Free Online Budgeting Site

There is a lot of talk about budgeting this time of year. BudgetSimple is a free online budgeting site that I use. The site lives up to it's name as it is truly simple! Works for me!

Health Insurance Costs

Every year my company has an open enrollment period when all employees can make changes to their health insurance plans. It is no secret insurance costs are rising at astronomical rates, but every year I notice not only the premiums going up, but the amount out of pocket for services also rising. I work for a major health care system and they pay a large portion of the premiums for each employee.


The shift seems to be for the patient to foot more of the bill. For example, we used to have a flat copay for an inpatient visit to the hospital. Now we pay a percentage of the bill based on the insurance plan picked. One plan requires you pay 10% out of pocket the other 20% where the annual cost is higher for the 10% plan. This could amount to thousands of dollars for a major surgery and lengthy hospital stay!


My company also has a FSA for health care costs, where one designates how much they want to go into the account at the beginning of the year. A debit card is issued to use for any health care related costs not covered by insurance. The money is deducted from the paycheck tax free weekly or biweekly, based on how you are paid. This is truly a good service, but if there is money left in the account at the end of the year it is forfeited. So you would only want to select an amount you are almost sure you will spend for the year.

Even with skyrocketing health insurance costs I feel very fortunate to have health insurance. No one ever expects to get sick, but that's why we are insured to protect against a catastrophic event. I personally know some people that don't have it and it has devastated them when a huge hospital bill came in the mail. One family I know had to sell a property they owned to pay the bill.

I don't know what the future holds when it comes to paying for health care, but for now it looks like the consumer is going to have to have deep pockets if they get sick.

Mortgage Calculator

This calculator from Dave Ramsey's website is awesome! If you want to accelerate paying off your mortgage play with the numbers and see the amount of money that you can save by paying a little extra each month. Happy computing.

Yeah, We made it!

Well, we did it! We made it last week with only $23 in the bank! My husband spent $15 on gas leaving us a grand total of $8 in the bank. I learned this week that I am more disciplined than I thought. I could have pulled out the CC, but I'm tired of working to make them rich! If we don't have the money we can't afford it(whatever it is), period! Some things I did to fill my time were, a lot of extra cooking and baking, working extra hours and doing free and cheap things with my 3 yo. This week is not going to be a non money spending week, however I am buying only necessities this week at Aldi and the bread store. No thrift store (my weakness) for me this week.
On a different note I wanted to share a Coconut Cookie recipe I made last week. These were marvelous.
Tip: Put a piece of bread in the cookie jar to keep homemade cookies moist. I usually use the end piece as we don't eat those anyway!

Better Budget

I've heard it said that a budget can be your friend. Well, I need a friend. Every month I write out the bills that I know are coming and their due date. On payday I send the bills that are due that next week. The problem is I always have an unexpected expenditure come up that was not in the budget. Therefore, I am always behind. I tried using Budget Simple and I think it would work, but I am more a paper and pencil kinda girl. After reading this at No Credit Needed I decided to give this method a try. My husband and I sat down tonight and did out budget for October in about five minutes. I realized very quickly I need to work some extra hours next month (bummer). We weren't able to fill anything in the savings category and Christmas is coming. We did base the budget on the lowest income we could expect, so I will hope for a better month than our worst. How do some of you budget? Any ideas? I am bound and determined to make a balanced budget. Wish me luck!