The Unexpected Expenses

The unexpected expenses that I had mentioned before were:

• Traveling
• T.V. taxes
• Health Insurance
• The flat
• Dreaded Kitchen

The first was traveling... You always hear about the stereotypical Euro-Trip but it is so true.  Once you are in Europe it is so easy and somewhat inexpensive to travel to all of these different places.  (Sadly work has kept me from traveling too much yet).  We have taken the occasional weekend trips to Markus's hometown (which is a nice break and very stress free) so that has taken out of my traveling fund a bit by taking the train. 

Next T.V. taxes.. So I had learned about this during my travels to Ireland but I completely forgot about them.  In our case as long as we had a T.V. we were able to have "free" cable with the rent that we pay.  BUT, as soon as I registered living in Jena, I got a letter in the mail saying I owed money for my T.V. service.  Per month it is 17,98 € which isn't a lot (especially split between two people) but none the less I completely forgot about it and was not ready to pay it.  Then I learned something new.  In Germany if you are going to school part of what you pay goes towards T.V. taxes so because Markus pays the taxes for school I was "paid for". 

Then there is health insurance... Living in Germany, as many people know, there is a universal law that everyone must have health insurance.  Of course I knew this and I knew I needed health insurance, but in the U.S. I am still covered under my mom's health insurance and was told that it would cover my overseas   While this was true I came to find out that it would be more of a hassle (not to mention less coverage) to keep my mom's insurance. So I quickly decided to get my own health insurance through work. Some of the factors that helped me to decide:

• I would be able to have more options when picking a doctor.
• I did not have to worry about paperwork and money issues (especially if I became very ill).
• If I needed to call off work I would not have to worry about not getting paid or having to pay more.  I am not exactly sure how this works but I was told that you need health insurance for this because if you call off the health insurance pays your employer for you missing work.
• I knew I could afford it after I found out that they would only be taking out 10% taxes. 

Also, my employer made it so easy with the health insurance company for me to get set up and to get my health insurance. They also had great deals for new members.  These deals included giving money back if you decided to take care of yourself. 

Next was the flat.  This is where most of my money went to.  I knew before I moved in that the flat would be completely unfurnished but it was still surprising when it finally came time to fill it. I guess I just didn't put much thought into how much we would actually have to spend to make our flat look  as nice as we wanted.  Moving into a new apartment is hard enough even when you have things handed down through the family, but when you have nothing to go start with... I was overwhelmed at first (especially when I know I have enough to furnish three apartments sitting in my mom's basement).  I then came to find out that Markus's family were able to give us a lot of things so we were lucky.  After a moving truck from his parents house and many trips to the local furnishing store we finally have a furnished apartment.  Trips to the furniture store also become difficult when we don't have a car and are relying on the help of others to get our things.  This also means a lot of waiting for opportunities to get these things.

The dreaded kitchen... ( I know I already posted about this but the kitchen still was not finished at that point!) After buying the kitchen I thought we had a lot of it done but than if you recall we then needed a fridge which we also got right away.  Then we realized we did not have enough storage, light, and we didn't have garbage cans. So the search continued. We soon got some lighting that was not being used by Markus's family (that was easy).  We then found trash cans (yes multiple in Germany they have four separate trash cans; paper, plastic kinda like recycling but includes a lot more than just plastic), bio (which is for food scraps and things that will decompose), and the regular trash for everything else. That doesn't include all glass products that have to go somewhere else if it does not have a deposit on it. So finally we were looking at more storage so that I finally could get my mini oven that I so desperately needed (for my sanity, I love to bake). So after (hopefully) our last trip to the furniture store we found this beauty.  We bought it, brought it home (with some help obviously), and built it immediately! After many hours of pulling our hair out and one thing that we had to fix (of course at the very end we realized this) it was built, cleaned, and we started filling it up!   So next was the oven. Yay!!!! 

My amazing new mini oven! I can't wait to start baking!

The first thing I baked! Chocolate Chip Muffins!