Day 29

Blog Post #29 – January 29th, 2020.

My office mate and I usually go out to lunch once a week or so.  This month we have gone out once and he offered to pay. I accepted because it was Friday and it had been a long week.  Today he offered to take me out to lunch again. I did not feel comfortable with that, it made me feel like a charity case.  I didn’t want him to feel obligated to support me. He looked at it differently, he wanted to go out to lunch and did not want to eat by himself.  This experiment is only one month. I bet if it went on and on he would eventually find someone else to eat lunch with. I even thought about bringing extra lunch for him so we could eat together at the office. Although this week I did not menu plan and do not have any extra food cooked, so maybe next week.  My husband is making plans for grilling and chilling this weekend so I’m sure he will accept those leftovers! I bet it is hard on friendships when one has money problems and the other does not.  

My husband works for the State and he signed up for a flex spending account.  His year is on a fiscal year and not a calendar year. The card was loaded with $2,000.00 in September and $166 is deducted from his check every month.  We have access to all the money up front but have to use it all by the end of August or we lose it. With three people who wear contacts and various other medical problems we have burned through all $2000.00 already.  So from here on out we have to pay for our medical expenses and the $166.00. This seemed like a good idea at the beginning of the year but now it will be hard to budget for the rest of the year. Medical expenses are the wild card in most budgets and can send a plan over the cliff quickly.