Newborn Son & Financial Effects

It has been such a busy week this past week that I did not post about my son being born on Monday morning at 6:05 AM at 6 lbs 5 oz. Baby Jack is very healthy and eating up a storm. The financial effects that will be felt (or not) in the months ahead include:

Clothes - Another couple in our bible study at church has a son growing out of clothes, so we received a lot of clothes. We also kept clothes that were unisex from our daughter for him. We should be good for a few years and then we'll probably get more hand-me-downs from others.

Food - We have some formula from when our daughter was born which should last us a little while (it hasn't expired yet). My wife is breastfeeding as well, but he's a voracious eater. My wife did purchase some additional tools to help her gather excess milk which have worked well. The total cost for those was $25.

Bed - We received a bed from someone we knew that no longer needed it. We had lots of blankets from when our daughter was little, so we didn't need to buy any.

Health Insurance - This will be the biggest expense for a while at $40/month with the Illinois All-Kids Care program. Our daughter is signed up for it as well and it has worked well. The only item we have to be careful is that they only cover 1 dental visit per year.

College Fund - In order to keep the two kid's college savings accounts at equal footing, we'll need to start putting at least $25/month into an account for him. We are not planning on paying all of their schooling, just enough so that they have to put some sweat equity into it without the work affecting their grades.

Declined for BC/BS Coverage

It's a first, I've been denied for individual insurance coverage by BC/BS. I suspect it's due to some recent chiropractic treatment I had done to correct bad neck posture. They're probably worried about surgery ahead. Even my father with two knee replacements has insurance, but not me...

What this means: My employer is going to look for other coverage for me, they are the ones footing the bill for the insurance. If they are not able to find one, I'll see about getting catastrophic insurance in case I'm in the hospital (hasn't happened in my life yet, but could happen). The rest I'll pay out of pocket and negotiate.

This is a very rough thing for me and I'll be doing a lot of thinking this weekend. This is going to change my future goals big time.

10% Raise & Health Benefits

This afternoon I had my 6 month review at my current job, it went well as I was expecting (though one can still be nervous about it). Normally they don't give out raises after 6 months, but because of my circumstances they decided to go with a 10% raise. It brings me up to $39,600, just $400 short of the $40K I was hoping for. I'm glad though that this is just 2/3 of our income (rest being rental income of $12K/yr and other jobs I have of $7K/yr).

In addition, I'll be getting my health benefits being taken care of 100% as an individual (but not within a group), but that means we'll have to start planning for my wife and daughter's benefits. That's not going to be a fun activity, but we'll have to make it happen. My daughter I'm not too worried about, it's my wife's insurance that is going to be the problem (has a pacemaker). More about that fun in the coming weeks probably.