On the plus side, I recently received a promotion at work (after a greuling 2012). At my new level, my company reimburses gym memberships. For first timers, like me, they reimburse 75% of the cost, up to $1500. For people in the program more than one year, they have a sliding scale based on how many times you attended the year before.

The gym I go to is relatively new (5 years old) and pretty state of the art. It has a great kids program as well. They really emphasize fitness being a fun family thing. Anyway, my membership is $69/month. So this means that I will only be paying $17.25/month this year, for a savings of about $52/month. The full amount was included in my budget, so FOUND MONEY! The company also foots the bill for a cardiac stress test (mandatory for over 40), which I've been meaning to do anyway.

So that's the saving for today. The spending is DD's 8th grade field trip to Washington DC. I just got an email that this month's installment is due. The total cost of the trip is $616. Personally, I hate the idea of my 14 year old being away for 3 days and 2 nights supervised only by school personnel, and I question how much they'll be able to see and do with 150 kids, versus what we could do during a family trip. And I'm quite sure that I could arrange a more meaningful trip for the 4 of us for less than $616 bucks. But alas, I don't want her sitting in a study hall for 3 days while all of her friends and classmates are away, so we're bucking up for it.

Speaking of DD, I'm home from work today because she needs to go to the doctor, and DS needs to go to the orthodontist. Both of those payments will be covered by my Flexible Spending. (Another "savings" - my orthontic coverage increased from $2000 to $2500 this year, so $500 less for me to pay. Wahoo). We have High School orientation tonight, and a number of errands to run today, including returning a few Christmas gifts. Busy, busy, busy...