Well I did my Christmas budget and came out about to a budget of about $600. What we ended up spending last year. Last year we spread it out over 3 months, and this year I am a little slow to the game. However, expect a lot of Christmas cash.

Figure we'll buy gifts this month (love to have them wrapped up by Thanksgiving - generally my goal. I don't do stress and all that and always strive to make Christmas relaxing as possible. Plus work is crazy, all the more reason to be ahead of the game so I can focus on work - if you must know the truth!).

I know, it's funny, I worked here 6 years and yet dh continually forgets that it is hard for me to get time off around Christmas. At my old job I always took a good week or two (had flex time and sure worked a LOT of hours the rest of the year). So it's been kind of bummer to only get one day off. Often working the weekends and such. BUT the last few years Christmas or our Christmas holiday fell on the weekend. So dh tells me we are doing our usual Christmas Eve thing and I am like, um, well I'll be at work. I feel like we go through this every year. As for me, I decided to take the week of Thanksgiving off every year. Doesn't cut so much into my vacation as a full week off, and is also nice with all the preparation as we host every year. We just have the most room. (& I LOVE a holiday where we don't have to drive 2 hours each way!!!) With Japan & Vegas that is out the window this year.

Oh anyway, as far as the budget, like $200 is for our families who were so extremely generous to us this year, and $50 to my boss's gift. He'll give me $200 or so, and I'll give $50. Seems fair. I really appreciate him. So yeah, that is about 1/2 the budget. There really is not a lot to it in the grand scheme of things. Presents in November and then December we will work on all the donations. I can put them on the card and pay them in January after we get all the Christmas cash - so though we are one month behind, I think it will work out just fine.

We also went through the kids' wish list and decided that they don't need much. We want to get a $40 train table for LM and could not decide on much for BM. But they get so spoiled we kind of just want to get them both one nice toy (& only that. We have piles of free books and games and such from Scholastic as well). I saw a $30 scooter and figured BM would LOVE it so will probably go for that. We were thinking of getting LM a leapster. BM has one and LM loves the thing (just getting old enough to use). But the new ones use a different battery charger so we were looking at $100 for the whole package. (Gee I wonder if the old games are compatible - I assume yes since dh did not mention but who knows). It would be very excessive, BUT LM generally gets little but hand-me-downs. I thought it would be a really nice gesture. We thought better of it though, and I think that is good. Dh mentioned BM is really outgrowing it and with the whole charger situation it just doesn't make sense. So we saved quite a few dollars there.

That leaves the next biggest item on my list to spoil my nieces. & I do have twice as many this year. So my mom called me last night to say she had a $10 Kohls coupon (just a $10 minimum purchase - I LOVE those) and she was going to send it to me. Woohoo. I figure I might get one in the mail too. Keeping a sharp eye out. I can swing some cute outfits for the nieces with $20. So will cross my fingers on that.

In other news, it is *that* time of year. Time to see what our health insurance premiums bring. Blech... We're at $675 for a lesser plan and I can not imagine paying more. On the flip side, we are in a position now with all the permanent birth control measures to maybe keep the kids on this plan and dh and I would consider taking boss's crappy plan. Not happy about it and not even sure if we would save much money. But will have to evaluate again. I think it's something like $350 to cover the kids now and $250 to cover dh on boss's plan (I'd be covered). Plus dh's portion would be pre-tax, which is huge. So it is something to consider. That would be around a $100 savings perhaps, today. Just not sure it is worth it for much lesser coverage. Probably not... Higher deductibles and all that. (But I think the catch is no quite high enough to qualify for a HSA. Plus we really wouldn't save enough to heavily contribute - and so on).

Well, probably will know in a week or 2... I just DREAD this time of year. But some part of me thinks at least it can't be as bad as last year (40% increase for turning 30 last year!!!!!!). Of course, at $673/month, the usual 10-20% increase is too frightening to think about.