Another Day, Another Dollar...

...Or thousands, to be spent.

This fall, the money issues are coming up. Fortunately, my husband's job seems to be secure, and he makes enough for us to live on and have a little set aside for emergencies. However, we have been spending too much lately. And not just on unnecessary luxuries like new TVs (though Hubby did buy one of those, and now it's annoying me because the thing is too big for the stand it's on, and isn't centered on the wall, so from my regular seat -- the one I always sit in on the couch -- the end of the TV overlaps the doorway according to my angle of view, plus the cables and plugs to the TV are all visible on the wall. It's very upsetting to my sense of decor. Hubby doesn't see the point in that, but feng shui, or my Americanized version of it, is important to me!).

Where was I? Oh yes, we're spending too much money. In October, we had the hyperbaric chamber rental. That has been going well so far, in that Hutton enjoys going in the chamber twice a day, and his sentences are getting longer and sound more "typical". We'll see how he does in the weeks to come if he continues to improve. The chamber goes back next week, and if he shows improvement during the "down time" we'll probably want to rent it again, or look into buying one. Did you say that will cost still more money? Oh yeah. Money. So, if the hyperbaric protocol works for Hutton, that's great, but means more money spent. If it doesn't work for Hutton, that just means we wasted thousands of dollars. Hmm. And time. Time is money, right? Well, not if you're a seven-year-old boy or a housewife, I suppose.

I bought tickets to fly home to Nashville for the week between Christmas and New Year's. Originally, we were all going to go for two weeks, and drive down to Pensacola to visit Hubby's family, too, but when that got into the $2500 range (AKA the price of renting a hyperbaric chamber for a month) Hubby balked. So, now the boys and I are going to Nashville for a week, not driving to Pensacola (we'll see the inlaws in North Carolina for Thanksgiving, when we visit my sister-in-law and her family) and we'll save on Hubby's ticket, plus car rental costs, plus Hubby can stay and take care of the pets, so no petsitter costs for that. Phew. But, still, another $1700 to visit family for Christmas.

Then there's the Christmas gifts to be bought for friends and family. I've bought things for a few people already, but still have more to buy, and I'm sure that will quickly add up.

And then, today, I took our sweet Sally to the vet for her annual checkup. She has two fatty tumors that are growing -- one on her leg, the other on the side of her abdomen, and the vet wrote up an estimate for having them removed. She's had these tumors for years, and when they biopsied them, they were benign, but the one on her leg started getting bigger this fall. So, it's possible there's something underneath all the fat. But, do we want to subject our 13-year-old dog to surgery and the two weeks of downtime to follow? Not to mention the $1100 or so for surgery? Sally's a great dog, but as Hubby and I discussed two years ago when she needed surgery for a herniated disk in her neck, it's a lot of money. So, we're going to wait on the tumors for a while, since they aren't bothering her.

I won't type anything else, or I'm sure to jinx us into having more money issues come up.