Formula Facts Versus Fiction - Part 1

As you know, JaneMD loves Part 1 and 2's. So here comes another one on formula . . . particularly since some people have expressed some interest in more about newborn care/prices

Real conversation in the outpatient office:

Patient's Mom: My baby spit up alot since I changed to step 1 formula at 2 months. So we tried the sensitive formula; she was still gassy. I tried soy for a few weeks and she seemed better, but after she had a big spit up, I went out and bought some Alimentum now that she's five months.  She doesn't like it very much, but she's stopped spitting up. I know she's lactose intolerant.
Me: How many ounces were you feeding her at a time when she was 2 months old?
Patient's Mom: Eight
Me: How many ounces does she take now at a time?
Patient's Mom: Six or seven

This mom has fallen into a trap that I think of as 'The Great Formula Lie.' This mom had no idea she was taken in by advertising and false claims. She spent alot of money and time switching formulas for spitting up when if she had not overfed her two month old, took some precautions like sitting her baby upright after feeding, or asked her doctor, she very likely would have it avoided completely. 

So in this two parter, I will discuss major lies - I mean 'selling points' that marketing trying to use on you.

#1 - Stepwise formula:
Ah, Enfamil. Even though I was a solid breastfeeding mother for the first 7 months of life, you continued to send me formula samples. Your advertisements said things like 'I am not a baby, I am an infant.' All ridiculous lies. I appreciate that you sent me a sample of Newborn and Step 1 once a month, though because it was free.

I once set those Newborn and Step 1 cans next to each other and examined the ingrediates and nutrients. Essentially exactly identical. The ONLY difference was Newborn had 75 units of Vitamin D and Step 1 had 60 units per 5 ounces. That is all. The entire difference. Both claimed to have prebiotics, both claimed to have DHA and ARA. 

Well, Vitamin D must make a difference, right? Not really. Your child is recommended after the age of 3 months, if breastfeeding, to get 400 IU of Vitamin D daily. Step 1 formula would require drinking of 33 ounces and Newborn formula would require 27 ounces a day. The newborn formula claims to be used 0-3 months, and the step 1 is 0-12 months. Except you don't need vitamin D supplement until 3 months of age and then you don't really need the newborn formula, or you could buy all newborn formula since the difference is so small.

I grabbed Walmart formula and guess what - it is completely identical to Step 1 Enfamil! Everything is the same - including its claims for DHA, ARA, and prebiotics. This is because the US FDA controls what is in formula and it must meet a certain requirement so all formulas, Enfamil, Similac, any generic are nutritionally, for all intents and purposes, the SAME. In fact, there are no studies that show outcome (IQ, growth, and so forth) over any type of formula in a normal child. These claims are like stating that using a 'Graco' carseat over a 'Costco' carseat will make your child more likely to graduate college.

Enfamil also started sending us 'Enfagrow' stage 2 powder for kids older than 1 year old. However, there is no reason to be giving formula to a normal child after he/she turns 1. The label claims to be much better than whole milk - though hilariously the first ingredient is whole milk. If you are still feeding your child formula at a year, you are failing introducting new foods.  Your child should be taking up to 24 ounces of milk a day and all the rest of his/her nutrition should be from FOOD. Not formula! For much cheaper, feel free to feed your child whole milk and give them a chewable vitamin with iron once a day. Many kids can be picky eaters, and this is just to bolster any nutritient they may be missing.

#2 - Marketing through fear:
The label on the advertisement for Enfagrow reads "Enfagrow Preminum Toddler or Milk? **You decide**" (It really said that.)
Translation: You are failing your child if you do not buy this formula. Even better, they have a random well groomed woman in a white coat holding her glasses. I assume, since she is unlabeled, not wearing an ID, and testifying her love of Enfamil, she is a model portraying your friendly pediatrician. (Similac is has similar ads; I just happen have the advertisement on hand)

Look at the claims on a typical can of formula. You'll see they claim improved brain growth, size increase, and all sorts of other things. As I said, since formula is controlled through the FDA, all of the differences between the standard formulas are going to be minimal. You can't fail on any of them. We did all Walmart formula for the first child and are currently using Enfamil because I get it free as a hospital employee.

Don't be confused - there is nothing wrong with using formula. Not everyone wants or needs to breastfeed and that is OK. Just don't fall for the marketing that tries to convince you one is better than the other.

To be continued in Part 2 next week where I'll discuss various types of formula that are out there.

Glorious resident lifestyle continued

It took a little longer than planned to get my post up because of the Jewish Holidays. The High Holidays were upon us and had all sorts of no computer rules. In order - Rosh Hashana: repent, eat big meals, Yom Kippor: repent, don't eat at all, and Sukkot: celebrate by eating all meals in a hut with no roof for a week - hence today's photo of 'hospital sukkah'.

Returning to the actual planned content of my post: In Glorious Resident Lifestyle part 1, I established that I worked hard and was paid badly as a resident. So what exactly did I do during my 30 hours of call?

My typical call day as a 1st year pediatric resident:
6am: arrive and get sign out about events that happened on my patients overnight.
6:30-8am: examine and talk to each patient. Update patient record (daily notes) on 3-10 patients depending on census
8am-9a: attend educational conference if possible, continue to write patient notes.
9a-12noon: round on all patients with whole team - 12 to 30 patients. Leave group to perform procedures - deliveries/lumbar punctures/cpr/central lines
12noon-1pm: educational lecture. take sign-out from person who was just awake 30 hours.
1pm - 5pm: complete patient work, perform procedures, admit new patients, sign out all other team members
5pm-6am: continue patient work for 12-30+ patients, perform procedures, admit new patients, 10pm nursing/patient check. Possibly sleep in call room if kids stable. Possibly sleep at desk outside of unstable kids room. Possibly sleep not at all.
6am: sign out other patients to rest of team.
6:30am-8am: see all patients, write all notes
8am: educational lecture, try to stay awake
9am-noon: round on patients again, try to finish all work to sign out by noon at 30 hour limit.
noon - 6pm: sleep
6pm: HubbyLawStudent arrives home. Based on business of call night and cleanliness of apartment,  may or may not have an arguement.
9-10pm: go to bed because it starts again at 6am

Staying awake for 30 hours was the worst and hardest part. I was usually pretty good until about hour 20-22, and then my productivity died horribly. Sure, I had a call room that I could possibly have slept, in theory. Winter is the worst because of RSV season leads to a huge number of hypoxic - not getting enough oxygen - infants. July is hard because the new interns need alot of attention and guidance. June is probably the least busy pediatric month, everyone has the most experience and kids are out of school avoiding germs.

That was as an intern. As a senior resident, you got to do 12 hour shifts instead of calls - except you would be scheduled for 13 shifts in a row with 12 hours off in between each one. With the new 60 hour work week, that averages out to 5 x 12 hour shifts per week. Nurses, btw, work 15 x 12 hour shifts over a full month which is like 3.5 per week. They would also get paid overtime or night-shift differential, which residents do not.

If you thought that sounded rough, imagine being a surgical resident. They have schedules like that for 5 or 6 years. You can pretty much cut out my lunch or rounding time and replace it with 'surgery' for hours on end. OB? Replace lunch or lecture with 'wait for babies to be born/c-sections' which they do for 4 years. Pediatrics, family medicine, ER, and internal medicine (among others) are considered pampered lightweights.

 This says nothing about what it was like emotionally to be a resident. You were exhausted, you were in charge of training the other interns and medical students. You had to achieve a certain number of procedures to graduate and pass various national exams. You had to deal with blood, puke, pee, poop, and pus. You were sometimes belittled or yelled at by attendings, nurses, other residents, fellows, and parents. Whole blogs are dedicated to how alone and powerless you often felt. It's not a suprise that arguing with my spouse got mentioned as part of my post call ritual.

As an attending hospitalist, I have a WAY better schedule. I work around 50 hours a week, with some call at a lower risk facility. I also get paid twice as much as a resident, which is still considered pretty low, even for a lower paid specialty like pediatrics. I could have added 20K to my starting salary if I had joined a group practice or wanted to work more.

(I'm lucky because pediatric subspecialists are generally overworked and understaffed because they take 3 more years to educate after residency. There are whole metropolitan areas where there is ONE pediatric geneticist for 2 million people. That means they are on call 365.25 days/year, can't take vacations because if a kid with adrenoleukodystrophy gets a stomach virus, they have to be available to manage the correct fluids and treatment.)

If you want a TV representation of what residency is like, I would recommend Scrubs as your look into our lives.

To end on a funny Scrubs-esque note, here are 10 Things that I actually heard during Sign-out.
Be warned - partially funny and partially cynical. Remember, these are from people who were awake for 30 hours.

1. That asthmatic patient, did you forget to tell me he was missing two limbs?
2. To the Jewish doctor - This Orthodox Jewish family has all these weird rules on Saturdays. Do I need a social work consult? (No)
3. We'll just say this family is pretty 'concrete.'
4. This patient weighs about three Kentucky Fried Units.  (450 pounds)
5. Her/his mom handed me a book on the vegan/gluten/dairy/sugar/preservative-free/all natural/organic diet she uses on her child.  We're treating him/her for malnutrition.
6. We had a Soap opera baby today. The woman didn't actually have a child but have been lying about it for three years and now theoretical father wanted to see imaginary child.
7. I could tell you all twenty meds the specialist put them on, but they haven't taken any for three years.
8. Child is fine; mom left to go use cocaine. CPS is waiting for her when she gets back.
9. This child was stabbed in the vagina by a rhino. Not a real rhino, a rhino statue at the museum.
10. Don't open the security bed, even if the delusional psychotic teenager seems better. He just beat the cr@p out of his mom, and it took 4 security guards to tackle him on his last escape attempt.

Glorious resident lifestyle of the not rich or famous

You are sitting in the pediatric ER with your child that may or may not have appendicitis. First, you saw the medical student who talked to you for 30 minutes. Then you saw a tired looking pediatric resident who talked to you about the exact same thing for 15 minutes. Then you saw a much more awake pediatric ER attending physician who talked to you for five minutes, agreed to admit your child, and get a surgical consult. 30 minutes later, the surgery resident sleepwalks in, presses on your child's belly and mumbles that he's getting a CT of the abdomen with a blood draw, and wanders away.

D@mn, you've been here 3 hours and what the heck? Why did those residents look so tired and am I seriously expected to leave them in charge of my child?

Before discussing the actual resident lifestyle, let's lead with resident compensation. The federal government pays teaching hospitals $200,000 to train each resident per year. The resident is actually paid, pre tax, in the $40-50K range. Med students pay $40-50K for the privilege of training.

During my residency, I had an 80 hour work week and no call lasting more than 30 hours. New regulations recently moved the limit to a 60 hour work week, no first year call over 18 hours, and no later year calls more than 24 hours per the schedule. Some leeway is given for emergencies and unstable patients.

How did that translate into actual money and hours? Well, I made $40k my intern year. I worked 80 hours a week while on service, did not have any holidays off, got three weeks of call free vacation and one call free month. That averaged out to 70 hours a week for 49 weeks - 3430 hours a year. Taxes/insurance took about 20% of my salary, no 401K for such lowly peons. That led to $32K over 3420 hours - $9.35/hour. That is similar to a McDonald's manager, except a typical resident is 27 and already completed 4 years of college and 4 years of medical school.

Oh, I got two $5 coupons for hospital cafeteria food for each call night. An 80 hour work week required call every 4th night, which I got to do for 45 weeks of the year. 45weeks x 7 days/4 days is 79 calls x $10 = $790 in 'food' perks. Yes, just like the McDonald's manager.

How anyone can pay off their $150K+ in loans on a salary of $9.35/hr and $80/month in 'food' perks just boggles the mind. Does anyone have that much self control when working 80 hours a week? If you were wondering, the 60 hour work week essentially will remove call free months for everyone, so do the same calculation with 60 hours - $10.88/hr with less food perks.

So what was my personal resident financial lifestyle like? I lived across from the hospital, so I didn't ahve a car. I was supporting first 2, then 2.5, and then 3 people on my salary alone. (Remember HubbyJD was originally HubbyLawStudent?). I packed my own lunches and used my cafeteria cards to buy food that I took home. Keeping kosher, I was able to take milk, cereal, fruit, hot chocolate home with the plastic silverware in $5 increments every 4 days.

Stay tuned for more glorious residency lifestyle next week . . .

BJ's and I agreed to see other people

If you didn't know, BJ's offered their 3 month trial membership this summer. With my family of 4, I was not certain I would shop there often enough to make it worthwhile to buy a membership. I assumed that the 19 Kids and counting people used BJ's . . .

In my 3 month trial, I went to BJ's 4 times. The first two times I bought the objects I was scouting to see if I'd like them in bulk. On my 3rd visit, like a good scientist, I took my shopping list from Walmart to BJ's, recorded all the prices on similar brands, and then put it in a spreadsheet to compare my savings. I also examined which items and brands BJ's vs Walmart vs specialty grocery store carried. The last visit was the big purchase when I spent $350.

The good: I was able to buy challah (Jewish bread), kosher salami, and stuffed grape leaves for rock bottom prices I could not find anywhere else. I went a little wild and bought ALL of their two loaves of challah for $5 compared to my local grocery stores $7 per loaf. Similar issue with the salami - I bought all of it they had in stock and put 20 loaves of bread and 30 12oz salami in my fridge. I bought bulk plasticware, nuts, cups, and nice paper plates. I had enough storage space that I may not have to do that again for another year.

The so-so: I was able to find peanut butter $0.50 cheaper per container than Walmart. Not too exciting. I was underwhelmed by their bulk oreos, frozen vegetables, and Mrs. T's Pierogies. I found deodarant cheaper by $0.25 a container, if I didn't care about the brand. Morning Star Farms products cost almost exactly the same since Walmart started selling the 8 pack burgers.

The bad: CFLs were $0.60 more expensive per bulb than at Walmart! BJ's bulk diapers were more expensive than Walmart bulk diapers. Black beans, chick peas, and lima beans were $0.10 per can more expensive than Walmart-even though they come in six packs. Bagged sandwich bread was not cheaper than Walmart. Bulk fresh fruit - apples, oranges - were all cheaper at Walmart. Whole wheat nutrigrain waffles and egg beaters were the exact same price. Walmart brand protein bars were cheaper than the namebrand ones sold at BJs. They had very narrow brand selection and few whole-grain choices.

I also noticed how tempting it was to 'overbuy' things. Look, paper towels in bulk! I should buy those . . . except we use rags instead of paper towels and just wash them. There were tons of products I almost bought and then remembered that I did not miss the object before I saw it at BJs and it didn't have a place in my house. I think having so much on hand would tempt me to make larger meals and consume more items. For example, you make a tray of brownies for dessert on Monday (bought in the Duncan Hines brownie mix 4 pack) and have half left over - which you end up snacking on all week and put on some weight. Or you can use spend cut the recipe in half of the 5-minute Chocolate Mug Cake, even cheaper.

Quick, buy 30lbs of whole wheat flour . . . nevermind, don't need flour now that I froze all that bread . . .

Once I stocked up on my specialty kosher items, the difference in cost between what I regularly buy at Walmart and BJ's wasn't worth the temptation to overbuy. I am hoping that the next few months grocery bills will be lower because of this, but that remains to be seen. Should I ever need bulk purchasing of those items, I have some friends who shop there regularly and are happy to buy for me.

Buyer Beware parenting/health magazines

It's been busy with my little anklebiters, but I know I haven't done any frugual-health posts recently. While perusing various topics, one found me in the mail.

Cosmo 2 years for 15 dollars!  Health 2 years for 13 dollars! FREE GIFT! It was a DEAL. And FUN! And per Cosmo - SEX!.

It appeared that my subscription the Fitness is a great opportunity for Hearst to advertise the rest of its line to me. Considering how much the magazines cost as an impulse buy at the grocery store, I could just write a check and get a DEAL FUN SEXY GIFT. However, my better sense prevailed because of a few facts. First of all, I am no longer in Cosmo's target market. I'm married with kids - I don't need monthly advice on figuring out what his posture tells me about his commitment.

Health had a different challenge. I have read the magazine and it's heavy on the gimmicks, light on the actual science. Many people do not realize that the lay press vastly over reports on studies and likes to make wide sweeping statements from very little understanding of research. One study that made the news last year was on how many years apart having your children affected their autism risk showed a very small increase of risk if your children were under a year apart - except that they did not control for multiple factors. Every pediatric autism specialist and neurologist rolls their eyes each time they hear about it.

Here is how the laypress reported it along the lines of "Autism risk doubles for children less than a year apart." (I will go on at length in some future post about what their data reallys says - but if you are wondering if the risk of autism is 1% in each child, they found that under 12 months could possibly increase the odds to 3% - in California from 1992-2002 during the same time they widened who they accepted for autism)

This leads me to children's magazines like American Baby and Parenting. Not only do they report headlines like that, they also have articles titled like 'unlock your infant's genius level gifts/telepathy' They recommend expensive products as if they will give your child an advantage. They regularly report or distort things into pseudoscience. they'll quote a pediatrician and then a naturopathy 'expert' or personal trainer in the same article as they had some type of group consensus, when in actuallity most of it was taken out of context.

Hilariously, midway through a particularly painful reading with some ridiculous quote in American Baby from a physician, I was thinking to myself 'what kinda of yahoos do they interview for these things?' I turned to the next article and saw my own boss quoted.

Next, I turned the pages past the 'serious' story that quoted my boss, and the next three pages were about purchasing the best new family car/van. Not a single vehicle was priced under $20,000 and there were no suggestions for good used vehicles. Truthfully, the article implied that you were doing your child a disservice if you didn't buy this years model - even though there is VERY little difference between a 2010, 2011, and 2012 Honda Odysessy minivan.

Have no fear, the next article was about breastfeeding success and some of the objects you should be purchasing to maximize your success. First, Dr. Sears complained that women weren't practicing 'natural' breastfeeding and reaching his minimum goal of 1 year of breastfeeding. (The AAP itself recommends  4-6 months, the AAP counsel on Breastfeeding recommends 6-12 months if possible) He implied that if you really focused, you could be Super-mom and make it a year and everyone was just weakwilled wimps. (I shouldn't be surprised by the anti-vaccine star of 'The Doctors.') The following pages featured some fabulous objects aforementioned Super-moms should run out and buy to achieve 'natural breastfeeding' - a $150 nursing pillow, a $65 'modesty' breastfeeding cover, $30 per bottle BPA free, organic, 'doctor recommended' bottles.

HubbyJD found it hilarious that the next page of featured products had a sidebar column entitled 'How to save money when you welcome your new baby.'



So my best advice about magazines related to 'health' or child-rearing is to avoid them. The health and advice tends to be sensationalized and made into soundbites. Practice critical reading and thinking about what the various claims are recommending. Remember that the magazine is also interested in selling the 'featured' products, even on pages that aren't specificaly identified as ads. You don't need most of the products they are selling and lots of the advice is not helpful or well researched. Your pediatrician can probably recommend you to a few worthwhile books that should be more unbiased.**

Also public service announcement, Pertussis outbreak is ongoing over 16,000 cases in 2012 in the United States. Pertussis seems like a cold to an adult but can cause huge problems for infants and children - 20 babies in California died last year. Please get vaccinated, particularly adults who have contact with children. 



*** Disclaimer: I read this book in residency and am not one of the authors. They both have children and attempt to address common questions like bottles/pacifiers/poop/traveling on an airplane.

Reworking the budget

So I severely undershot the budget in a few ways. Before Child 2, I was making 5.1K and we were paying about 4.6K in expenses. I imagined I would have enough money to just add Child2's daycare to take up the rest of that $500-600 and then add $300-400 on in new rent. I sat down and recrunched all the numbers - which I had been too busy to do for a few months. It was scary.


Instead of our $5,400 I imagined, we were spending $6,400!

Salary $9,500/month - $6,400/month expenses = $3,100 - $1,600 minimum loan payment - $1,300 savings = $200.***


At that rate it would take us 16 years to pay off the loans. (20 years without the extra $200 a month in payments) It would also cost another $150,000 in interest.

*** I ignore our FSA reimbursements in these calculations because we weren't filing them regularly and two months we spent over $7,000.

Where did the budget go so wrong? Even though we spent less than $30 a month eating out, we were still spending $920 on tolietries and food. I even estimated a little down on this number since alot of the moving expenses were included in this. Also, the personal expenses included clothes, hair, car, and dog expenses. We spent at good $100-200 dollars/month on the dogs alone between end of life care and dog sitting. I splurged right before Child2's birth and got my hair colored -$150. We spent alot on 'onetime' wedding expenses $450, which some people would put as part of 'entertainment.' We ended up on some charity mailing list and ended up giving away $450 in charity a month.

So I did some more number crunching. Our income went down from $10K because of our FSA's. We should get about $500 back per month. The dog expenses are gone which will decrease our personal expenses. While we aren't buying more apartment equipment anytime soon, I know something would certainly always come up and plan accordingly. (Look, our microwave just burned out, $50 at Walmart!) I recognized I needed to set aside money for holiday and birthday presents for the year - that is $900 of our monthly new onetime expense budget of $300/month.

Here's how things look now.

Previous Monthly Budget (JaneMD salary 5.1K)	Actual Monthly expenses	New Monthly Budget (JaneMD salary 4.9k )
Rent + gym + housecleaning $1188	$1700	$1700
Cellphone + internet $160	$160	$150
Car lease $190	$190	$190
Home/car insurance $125	$125	$125
Daycare $670-770	$1365	$1365
Utilities $160	$150	$150
Car Gas $150	$150	$135
Groceries/Toiletries $800-1000	$920	$770
Personal expenses $500	$700	$350
Charities/religious $400	$450	$400
Onetime expenses $300	$450	$300
Bank autosave feature $42	$45	$45
Total budgeted monthly expenses $4685	Actual spending $6405	New budget $5680

Our new budget decreased by $750 from actual expenses. Little things have changed. I got an employer discount on our internet. Our phones will be someday paid off, dropping that expense by $25. I watch our grocery bill like a hawk and move things into appropriate categories, like the microwave. We have an upcoming vacation to see our families, which is already budgeted for ($500), but I'll be coloring my hair with my mother (savings of $140). I also made our FSA reimbursements a major part of our budget, thus making sure they always get filed.

Salary $9,500/month + FSA $500/month - $5,650/month expenses = $4,350 - $1,600 minimum loan payment - $1,300 savings = $1450. 


At that rate it would take us under 8 years to pay off the loans and save $60,000 in interest.


A message from HubbyJD: I appreciate my wife, JaneMD, and all of her hard work at our budget and finances, especially since she does my accounting for free. I want to be financial independent and get all our loans paid off. I do draw the line at the beer austerity measures that she has recently enacted. Someone please tell her I can buy 2 twelve packs a month of Guinness.

Stopping the hemorrhage

Okay, so JaneMD has been a bad blogger. She also has been a bad part of the FI community/anti-consumerism because it has been a rough few months.

As a start, Child2 will not be needing a big surgery and he's 4 months old. Child1 got referred to physical therapy for failure to walk and then learned how to walk a week later. We lost both of our dogs in the past months - one died, the other was returned to a rescue organization because it stopped getting along with Child1.

Things spun a little out of control with a move, second kid in daycare, and three out of state trips.

The good financials Feb-May: We got our full safety deposit back on our old apartment - $1000. We found out we were overcharged by the electric company for a year - $303. We had a delayed flight and got two free round trip tickets to be used at some point in the next 12-18 months. HubbyJD finally submitted our FSA forms and we got $2000 back pre tax. I opened a new FSA and will get around $100 a month back pretax. We examined out internet bill and got an employer discount by $7. We used our tax refund to pay off the last higher interest loan on graduate school - about $6000 on a 7.9% loan. We have now paid about 40k of our loans off in 10 months.

The bad financials Feb-May: The move, the new rent, the car, Passover, the trips, the visitors, doubled daycare, and the pets. Daycare doubled - $675 extra a month. We spent $1000 on end of life/dog sitting charges. We needed car repairs, $450. We had to pay 'personal property tax,' $350. Rent with utilities went up by around $600 for an apartment more than twice the size. Passover is one week a year and has special food that costs 2-3x normal. I cringe in shame because our grocery bill in April was $1500. We also had three weeks work of visitors since April to feed and included all of our  apartment expenses in that grocery bill.

The new apartment: we had to come up with a $1500 security deposit, and our rents overlapped by one week $350. The only thing we outsourced was the movers ($700), but I moved the kitchen the night before. We also had some friends help us pack and unload to make the movers as efficient as possible. Other friends volunteered to watch Child1 and Child2 for free during the move.

The bigger issues involved furbishing the apartment. I don't mean buying new stuff - I mean there weren't curtains or curtain rods in the apartment. Of that $1500 grocery bill, $200 on curtains for the entire house, $40 on carpets, and $250 for a full bed. My dad paid for his visit by installing and hanging 20 curtains. We also craigslisted a desk, an entertainment armoire, a bunkbed with 2 mattresses, a night stand, and a toybox for a total of $230. Some of that we paid in cash by selling off our own stuff on craigslist; we probably got $100. So total moving and housing expenses = $1420 (700 moving, 720 furnishings)

The trips: Hubby JD and Child1 flew to a wedding alone - ticket $300, hotel $180, taxi ride $88. Yes, a family member picked them up from the airport, but made no arrangements to get him back. Since he didn't have a car, he had to stay at the wedding hotel, and then pay a taxi to get him to the airport. Then we took a family trip while I was on maternity leave in a minivan $550 for 7 days and gas $200 in 30 hours of driving. Second wedding next month was $650 for tickets, hotel $80, rental care $30, and gas $30. Hilariously, the first wedding for two people cost $618, but four of us on a similar trip cost $790. We easily could have saved $100 if I'd just had him rent a car and picked a different hotel.

Want to know the damage after all of that? It was bad - an extra $6000 more than planned spent over those 4 months . I was able to account for $5000 in the above expenses. We got about $3000 in deposits/reimbursements, but that was still nowhere close to where we wanted to be.

I know trips and weddings will come up, but this was ridiculous to have it all happen at the same time. It was awful to watch our money bleed out like that. These were cousins' weddings who had flown to our wedding so it would have been an awful slight to not attend because 'JaneMD and HubbyJD couldn't afford it.' That would not have gone over well. Hubby JD also claims he is never moving again.

While I understand it's the 'one time/emergency' expenses that got us, but things like that will always come up. Time to review the budget and try to adjust to what we actually spend. And then evaluate where to cut things out.