the passionate ailurophile

So, as you may know, for most of the flu season, I have been unable to get either the seasonal or the Hamthrax vaccines.  By some miracle, however, I have not gotten sick.  However, I’m still planning to get both of them anyway, now that they are both widely available.  I figure my luck can’t hold out forever…with my kind of luck, I’ll catch the flu right before baseball season starts.  And then I can kiss Opening Night for the New Hampshire Fisher Cats goodbye.  DO NOT WANT.

So, should I bother?  Yes, better safe than sorry, I say.  The CVS Minute Clinic should be able to give me both in the same visit.  Yeah, it’ll probably cost money, but hopefully not much.  Apparently, there are places giving out the Hamthrax shot for free, but I’d honestly rather pay.  The free places are probably all located in one of the inner circles of hell, full to the brim with The Great Unwashed and all their screaming, unwashed kids, with long, long, long waits.  I’d probably catch something before I even got the damned shots.  It’s probably all done in government buildings, the sort that are sweltering hot in the summer and freezing in the winter, because they are too cheap to turn on any air-conditioning or heat.  I’ve been in such buildings before, not fun.  So no thanks.  I’ll just pay the insurance co-pay at CVS, where there is likely very little wait, and get it over with.

Mike’s work just started offering a flexible spending plan, and he signed up for it.  Basically, this lets us pay for medical expenses such as co-pays with pre-tax dollars.  Mike estimated how much we’re likely to spend on out-of-pocket medical stuph for 2010, and his work put this entire amount on a special MasterCard debit card, which we can use to pay for any eligible medical stuph.  The amount they put into the account is divided by the number of paychecks for the year, and they take that much out each time.

We expect to save a hefty amount on our 2010 taxes because of this; I wish his company had offered this before now.  Mike spends a lot on co-pays for his various doctor visits and prescriptions, nowhere near as much as I do, but he has more health issues than me.  Just the diabetes stuph alone costs a fortune!  His insulin is covered by insurance (still, it’s a $50 co-pay, but considering that it costs something like $400 without insurance, we can’t complain), but all of his testing supplies and stuph are not.  Fortunately, these items are still eligible for the flexible spending plan, so it’s all been factored into the amount he’s having deducted from his paychecks.

In any case, I can get my flu shots paid for with pre-tax dollars, so I’m happy.

Speaking of taxes, we’ll probably start doing them this weekend, as we now have all of the needed paperwork for it.  I hope we at least break even this year.  I work as an independent contractor and do not get any taxes taken out of my pay.  So Mike increased his withholdings at work to cover it.  Last year we owed a little to the Feds, but got a small refund from Taxachusetts.  This year, we hope to owe less, or maybe get a small refund from the Feds.  We shall see.