In September I turn 30. On this birthday my annuity payments will come to an end. It will mean a larger than 10% drop in our income of tax free money. This is gonna hurt. I’m looking at our budget stuff very carefully. This is going to mean a fairly significant lifestyle scale back. How irritating. I mean, this is a first world problem. We are still going to have substantially more money than the vast majority of Americans. (I will point out that we also don’t live in Boise so our mortgage is None Too Cheap.) We will be fine and all, but this trip to Europe is our last international travel for quite a few years. I’m going to make the most of it! That’s a lot of why I’m staying for four full weeks. Airfare is about 50% of the total cost of the trip and that’s kind of scary because hotels there are really pricey.

I haven’t really had to actually budget. Things just kind of worked out. Now I do. Damnit. Good thing I will never get pregnant again. Between all the health care costs and our increased eating out and maid service… well… that was most of the annuities. 🙂 … Actually, I just did the math. We spend almost 1.5 times the annuities on pregnancy. Good damn thing that’ll never happen again! And Shanna was even more because of the hospital transfer. Holy shit. Maybe I’m not worried after all. 🙂