Breathing room...

Yesterday, I receive such good news for me.  I was standing in Target, going through my prescriptions before paying for them.  I have learned to check them, since mistakes happen.  Sure enough, a temp pharmacist filled them and there were errors.  My generic Singular was missing, the hormones brand was wrong, and the old dose of thyroid medication had been filled again.  Kaitlyn, the WORLD'S BEST pharmacist, started working on fixing them and then asked a most wonderful question:  "Did you really still want the brand Celebrex?"

She was letting me know that the generic was now on my formulary!  Whilst she worked, I quickly called my insurance company to confirm, so that I knew for sure before Kaitlyn went through the work of returning the Celebrex prescription and running it through as Celecoxib.  Sure enough, the formulary specialist confirmed that it was now a Tier 1 generic.

I asked Kaitlyn if anyone had had negative feedback about the generic, given it's been available since December.  She said not a single user had asked to switch back or complained.  I was sold.  I asked her to return the Celebrex and refill the prescription.

Caitlin's question saved me $216!!!

Oh, my!  I felt such a weight fall from my shoulders!  My budget is really too tight to accomplish all I want and remain both debt-free and not pull any more money from retirement unless I have a hospitalization.  Now, I have some breathing room!

Of course, I will have to wait another whole year to fully understand the medication math.  You see, this year, I was to have spent ~$2,000 on Celebrex.  Now, I will be spending $285.  Next year, if the co-pays are the same, I will spend $75.  Cool, eh?  But not spending so much on Celebrex will result in having to spend more money on Erythromycin, because of the Medicare donut hole.  How much more will depend on when I get past it.  Right now, I am projecting spending $636, but it could be more.  So, what is the bottom line savings?  I just don't know.

What I do know, I now have a bit of breathing room.  In fact, I immediately filled my expired Epipen prescription and came home and bought two more pairs of the heavier weight compression stockings I'm to wear.  I had purchased two pairs, but lost one piece of one pair in the laundry when I mistakenly put them into the dryer.  Static electricity I also purchased the final two smoke detectors to complete extra full coverage of my home.  And, most importantly, I will most certainly have the fund to both pay Firewood Man to help finish painting the back porch and replace the bushes in the front bed that (yet again) died over the winter.  Variegated boxwoods clearly are not bushes to plant in Fort Wayne.

I was not so hasty as to go out and buy my beloved Blue Bell again.  I still need my desserts to last longer.  I still need to be penurious and to keep working on balancing out expenses across the entire year so that I don't have financially suffocating months.

I was staggered at the pharmacy. Shocked beyond giddiness.  I couldn't believe the change had been made to my formulary since I had been told it wouldn't be until next year.  I struggled to remain calm and breathe whilst the generic was being run through ... waiting to see the printout that would make the change real to me.  I checked out (with celebratory discounted Easter chocolate), wanting to weep more than dance.

Another stressor was that I only recently discovered that I had a mortgage deduction on my real estate taxes.  So, Friday, I filled out the online form with the pay-off date of my mortgage.  I was worried, having done it a year late, that I would be financially tarred and feathered.  But, today, I received a postcard notification that confirmed the removal of the deduction, but noted that it would not be until tax year 2016, payable 2017!  That means I have plenty of time to save extra money for extra taxes!  And it means I did not have just a few weeks notice of a hike in this year's taxes, which was a great concern of mine ever since I discovered that I had this deduction that I needed the Assessor's office to remove.  WHEW!

Then, just as I was working on typing this, I GasBuddy gave me a price hike alert of 25 cents per gallon.  The Marathon station on Broadway and Grace is always slow to leap on the rob-the-driver's-pockets price hikes here in Fort Wayne, so I immediately dragged myself up off the couch and on out to the car.  I rarely need gas, but I have bought any in a few months.  I was right; the station still had regular gas at $2.14 a gallon.  Tank filled and windows cleaned, I drove myself on back home, once again thankful for that app.

Twenty-four hours now of good financial news, not bad. That's got to be some sort of miracle for me.

In other good news...

My neighbor decided that I needed some lemon cookies with sugar crystals!

Amos is still thoroughly enjoying the electric blanket that Celia sent me (him)!  I came back from washing some dishes to find he'd burrowed beneath it.  You can barely tell I have a puppy dog!

The ornamental magnolia tree is showing sides of being ready to bloom!

Plus.... THE BEDS ARE MULCHED!!  THE BEDS ARE MULCHED!!!!  THE BEDS ARE MULCHED!!!!!!