Fall is in the Air

As summer comes to a close, I have a few things to be thankful for. The most of these is the fact that the girls have been well for about five months! This has been a huge relief to us emotionally as well as financially. Recently, they did have a cold but they were able to kick the fever in four days which is unheard of around here.

So, what have we been up to this Summer? Well, more of the same it seems :). We have been able to pay everything down across the board. No new things have been paid off, but the entire mess is lower. One good thing is that we have been able to keep Terra's check out of our budget so it is truly extra income when it comes in -- which rocks. We also have our emergency fund almost completely built back up :)

Speaking of the emergency fund, there was one thing with Ramsey's plan I didn't think I needed to do, and that was the envelope system. It's a simple enough concept -- you make a budget, then withdraw the money you need for each category and put it in separate envelopes. Then, when you need money for something in that category, you just take it from that envelope until it is gone. I thought to myself "hey, I have Quicken, I don't need this, I can keep track of it." The problem was my rational brain was making that decision, not the irrational, hungry, I want side of my brain that apparently can't estimate well :).

So, after stumbling with a few problem areas in the budget, I pulled those out into the envelope system to better mange things. In particular, the Food (out to eat), Fun, and Clothing categories where the problem children. We would always go WAY over in these areas by underestimating how much we had spent earlier in the month. By pulling the money out ahead of time, it's something you just don't have to think about. If there's money there, awesome. If not, you're brown bagging it. I personally like not having to deal with those receipts as well. I've got one transaction in Quicken instead of 14.

Because of this, we now have a bunch of extra money in the Fun envelope (who says you HAVE to spend it, right?). As that money piles up, we are planning on a cool trip later to take the girls out and pay cash for the whole thing. Amazing what you can do when you plan for stuff :)

I've got three bills in the snowball lined up for the next 6 months depending on how things go, but I think 6 months is a reasonable goal. One of the items in there is my car, so that's got me pretty excited :).

Help Comes From The Heart

First off, I just wanted to say a huge THANK YOU to everyone who donated to our campaign. I feel very humbled by the fact that we were able to raise $5450, which had a massive impact on our financial situation.

The last few months have been busy with our noses to the grindstone. We were able to pay off Terra's van as planned, and made small strides despite some dental needs that came up. But, that all changes with the campaign :)

Now for the fun bits:

We were able to pay off three major medical debts and a few minor bills. In all, these bills represent $450/month of expense that is GONE. This gives us a HUGE amount of breathing room, and allowed me to pull Terra's check out of the budget so that it is finally extra money. This extra can go for extra snowball money or fun money without impacting the established get-out-of debt plan -- which makes me very happy :). Words cannot describe the relief I'm feeling at this point.

However, this isn't the best part. I recently discovered that Aetna is reprocessing all of our Vivaglobin claims as a pharmacy benefit instead of a major medical benefit. Translation? That means that instead of each dose costing $800 per kid per month (then subject to deductibles and 80/20), each dose is $65 flat. $65!! Since Aetna's pharmacy was one of the three major debts we paid off with the campaign, we will be getting approximately $1200-$1500 back from Aetna. THIS IS HUGE :)

I'll use this to pay off the remaining balances on some of the smaller bills and use the rest to continue walking up our debt snowball. Sure, our deductible will be replaced, but we are in a pretty good place now and that's ok :).

THANK YOU again to everyone who has donated and who has been praying for our family. You can still donate at From The Heart by specifying our family in the notes, OR you could go see what other great families are being sponsored and help meet their needs :).

And So It Begins....

It is February 16th, and already we have reached that magical time where our $3500 medical deductible has been met, our $1000 HealthFund is gone, our $2000 Flex Spending Account is gone, and we are now in our 80/20 period. That being said, we still haven't got all the bills yet for the $3500 already incurred :( (minus $1000 for the HealthFund). Dealing with THAT will be no fun.

From here on out, the girls meds should cost us around $400 a month. The thing I'm MORE worried about is the fact that around $2500 is owed to Aetna's pharmacy. I know they allow payment plans, but the little bit of info I've got so far indicates that those plans are spread over a term of around 3-5 months. That means we could be paying $600 per month to catch up, on top of the new $400 per month. Needless to say, that's not going to work :). Now the worry bit -- are they going to withhold their meds until we pay off the existing balance? I would HOPE not, but who knows with the state of the medical industry these days. That being said, I'll post more when I know more.

On to Happier news.

Terra's van will be completely paid off by the end of March (or the beginning if I can work it in) about 6 months ahead of schedule. Next up, Piper's hospital bill from all of our Cincinnati trips last year will be done in another 4 months (around July). After that, Makenna's Cincinnati bill should be knocked out in another 4 months (around November). Looking further out, my car should be paid off about this time next year - about 5 months ahead of schedule. THAT is the debt snowball in action :). Four medium sized debts being knocked out as you compound their payments.

In all, that represents around $7000 worth of debt. It's not as aggressive as I would like, but well, we have some pretty serious new expenses to deal with :). On the bright side, none of this is including Terra's income, so I should be able to accelerate things depending on how many hours she can get in the next few months.

The girls' doctor is also going to switch their meds, so I'm hoping the new one is somewhat cheaper :). I'll let you know how that goes later.