this wasn't in the plan |but life is still pretty good

In general, I consider myself to be a pretty good balance between a saver and a spender. I like to have a good amount in savings, but for the most part, I'm not afraid to spend. Well, I'm not afraid to spend on things that are fun. I find myself slightly annoyed that our hard-earned savings has to go toward some unexpected medical expenses and not a vacation.

I'm very grateful that we have the money to cover these expenses, and of course this is one of the reasons to save, but for some reason, it's hard for me to part with the money.  I know that there's no way to get through life without spending money on things that aren't "fun", but sometimes it seems like there are an awful lot of non-fun expenses and not enough fun ones.

photo by alamosabasin via flickr.com

It's been a busy few weeks at our house. My oldest finished his first year of kindergarten. We've celebrated birthdays and gone on trips. Most notably, however, was the outpatient procedure that my baby had done (though not so much a baby anymore, considering one of those birthdays was his). He's been dealing with multiple food allergies and is not gaining weight, so an upper endoscopy was done to figure out what might be wrong.

After everything was all said and done, one of the most frustrating things for us was not knowing how much this was all going to cost us. We do have a maximum out of pocket number, so we knew it wouldn't be more than that, but it wouldn't be that much, would it? It felt as if our financial lives were on hold, I'm itching to get a new couch, and my husband wants to go to a work-related conference later this summer. Both things that we couldn't jump on until we knew how much we were going to have to pay for this procedure.

And then the bill came (actually just the explanation of benefits, and now that we know the damage, the bill can take it's sweet old time getting to us). And, well, let's just say that there will be no new couches or trips in our immediate future.