Recent Budget Blessings

I watched my pennies very carefully during January and February. Recently we had a little relief in our finances. I'm praising God for these blessings.
1. We had a mess with one of the bills for one of Lamb 2's doctor visits from October 2013. Yesterday I received the refund I was expecting from the doctor. Our HSA reimbursed the rest of the visit. It's disgusting that it took over a year to straighten all this out, but I kept writing letters and it paid off finally.
2. Our church got a new treasurer last year and our HSA money was sent to our account, but somehow the wrong paperwork (or computer trail) went with it. So we weren't reimbursed anything from our HSA for several months even though we had several doctor bills last year. In January we finally began receiving HSA money again for 2015. In February we received the rest of the reimbursement for 2014 and also reimbursement for 2015 too. All but one doctor visit has been reimbursed by our HSA account. We have not been caught up on our HSA reimbursements since we moved here.
3. This is the month we receive our yearly Costco rebate. I'm glad it was $260 and embarrassed that we put that much money on our American Express last year. That is a lot of 1% to 3% spent. We pay it off each month so it turns out being free money to us minus the membership fee. I will be able to shop at Costco for free for the next several months if I watch my pennies while shopping there.
4. Ram finally took his old phone in so because he got reimbursed for that and because we watched our pennies so closely the last couple of months, our Visa bill was the lowest it has ever been. We charge almost everything on the American Express, but there are times that they don't take A.E. I don't know why our cell phone bill is still on our Visa, we should change that. But it was nice to have a low Visa bill for one month!
5. When we moved here we withdrew the Lamb's savings accounts from the MN bank. We never got around to opening new accounts for them. I finally opened up new savings accounts for them in December through L.C.E.F. Now that the budget isn't so tight, I added the amount they had in MN to their new savings accounts. I was glad to cross that off my to do list. They get 3.5% on the first $1000 invested. I will blog more about this great program later.
6. Because I bought something from Memoria Press last year I received a gift card from them at Christmas time so I purchased a Latin DVD for a few dollars plus shipping.
7. Ram did receive his Be Well reward for last year. It was not for the full amount but every little bit helps. I'm determined to get my full amount this year after not getting any last year. I've already begun working on this. We used his reward for some necessary items and a few treats too.
8. Because I'm caught up on paperwork, I have been able to find receipts when I need them. Recently one of our Lambs became allergic to a product he used and I had stocked up on it. I returned all the unopened packages and got a refund.
9. Ram won a massage and a coffee gift card at our church preschool auction. I bought $20 of raffle tickets so that was a pretty good deal. I won some doTerra at the silent auction. We will definitely use that plus it helped out our preschool.
10. February was rough for the grocery budget with Lent suppers, preschool fundraiser, stocking up for Lamb 1's birthday, preparing for company for Lamb 1's birthday, hosting treats after church one Sunday, buying Zaycon chicken, and stocking up for snacks for track practice days. I'm happy to report that I was $3 under budget including food tax. Plus ID is talking about dropping the grocery tax. March is going to be rough again, but I did it in February so I know I can do it!
11. We are blessed with good dental insurance so Lamb 2's chipped tooth and my 2 root canals were not nearly as bad as I expected. I did fine with ibuprofen and did not need to fill the prescription for pain meds so we saved $ there too.
12. I sent our info off to our tax lady so we'll see how those turn out and if those are a budget blessing too. I'm hoping all our medical miles and dollars help us on our taxes, but we just have to see.