Hey big spender

I just finished compiling totals for our spending last year. We keep track of our budget in a spreadsheet in Excel, so it wasn't too hard to see what we've spent on various things over the course of the year. It was a very enlightening exercise. For instance, I tend to think (and say) that we don't eat out very much. We probably don't, especially compared to a lot of other people. But we still managed to spend an average of nearly $60 a month on eating out during 2005. Now, that average is a little skewed by the fact that we went on several vacations, when we tend to eat out a little more often. But still, all those quick lunches at Burgers Supreme really do add up. Our monthly average for eating out expenses is more than our average for books and movies. I think we should reverse that. Literature is so much more healthy than french fries.

The other disturbing thing was discovering that if we add up our insurance premiums as well as our out-of-pocket stuff, we spent somewhere between 13-15% of our income on medical expenses. IHC got a bigger chunk of our money than our landlord, BYU, or even the Mormon church. I have come to the realization that our insurance is somewhat of a ripoff--if Master Fob were full-time and we didn't have to pay the premium, it wouldn't be so bad. But we pay a pretty high premium in addition to high deductibles. Blah. I don't think we could get much better if we shopped around, though, and it's definitely been better than having nothing. I am certainly learning much more about the ins and outs of health insurance and hopefully in the future we can get into something better. A few years ago I didn't really even know what a deductible was, so I've definitely learned something. And I really hope that this next kid doesn't have any sort of cronic health problems. If she does, we may have to sell her.