Good and bad

I picked up my new glasses from Costco yesterday. No problems with them and I really like them, so I'm happy I decided to give them a try and really happy that I saved so much money. Hopefully, I'll get my $100 reimbursement from my vision insurance soon. It's nice to be able to read better again!

I had to stop back in Costco on my way home today to pick up DH's prescription..the last 2 months I filled it at another store that price matched Costco, but when I went to get it last month it was a Sunday and Costco was closed and they couldn't call to check their price. The lady told me she would call the next day and get back to me. She never did and when I went to pick it up, they said the best they could do was $66 (Walmart price) because Costco's price was below their cost. Ok....so this month I took the prescription (a low dose narcotic) back to Costco...and it rings up 3 times higher than what I had been paying there for months and months! Geez - I give up! Why would the price triple, up from $26 to $75 just for a generic type medicine? I had to pay it, of course, but sure makes it tough to budget when you can't rely on a similar cost each month.

Then I stopped back in their optical dept and had my new glasses adjusted. It was pressing in too much behind my ear and really hurting all day. Seems better now.  

Only 1/2 more day of work and then a nice 4 1/2 day weekend....though I'll probably end up spending my Wednesday afternoon off doing some work for my side job. The owners have another meeting with their CPA in mid December and want November financials done by then. That's going to be a little tough for me to do. Their office manager hasn't even sent me November's deposit info yet. I might just have to do a little estimating and it will be close enough for what they are trying to estimate as income/expenses for the year.

I haven't done FSA deductions from my paycheck in quite a few years. I did it the year DD had braces and one other year, but for the most part I found it to be a pain in the you know what compared to what I saved in taxes. Apparently now you can't pay for OTC medicines and stuff with it anymore, unless you have a dr's prescription for it. I always had a hard time estimating, so I would end up way underestimating, because there was no way I was going to lose any money if I didn't use it all. Doing payroll I have seen people loose hundreds of dollars because they over estimated. That's just dumb. In reviewing our paperwork on it for enrolling for the new year I see a new rule in place for next year - we'll be able to carryover up to $500 if we over estimate. That makes me feel better to give it a try again. But I'm still having trouble estimating....especially if pharmacy prices are going to fluctuate so much. Plus, being the only income earner in the family, along with itemized deductions, I don't end up paying much of my income in federal income tax - about 4% plus 7.65% for social security, so approximately 12% of what I would have withheld for FSA really would only save me about $160 a year. I've never thought it worth the hassle it always was before.

But that's about $13 a month that I could save in payroll taxes by using it and I guess that is better than nothing, right? We get a debit type card that I can use to pay for most of the medical things, rather than having to go through the hassle of submitting claims and waiting to get reimbursed. I might even estimate a little higher (in earlier years I used it I was always way under) and then just carry it forward into the next year, if I need to. DH takes an OTC laxative, and would be covered if the dr actually writes a prescription. Doc is the one who told him to take it, so I'm sure he wouldn't have a problem writing a prescription I can submit to the FSA administrator company. I spend about $150 a year, just on that medicine, alone, so I might as well include it and take advantage of every dollar of savings I can.