So tomorrow we are leaving on our 9 day vacation to california to visit family. It will be the first time my hubby has taken a whole week off in four years so he is very excited for a much needed break. We've budgeted $1200 for this vacation and hopefully we can stick to it. We were going to use $2000 but with all these med bills we decided to cut it down a little and instead of taking it out of savings I just saved all of dh's overtime and bonus check. We are staying with my parents for most of the trip so we don't have to pay for lodging. We are going to spend a few days in Monterey so the little ones can see the ocean for the first time, but my parents are going with us and were generous enough to pay for our hotel room along with theirs. I figure we'll spend about $300 on gas as its an 8 hour drive from vegas to northern cali and then we'll need gas to get to monterey and back, and for any driving in town. Then about $100-$200 on entertainment.We want to take the kids on a boat ride in monterey plus we are giong to spend a day taking them to the zoo. Most of our budget will go to eating out. We have already made plans to eat out with my two sisters and their dh's one night and another we are going out with my best friend to meet her new fiance. Plus dh and i would like to go out alone one night and then the 3 days we are visiting monterey/ocean we will have to eat out and we would like to take my parents out to a nice dinner since they paid for our hotel room. I am going to take a notebook and keep track of our spending so we don't go crazy and go wayyy over budget without even realizing it! Anyways i am so excited to get out of town but must now spend the rest of the day cleaning and packing.

Last week I said I would try and not eat out at all until I went on vacation next month but I didn't make it. We went to my in-laws on Saturday, and my father-in-law got laid off about six months ago so their living off of unemployment, and they told us they didn't have much food in the house. So we went out and got food for all of us. However, that was the only time we ate out all weekend, which is much better than usual.

We did get hubby's quarterly bonus check on Friday which was $646.13. We used $100 towards getting our transmission flushed and an oil change and will use another $100 for our extra large electric bill and the rest will be added to our vacation.

I got another unexpected medical bill from when I was pregnant and the medical claim said we still owe $504.00. I am so glad we have a savings but all these bills are going to take a big bite out of it. We are thinking of cashing in my hubbys second week of vacation to help with some of the bills but were not sure if thats the best idea because it might be nice for him to have another week off later in the year.

On the bright side, when I talked to my mom, she told me she bought us a box of diapers and box of wipes from costco! That will get us through almost a whole month. Yay for mom!

So I got a claim from my secondary insurance for an ultrasound I had in May saying I still owed $109.75. However, I had the same exact claim from February that they had paid in full. I called to ask why I had to pay this one and they told me that someone had processed that first claim wrong and now I am responsible for paying for both. So I now have two $109.75 bills instead of just one. They also said that most of my other bills(i.e. hospital delivery, amnio test, doctor bill for delivery) won't be covered until I pay my outrageous $6000 deductible. They have paid for all my lab work though before I started paying my deductible so I don't know how they figure out what they pay and what they don't. With my first son I had they same primary insurance but a different secondary but everything was paid in FULL without usse having to pay so much as a penny.

I am going to try and not eat out at all from now until the end of the month. We tend to eat out quite a bit, at least twice a week. We used to be even worse and go out 4 to 5 times a week and we cut back to twice. If dinner isn't made when hubby gets home he always suggests ordering in or drive-thru and I usually agree if it means I don't have to cook. This means though that we usually spend a few hundred a month on eating out. I'm hoping to save as much money as I can though for our vacation in August because it would mean that much less I would have to take out o savings.

Well I used to wear a size 0 before I had my youngest son but I'm still a good 10 to 15 pds. over my usual weight(at least thats my guess, i haven't been on a scale yet), and now I am wearing a size 4. Needless to say, none of my clothes fit me now and since we are going on vacation in 3 weeks to California, I decided it was time to buy some clothes that fit.Also, we only have onesies for my son and I wanted to buy him some cute outfits for our trip so I went to Old Navy. I think I did good though. For $57.00 I got, 3 tops and 2 pair of shorts for myself and 3 tops and 2 pair of shorts for my son. Then we had to get my oldest son new shoes, which cost $35.00 for a pair of DC's and I went to Carter's and got 2 more outfits for the youngest for$12. By the time we got everyone showered and dressed both days it was almost noon, so we had to stop for lunch after we were done shopping which added another $30 to our spending.

We just had a beautiful little boy on May 29th but now I am anxious to get our insurance statements in to see how much we're going to have to pay in medical bills. We have two insurances but my secondary has a $6,000 deductible. So far all our bills have been totally covered bewtween the two insurances but they have all been small bills; no more than a couple hundred dollars. I'm really really hoping they will cover the big doctor and hospital bills too without having to pay the deductable but I really have no idea what they will do.

I'm a saver and my husband is a spender. Thankfully he realizes this and let's me stay in control of our money, otherwise we would be broke. He is very good about asking me before he makes any big purchases but he is always asking to buy something. It's hard to always say no to him, so sometimes I give in, even if it's something we don't really need. I wonder how much more we could save if my husband really got into saving money too?