My company provides some really good benefits. They match 100% 401(k) contributions up to 6%, and they pay for the first $100 of our public transportation commuting expenses (a pretty big deal when you need to commute to NYC...it gets expensive). Anyway, they just sent around a memo today that, beginning Jan. 1, we can begin deducting our parking expenses PRETAX! up to $205/month. This is huge for me. Because of my schedule, I drive about 45-60 minutes, then take the PATH (subway) into the city. My PATH expenses run $3/day, so I'm always under the $100 limit. But parking costs me $20/day! So I will pretty easily hit $200/month. To have this come out pretax will save me $60-70/month. Great deal...Made my day.

I had a good rest of the day. After work, I picked up the kids, hung out at the park after school for a few minutes, then took the kids to JCPenney for their Christmas pix. Turned out SOOO much better than I expected. Every year we take them somewhere, and it's usually either really crowded, or if we go to a small place, really expensive. They ran the best shop ever! They only had 1 appointment scheduled per time slot, the girl taking the pictures was amazing, and we were in and out of there in 20 minutes. For some reason they didn't charge me the sitting fee (perhaps because I ordered so many pictures?), and I had discounted gift cards for the entire amount. It went so well that I took the kids to dinner afterward.

When we got home, we did homework and watched a new Spongebob DVD that DS got for his birthday. I love Spongebob...I know it's a kid's show, but I absolutely love it! I'm home tomorrow...don't know exactly what I have going on. DS's swimming lessons are over. DD needs a haircut, but I'm not sure we'll get there after school because she has CCD. Maybe a no spend day? Let's hope so...

By the way, DD's teacher has a pretty good program going on. The kids track their reading each day. If the read 10-15 minutes per day, 4 days per week, for an entire month, Pizza Hut will give them a coupon for a free personal pan pizza (it's called their Book-It program, and it runs each month, October-March). Seems like a great deal to me...so if any of you are near a pizza hut, check it out...

Today's spending:
Tolls - $1.40
Parking - $20
Breakfast - $1.25
Groceries - $9.19
Dinner out - $26.03