Soon?

DS called and said he checked his work visa status online and it has now changed (from in process, I believe) to "open" and is also showing "no additional documents required". SO - he thinks it's getting close to finally being approved! He was very excited and his hoping it finalizes in the next couple of weeks (while he is home) and then he can go back and start his new job after the first of the year. We are all praying for this, that is for sure.

He is super excited to be coming home in 2 days and having it be a surprise. A friend is picking him up from the airport, so that means I don't have to come up with an excuse to be gone on a Sunday evening for 2 hours. It will be so good to see him. It's been 3 1/2 months since we saw him last.

I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch, but hopefully by April I will be able to put back a little breathing room in my monthly budget. I think he has to wait 90 day for his benefits to kick in. At that point I can drop him from the health insurance, which will save $200 a month. As soon as he starts his job I can have him start paying me for the insurance on the vehicle he has, which is about $50 a month.  That $250 a month exiting the monthly budget will make the extra that health insurance will cost (over what I'm paying now) *only* a $150 hit to the budget. Much better.

While he is home I told him he has to help me get DH a new phone and plan. I think I'm going to switch him to the $32 (with tax) per month plan with T-Mobile, like DD is on.  Unlimited web and text and 100 minutes per month talk. That will save $11 a month over what I am paying now - for a dumb phone plan, very limited talk and message and no internet. We need a phone that has internet so we can leave the house, turn on our camera system and would get a notification if one of the cameras sensed motion. It would snap a pic and email it to us and we could check it.....and then hopefully see "oh it's just one of the cats!"

I've got to try and whittle away at this $400 a month cut in disposable income. $400 a month for NOTHING! The new insurance is not going to save us a dime in out of pocket costs, that's for sure and is giving us nothing in added benefits - unless I can meet the huge deductible first.