Hubby gets a new health plan starting Feb. 1st. We have two to decide from. The first one is an HMO and has no deductible or out-of-pocket-max. and costs $32/week, which is what we are paying now for his current health plan. The second is a HMO + PPO, where you can decide which to use, depending on what the doctor or hospital takes. The HMO side has no deductible or out-of-pocket-max. but the PPO side has a $2250 deductible and $18,000 out-of-pocket-max. It also cost $64/week, which is $32 more a week out of his paycheck, and that =$1664 more a year. Also, if we use the ppo side we still have to pay 20% of everything after we meet the deductible but the hmo covers everything. We have always had PPO and am not sure how hmo is. Does anyone have an hmo plan, and how do you like it? Would it be worth the extra money every week to get the option of having both? We are all very healthy and only plan to have routine check ups, but we do have two babies to think of.

Well it's been a few months since i've updated my page. My youngest is now 7 months and a whoppin 22 pds.! My how time flys.

December was pretty good to us. We put an extra $400 towards our best buy card and we were able to put $1200 in our savings, thanks to my hubby's xmas bonus. We didn't spend too much on christmas, just around $150. We bought our oldest a few toys and i got hubby some new shirts and a pair of jeans from j. crew, his favorite store. Luckily we have a big outlet mall here and all the clothes were 60% off. That store is way too expensive to shop full price. My wonderful parents sent two full boxes of presents for all of us. My son now thinks his nana is santa claus!

January hasn't been too bad. So far we have added $211 to our savings. Our goal for the year is to cut back on as much excess spending as possible and try to save save save! Usually work is pretty slow for hubby at this time of year since he's a heavy equipment operator, but he's been lucky and not only kept his 40 hrs. a week, but has put in 16 hrs. of overtime so far this month.

We're now waiting to do our taxes. We have hubby's w-2 and our mortgage statement, but I don't get mine 'til the 21st. I estimated on hr block and it said we should get a little ocer $2900 back, so I'm hoping it's pretty accurate.If so, we need to use $1000 to register our cars with the dmv and put new tires on one of the cars.

Our computer is starting to slow down and our washer and dryer are getting a little louder, so these are things that will need to be replaced within a year or two. We figure we will use them until they just about die because I'm not excited about dishin out the money for new ones. Our appliances will be paid off in November, so if we need to get new things we will put them on our best buy card with 18 months no interest. We have plenty in savings to pay for these things but it makes me feel much more comfortable making payments, since theres no interest. As long as we keep enough in savings to pay it off if need be, I don't feel bad about using the credit card although I know some people would disagree with me.

We've done much better on our eating out these past two months. We had been averaging $200 a month on eating out, but the past two months have been around $75. It's still not great, but much better. We have, however, been spending more on groceries. I used to try to stick to $100 the first week of the month, then $50 a week after that. We now spend $80 a week. I do include diapers and household stuff into this, and i guess with two kids we don't do too bad.

The only things we've done to the house is get a new computer desk and chair. We did get them on clearance at office max and spent $150 on a small dark wood desk and brown leather chair.

We are planning to take the kids to disneyland next spring. The kids will be 4 and 2, so they will be old enough to enjoy it. I know some of you have recently gone to disneyland and I'm wondering about how much it costs so I can try and save throughout this year so we'll be ready to go next year. I'm thinking about $1500-$2000? We'll probably go for about 3 days and we'll drive since we only live 5 hrs. away.

Well i think that about sums it up. Hopefully I won't wait so long to do another update.