I called to see what the procedure/forms were for getting vision hardware (ie glasses frames and lenses) from an out of network provider. I found out the following:

My co-pay is now $20, up from $15 last time.

The amount they'll pay for hardware is $150, up from $100 last year.

I'm still going to the same clinic I've gone to for the past 8 years but my doctor has left the clinic so I'll be seeing someone new. I will be getting my glasses at America's Best. They are running a special right now, 2 pairs of glasses and a free eye exam for $70. However that's for regular glasses and my prescription is such that I get Polycarbonite (sp?) or High Index lenses. Which increases the price to $130 or $190 respectively.

I don't know if my insurance will reimburse me the full $150 since I'm buying two pairs of glasses but when I called to verify it didn't say anything about how many pairs of glasses it could be applied to only that I had a maximum of $150 that could be spent in a year. So I'm going to go with the Hi Index and possibly get one of the pairs made into sunglasses (included in price). It's still a darn good price considering the lowest I could find at other stores (Lens Crafters, Binyons) was $169 for one pair.

I'm bummed that I can't use Goggles 4 U because of the level of prisms I need. But on the other hand, I'm not so sure about the whole not being able to try them on before you get them thing so part of me is ok with it.

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I had a wonderful thought this morning about my brother and funding his education til the GI Bill kicks in (if it ever does). I completely forgot about taxes. As in, my brother probably gets a decent return since he only spent about half of last year employed. Soon as he gets all of his W2s (just waiting on two more) we'll scout out places to file online for free and get that going.

I'm still debating about what I want to do with my return. I did well on guessing my withholdings so I only overpaid by like $60 but because of how much student loan interest I paid, my return will be closer to like $500. Though I'm still waiting for a few things so that may change. Because of all the extra stuff I have to claim I can't do the free filing online which sucks. But oh well. I did decide a while ago that 10% of whatever I get back, rounded to the nearest $25, will be donated to Kiva.org. I may just hold onto whatever's left over to help K get by. We'll see. Parents are going to be in town next week so possibly they'll float him some extra cash. And our Aunt keeps palming him money, for which I am grateful but it annoys him because he so desperately wants to make it on his own.

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One of these days I'll get back into declutter mode and try once again to get rid of my storage unit. Once done, I'll be saving $60/mo.