Last month my husband had a lipoma removed from his back.  His lipoma was a pre-existing condition when we got our health insurance, so it’s excluded from the policy.  Because we knew we’d be paying for the removal and pathology (it came back benign, luckily), he had called around to several dermatologists to see what they would charge.  In each case, he was clear that insurance wouldn’t cover it and explained what he needed to have done.  Most of the quotes he got were between $300 and $600.  We got the bill yesterday: $1650 (plus another $165 for the initial consultation).  Holy crap.  I know that estimates can be a little off, but this is almost three times the upper end of the ranges he was quoted.  Today, he called back to the place that did his lipoma removal and pretended to be a new patient inquiring about costs, much the same as he had done a month ago.  He explained the lipoma, it’s size and location, his lack of insurance coverage for this condition, and asked for a price.  The quote? $200 – $300.  This time around, he recorded the whole phone call.  Now we can call the dermatologist back and discuss the recorded price quote and the bill we received for 6 times that much.  If it’s not possible for them to give an accurate quote, they probably shouldn’t be giving out numbers over the phone.  We’re wondering just how much our insurance would have approved for this procedure had it not been excluded.  I’m guessing it would have been a whole lot less.  The whole thing was done in the doctor’s office (no hospital overhead fees) and took less than an hour, from when she first shook his hand until he was being sent out the door with a painkiller prescription.  They didn’t even give him anything to dress the wound with – just instructions to change the dressing twice a day.  So I was at the drugstore that evening buying whatever I  could find that would cover the incision and not irritate his skin.  You’d think that for $1800 you’d at least get a few bandages thrown in.  I’ll let you know what happens once we present the doctor’s office with the recorded phone call.  Should be interesting anyway.

Since we’re already going to be paying a big chunk of money for my husband’s outfit at his cousin’s wedding, I wanted to keep my clothing costs to a minimum while still looking good enough to walk around with my tuxedoed man.  We went to a couple of my favorite thrift stores over the weekend, and I hit the jackpot.  I got a dress for the rehearsal dinner for $13.  It still has it’s original Express pricetag on it ($58), and it fits me perfectly.  It’s got spaghetti straps, so I needed a strapless bra to go with it.  Since I didn’t have a strapless bra, and I tend to wear a lot of tank-tops, I decided that I might aswell splurge on anew underwear staple.  So off to TJMaxx I went, where I found a great strapless bra for $10.  Next I headed to another thrift store where I got a Banana Republic top, an Express skirt, and Nine West strappy sandals – grand total: $18.  The whole outfit is very simple and very comfortable (well, as comfortable as strappy sandals can ever be on a girl who tends to wear running shoes, biking shoes, or Merrells everywhere she goes).  The top I got for the wedding needs a strapless bra too, so my $10 bra will get me a lot of mileage that weekend. 

Now we just need to find a gift.  I’m not sure what we’re going to do there.  We could just go to Bed Bath & Beyond and get something off the gift registry.  But I really really don’t like gift registries.  I think that the whole concept is tacky as hell.  We eloped, so we bypassed thewhole wedding gift thing.  We’re planning to try for a baby later this year, and there will be no baby showers and no gift registries.  If we can’t afford the basics that our baby would need, we have no business getting pregnant.  I hate the idea of going through a store and making a list of all the things I want and then telling my friends and family to go buy it for me.  By the time my husband and I got married, we had been out of college for 5 years, we were both working, and we had been living together for two years - we didn’t need a bunch of stuff.  We still eat off of mismatched dinnerware of forgotten origin, and that’s fine with us.  But I understand that people want to give wedding gifts.  I want to give wedding gifts.  It wouldn’t feel right to show up at a wedding without a gift.  But I don’t really like being told exactly what to go buy and where to get it.  So I’m thinking of bucking the whole registry thing and doing something else for them.  We’ll see what I come up with.  I admit it’s a lot easier to just get something off the registry.  I wonder if there are other people out there who don’t like registries but who just go along with it (like I sometimes do) because it’s easy and it’s what everyone expects.  Anyway, we still have a month until the wedding, so I have plenty of time to get a gift taken care of.  And at least the outfit is done!

The Festival of Frugality is up at Money for the Rest of Us.  Thanks for putting everything together Elizabeth!  I liked the Common Room’s article on plant propagation – we’ve propagated several plants over the last couple months.  Some have done well, some have become compost.  Maybe I should try some moss rose – the pictures look great!  I also liked the baby registry post from the Family Finance Blog.  We’re hoping to have a child sometime in the near future, and that list looks a lot like what we’ll be needing aswell.  I like the idea of distinguishing between real needs and the myriad of crap that the baby industry tells us we must have for our children to turn out well. 

The Carnival of Personal Finance is up at Digerati Life.  I accidentally submitted a post that I meant to send in to last week’s “best-of” carnival, so my post is a bit out of date.  Oops.  But as always, there is a ton of good reading in the carnival.  Thanks Silicon Valley Blogger for putting it all together!

I had to smile when I read the 10 reasons to put off saving for retirement.  Anyone who’s not saving for retirement should read it too.  It makes you realize how silly the excuses are. 

My husband is going to be in his cousin’s wedding next month.  He’s an usher, which is as much “in” a wedding as he wants to be,  since it means he doesn’t have to be in the spotlight or give a speech.  He’s grew up very close to his cousins – both of whom are getting married within the next few months -  so it made sense that he would be asked to be a part of the wedding.  He went to get fitted for a tux yesterday.  I’ll admit to being a little excited about seeing him in a tux.  We met long after prom, and got married in hiking clothes on the side of a mountain, so I’ve never seen him in a tux.  Turns out that his cousin picked the most expensive tuxes available for the wedding.  $158 each.  Ouch.  It’s a good thing this is happening now, when we’re feeling pretty good about our finances, are almost out of credit card debt, and are putting a decent amount of money into savings every month.  If his cousin had gotten married three years ago, I think the $158 bill for the tux would have made me cry.  As it is, we’re amazed that renting a tux could cost $158 for a day, and we’re wondering what this wedding will be like.  There are two weddings scheduled – a Catholic one at 1pm and then a Baptist one at 5pm.  The reception is at a country club after the second wedding.  I’m guessing the whole day amounts to a sweet down payment on a house.

I’m on a mission to find a dress for the wedding.  I went to TJ Maxx and Ross last night, but there were very few things in my size, and the ones that did fit me didn’t look good.  So today I’m going to head over to my favorite thrift stores to see if I can stumble upon any great finds, and then hit a few consignment stores.  If all else fails, I’ll go to the mall.  I’m trying to keep my clothing budget for the wedding to a minimum, since I already bought a shower gift ($25) and we still have to buy a wedding gift, plus that tux.

We’re really happy for my husband’s cousin, and we love the girl he’s marrying.  Of the girls he’s dated in the years I’ve known him, this one is by far the best, and we’re really glad that they found each other.  But however you spin it, the wedding is only one day in your life together.  I’m always struck by how many people, in the last few days leading up to their own weddings, say something like “I just can’t wait for it to be over.”  Watching all this wedding stuff over the last few months has made us so grateful for the wedding we had, and for the life we have together.  And now I’ll get to see my shorts-and-tshirt guy all dressed up for a day.  What more could a girl want?

In addition to being frugal, my husband and I try very hard to be as ecologically responsible as possible.  Often, the two go hand in hand.  Buying used stuff is a great way to help the earth, as it means that new stuff is not being manufactured for us.  It’s the ultimate form of recycling, and easy on the budget as well.

We recycle everything that we can – paper, cardboard, plastic, metal, and glass.  We try to buy things without a lot of packaging, and buy in bulk as much as we can.  We refill water bottles instead of buying water.  When we’re the only ones here, we follow the “if it’s yellow let it mellow” rule, and since we drink so much water, it takes a while to get yellow.  We’ve xeriscaped most of our yard.  I ride my bike to my library job, the bank, the thrift store, the post office, and the grocery store if I can fit everything into my bike basket.  My husband works from home, so he doesn’t have to commute to work at all.  We have a garden that we fertilize with compost.  We use garlic and vinegar to keep bugs off our plants.  I use vinegar to clean just about everything in our house.  Being careful with natural resources has become second nature to us, and I rarely think about any of it anymore.

But we had been talking for quite a while about switching to wind power for our electricity.  Most of the things that we do to help the planet also help us save money, or at least don’t cost money.  But our energy company offers an option to pay extra on our electricity bill and have our power purchased from wind energy farms.  We never knew exactly how much extra, and we had talked about it several times, but felt that we couldn’t afford to pay extra on our energy bill.  Now that we’re feeling better about our finances, we’ve decided to make the switch to wind energy.  We had no idea how much this would cost, so we went to the power company’s website and figured it out.  It looks like it’s going to increase our monthly bill by a whopping $5.  Can that be right?  We’re signing up with our next bill, so we’ll see.  But if that’s really the case, we’re kicking ourselves for not doing it earlier.  We had assumed that it would be quite a bit more expensive than what we pay now.  Once we get signed up and see our first bill, I’ll let you know if it’s really only $5.  If it is, wouldn’t everyone be doing it?  We shall see.

We have a huge maple tree in our front yard.  It’s a great shade tree, and sitting on our front porch feels like being in the forest since the tree obscures most of the street from view.  But it’s getting a bit out of control.  My husband has climbed on the roof a couple times to trim back the branches that were getting close to the roof, and today we used a step ladder and hand saw to cut back all the low-hanging branches.  The tree has been getting less resistant to wind storms because it’s branches are getting too long and spread out.  We’ve had several big storms this summer, and each time we’ve lost limbs from that tree.  We want the tree to always be there, so my husband suggested that we hire a tree service to come out and trim it all over, to encourage compact growth and strengthen the existing branches. 

My first reaction was to worry about the cost.  I told him I wasn’t sure if we could afford it (without even knowing the price – I tend to react that way whenever an unexpected expense is looming).  He didn’t mind, and said it would be fine to wait until the fall to have it trimmed, but reminded me that it really needs to be done, and it’s not the sort of thing that we can do ourselves.  The tree is easily 40 feet tall, and it’s absolutely a place for a professional with the right equipment.

Later in the day, I started thinking about the whole situation a little differently.  We’re currently saving $900/month in retirement accounts and $100/month in an ING account.  I’m very focused on saving money.  It’s sort of an obsession.  I am very much in favor ofpassing on a new pair of pants in order to put the money into savings instead.  But if I’m passing on things that we need right now in order to have more money in the future, it’s sort of defeating the purpose.  The logic behind my burning need to save money is so that we’ll be able to have the things we need for as long as we live, without always having to worry about how to pay for everything.  But I need to remind myself that while it’s absolutely necessary to save for the future, it’s also important to make sure that we’re taking care of ourselves now.  Planning ahead is great, but we have to be able to live in the moment aswell.  It’s really all we’ve got that’s guaranteed.  So we’re going to call around and get quotes from some tree services, and have someone come out and tidy up our tree.  And if we put a little less into savings next month in order to pay for the tree trimmer, that will be fine with me.  Investing in our future will always be a huge priority for us, but investing in our here-and-now is a good idea too. 

One of my best friends sold her house yesterday.  About 18 hours before the closing, my friend got the final numbers from the realtor and bank, with closing costs, mortgage payoff info, etc.  She had taken out the loan 2 years ago for $118,000.  She’s made all her payments since then, and each month the balance on the loan went down.  Imagine her surprise when she got the final loan amount and it was $119,000.  She called the bank and was told that they had a prepayment penalty if you sold your house to a relative.  Ok.  That’s a bit strange, but since she wasn’t selling her house to a relative, why was the penalty being added on?  Well, it turns out that the bank assumesyou’re selling to a relative – since I’m sure that’s such a common thing? - and you have to prove otherwise in order to not have the penalty assessed.  Wow.  So my friend (who is known for her ability to raise hell) told them that closing was in 18 hours, that they had dragged their feet about getting the paperwork done in the first place, and that they had better get everything fixed in time for closing.  She’s pretty scary when she’s pissed, and I guess it worked, because they got the new paperwork printed up in time for the closing yesterday morning.

She and I were talking about the whole fiasco afterwards, and it seemed like such a scam.  Since the bank didn’t get the paperwork ready until the very last minute, maybe they think that people won’t have the time to look over everything before they sign the papers?  In my friend’s case, the penalty had actually increased the amount of the loan from it’s original value, but what about someone who’s had their house for several years and hasn’t been paying attention to the amounts listed on their statements?  Maybe they would just sign off on the loan repayment paperwork and not notice the $3000 charge.  What a silly prepayment penalty too – for selling the house to a relative?  How did they dream that one up?  I guess this just serves as one more reminder to pay attention to our bank balances and outstanding loan amounts, and to read things before we sign them. 

I’ve been wearing my new ring for a month now, and I absolutely love it.  I think it’s even prettier than the “real” one that I had before.  My original ring was not flawless, and I can tell that this one sparkles more. I’ve had several compliments from strangers about what a pretty ring it is.  I love knowing that it wasn’t dug out of the ground by an exploited youth in Africa, and knowing that the money we got from selling my first ring is working for us in an IRA and an HSA. 

Earlier this month, one of my best friends was at my house, and it was the first time she had seen me since I had switched rings.  She saw it pretty quickly, and looked with amazement at me and my husband.  She knows how frugal we are, and she couldn’t believe we had upgraded to a bigger rock.  She said she loved the ring, but was surprised that we had obviously spent a lot more money to get a bigger, better stone (I have one ct now – my other ring was about 3/4 ct total, with a stone in the middle and one on either side).  So I told her my secret.  She was very impressed.  She said that she had just seen the movie Blood Diamond and that she was horrified by her own ring after watching that movie.  I haven’t seen the movie yet (I’m number 14 on the hold list at the library right now), but I think it will only make me more proud of our decision. 

The Festival of Frugality is up at Frugal Upstate.  Thanks Jenn for hosting, and for writing everything twice after it crashed the first time!  As always, there are tons of great articles from the pf community.  I love the article from My Two Dollars about saving money on baby costs.  My husband and I are also planning to start trying for a baby later this year, and we’re of course looking for ways to keep an expanding family within a smallish budget.  We plan to use cloth diapers, breastfeed, use second-hand baby clothes and pretty much avoid child care costs, since we work from home.  When we started our home-based business five years ago, we knew that it would be a huge benefit when we decided to have a child, and we’re really glad that we stuck with it.  Maternity clothes is another area where it’s easy to save money.  I am determined to get all my maternity clothes second hand, but I will need to have business casual stuff since I plan to keep my part-time job at the library at least until we have a baby.  So I won’t just be able to wear a pair of giant sweats for the whole second half of my pregnancy.  I started glancing at the maternity sections of my favorite thrift stores earlier this year, and I noticed that the majority of the stuff there was medium and large size, and a lot of it wasn’t what I would call cute.  I’m a pretty small person, and there are usually about three items in the small maternity clothes section whenever I look.  So I started to pay attention to what was there, and if I found something that was a small and super cute, I would buy it.  I’ve spent about $40 to date, and I have three pairs of work-appropriate pants, a dress, and 8 tops.  All very cute and stylish, and all things that will fit my body once it has a big belly.  If for some reason we aren’t able to get pregnant, I know I can resell the clothes at a consignment store for more than I paid for them.  And now I know that I won’t break down and go to Motherhood Maternity when I’m 6 months pregnant because I can’t find anything at the thrift store. 

I also loved Kmull’s article about thrift store clothes.  As a veteran thrift store shopper, it’s always fun to see people who are trying it for the first time and liking it.  I think people who have never shopped second-hand picture a thrift store as a huge ratty pile of 1070s sweaters that smell like moth balls.   My husband was a perfect example.  When I met him, his shopping style was to go to Structure or Gap or the Buckle and buy whatever the mannequin was wearing.  It took me about two years to get him to set foot in a thrift store, and even then he would just wait for me in the book section.  These days, half his clothes are from thrift stores (the other half is stuff he had before he started shopping second-hand).