Death, Taxes, and oh yeah...Health Insurance?

These things are certain in life (except for maybe the health insurance), and all things I have been dealing with over the past few days. We had an elderly and wonderful man in our congregation pass away earlier this week. His funeral was today, and he will certainly be missed. Taxes: we had a to pay our 3rd quarterly installment this week. There goes yet another huge chunk of my salary off to the government. And finally, there's health insurance. And no, I'm not going to blog about my opinions on the health care reform, although I am of the stance that ALL should have access to decent health care and something needs to be done to make it more affordable. But this has really hit home for Corey and I this week. Thankfully, we are both healthy people right now, but having to pay A LOT more for it out of my salary has us really thinking about things such as this. And thankfully, we have healthcare plans. All of that aside, we came to the harsh realization this week that I will be making less in 2010 than I do right now, and it's all because of health insurance. Unfortunately, this was a shock to us.

Here is how it happened: a few weeks ago, I got an email stating that my salary would see a HUGE increase in 2010 with no explanation as to why. Although I got excited, I somehow knew that there had to be a catch. Then I saw the health insurance rates a few weeks later. Apparently the huge increase in salary is to offset the health insurance costs that pastors will now be paying. So after some simple math, we figured out that I will be making less money this coming calendar year. We are disappointed for obvious reasons. We did not go into ministry for the money, that's for sure. But we do have needs and student loans and car payments to make.

It's no fun being all grown up.