Yo Programo

Forgive me, readers, for I have been dormant. It's been almost a year since my last post-session. (Hey, it rhymes with "confession" so just roll with it!!).
(c;

During that time:

1. I (and some friends) redug the sprinkler trenches, installed the sprinkler system (2 feet deep so we don't have to blow them out to keep them from freezing), filled them back in, and laid down sod.
2. I somehow let Eric scratch my left eye (he had already done this to my right eye about a year before) and had to go to the ER again.
3. My wife and I buried our daughter, Brianna, who made it halfway through her gestation period (long enough for us to find out she was a girl) before she died.
4. One of my friends was hired on as a co-worker!
5. We Took a vacation in Southern California where we attended my sister's wedding and got to attend a Bible study hosted by one of my friends from junior high who has since become a devoted follower of Jesus Christ. She and her husband have a daughter about Eric's age, and they had a great time playing together!
6. I had a surgical procedure to remove four kidney stones.
7. I got so busy that I didn't track my expenses or balance my accounts for almost a year. Then, last week, I discovered that someone had charged up just over a thousand dollars worth of expenses in my name!!! They actually manufactured a credit card with their name and my number on it and used it in the Seattle area for about a week on hotels, an airline ticket, and sending packages via FedEx. Fortunately, the credit card company credited back all the charges even though it had been so long.

Now that we're all caught up, let's talk about what I'm doing now:

Becky and I are getting serious about our budget for the first time. Oh, I've been tracking my expenses down to the penny since long before meeting Becky, but when two people are spending money, and they don't communicate about it very well, and the receipts get entered every month or so--or after 11 months as in the recent case--then the "budget" isn't really a budget. It's just a log.

Let me give you some background details:

• We were billed about $40,000 in medical expenses last year. We paid about $10,000 out of pocket. This year (1.5 months into it), we're at about $21,700 with about $3,300 of that out-of-pocket. Two births, a four-appointments-per-week pregnancy, a burial, and a surgical procedure in the same 13-month period can be unbelievably expensive, and we haven't even paid for the gravestone yet!
• We've got two boys in diapers, and even though we're trying (again) to get one of them out of diapers, training pants are even more expensive.
• We make every excuse in the book to go out for dinner.
• My chronic absent-mindedness doesn't help me notice speed limit signs, so I've gotten many tickets for going what I truly thought was the speed limit. (OK, and one more for going well over what I knew was the speed limit--but I had accidentally left my wife at a gas station on a cross-state trip, and only realized it after I'd past the last exit before a 10-mile stretch, so that one gets blamed on my absent-mindedness too!)

All together, our monthly budget deficit is approximately $1,000. Then again, that's not counting the money I don't get until the end of the year because Ethan still isn't listed on the W-4.

Here's what we're doing about it ("it" being our financial situation):

1. We now choose our dinners for the whole week before the week starts and make our grocery list based on that plan plus a general idea of what we tend to have for lunches.
2. We're cutting back on celebrations (for the record, for Valentine's day this year we went to Taco Bell (without the kids, thanks to free babysitting by the youth from our church) and only went to the [quite nice] riverside grill for dessert).
3. We're going to cancel our television service right after the winter olympics.
4. I'm trying to drink more water to avoid kidney stones and the money they cost to get rid of.
5. I finally caught upon balancing the accounts and entering all those receipts into the budget, so now I'm going to be breaking those categories down further so we can nail down and eliminate our unnecessary spending.
6. Today I discovered coupons.com and have already saved a few bucks with it.
7. I've been writing down and actively comparing price-per-ounce/pound/unit across multiple stores for almost every product we buy, and have adjusted where we buy it accordingly. For the most part, Costco really is the best place to get things, even when Wal-Mart seems to have great deals.
8. Today, I got my (badly needed) haircut at a place where they don't wash your hair.
9. We put everything on the rewards credit card and pay the statement balance at the end of the month whenever we possibly can. We take our rewards in the form of a check for cold, hard cash that we can do whatever we want with. Lately, there have been a few months were we could not pay the statement balance, but believe it or not, even when we can't, we're still racking up the rewards higher than the finance charges (thanks to an awesome rewards program and an unbelievably low purchase APR: 4.24%).
10. We will probably itemize deductions this year. It's our first full year of mortgage interest, so that, plus our medical expenses, etc. should push us well over the standard deduction. Now if I could just get my W-2...

Other than that, there's a few less drastic (but still postworthy) things going on:

1. Ethan has taken a few steps (though not when his daddy is able to watch). He has also stacked a block on top of another one.
2. Eric can identify many colors, and even some letters.
3. Becky is teaching herself to cut Eric's hair with a trimmer. (You'll notice I opted for the cheaper barber shop than to be the other guinea pig.) Sorry, Eric, but at your age people don't care as much, so you were volunteered to take one (or more like however many it takes) for the team. Just be glad she didn't wait until you started junior high.
4. Eric is learning to use a mouse. His daddy still uses it during the more complex learning games so he can focus on the fun part.
5. I now have over $600,000.00 in worthless chips on the Facebook Texas Hold 'Em app. I tried to challenge Janell, who is my richest Facebook poker buddy and has about double what I have, but I haven't gotten a hold of her at a good time just yet.
6. I'm hoping to have time soon to start a Meetup group in my area for practicing speaking in Spanish. Maybe one for playing board games as well.
7. Eric is enrolled in early preschool. They are learning to talk in 4-word sentences, such as "I want juice, please." He's still working on meeting that goal but has progressed. He's really good at 1-to-2-word sentences such as:
   • "Where Daddy?", "Where Baby?" [Where did Daddy/Ethan go--I just saw him (Daddy) but now I don't, even though I know he's supposed to be in the office all day.],
   • "Mommy Had." [Mommy, you seem sad.],
   • "Mommy Happy?" [Did I just see you smile/laugh, Mommy?],
   • "Dat Daddy!", "Dat Mommy!", "Dat ooh!", "Dat Eric!" [I recognize that person in the picture. It's Daddy/Mommy/you/me!],
   • "Hab it?" [Can my brother, Ethan, have this?],
   • "Baby in! [I want you to put Ethan in the pack-and-play.]",
   • "Tummy hurt" [My tummy hurts.],
   • "Go way!" [Go away; I want my privacy (or possibly, because I'd like to create an opportunity for me to do something that I know isn't allowed).],
   • "Jue peeeese" [May I please have juice?],
   • "Door too!" [I want to come to the store with you!] (whenever I put on my shoes or sweatshirt, no matter what the reason),
   • "Watt teebee!" [I want to watch cartoons on TV!],
   • "Wuh Payte." [I want to paint.],
   • "Hed?" [Daddy, may I please put this piece of paper through the (surprisingly pretty safe) shredder?],
   • "Bwoken!" [ This toy came apart.] (usually where the parts were actually designed to separate),
   • "Candy?", "Ticker!" [I get to { have a piece of candy | pick out a sticker } because I went potty in the toilet, right?],
   • "No, pay!" [I don't want to {go to bed | leave the playground}; I want to stay here and play instead.],
   • "Kitt ooh." [I want to give you a goodnight kiss.],
   • "Towey." [Please read me a(nother) story.],
   • "I 'cared." [I'm scared.] (of his bedroom or of the ceiling, based on responses to follow-up questions)

Well, as Eric would say, "I done! I done! I done! I done! I done! I done....."