecture on the small changes that went into effect.  This was something I really enjoyed as I’m paying money (pre-tax, can’t beat that) from my paycheck each period and some of it was foreign to me.  But after the little lecture, I feel much more comfortable with my benefits and what they actually do. 

So to wrap up my little post for today: my advice before a doctors or dentist appointment would be to get it preapproved if you know it is going to be more than a checkup.  And you can always call the insurance company itself to double-check that the preapproval went through or if there will be any other surprises.   Do you have any suggestions?