Well, that sucked big time.
Posted
Wednesday, June 04, 2008 12:00 PM
Well, I suppose with all of the ups, there has to be a few downs. This past month has sucked money-wise.
All three dogs wound up sick or injured, and the vet bills totaled $1,300. Why? Why all at once? And why did it have to be totally odd things that cost a ton of money? A simple cut with stitches? No, that would be too easy/cheap to fix. Sidney had a massive sepsis infection (no idea what caused it), Lola got stung by a bee and had a serious reaction to it, and of course it happened on a Sunday when the regular vet was closed. The e-vet charges $200 just to walk in the door. The @sshole neighbor’s dog ran across my property line, managed to break her head through my fence, and got into an ugly fight with Angus. Yay! Back to the vet again!
I started a new trimester at school, and all of the required textbooks totaled just over $600. Can someone tell me why one friggin textbooks costs $180? How do they get away with that? I even bought it through half.com, so imagine what it would have cost me from the school’s bookstore.
Along with the books, I now have to drive and extra 360 miles a week to school (class Fri-Sun, 60 miles each way). That’s an extra tank of gas per week, and gas prices suck!! Our commuter car (which is also the car I take to school) gets awesome gas milage, but we have gone over the $500 that is budgeted for gas for two months now. I remember making that budget and having DH tell me that $500 was ridiculous, we would never spend that much. I wish he had been right.
My dental insurance blows. They denied both my implant, and the crown that goes over it. They cover crowns on original teeth, but not over implants. $3,000 later, I’m ready to boycott all dentists because I just can't afford this anymore. Speaking of which, I finally talked to an attorney about suing the dentist that screwed up my mouth to begin with. Apparently, I waited a bit too long. Statute of limitations has expired, so I lost any chance of regaining any of the 25k I have now spent to fix my mouth. Ugh.
Now let's add insult to injury; the municipality I work for has not reached contract agreements with the union. The last contract expired June 30th last year, and negotiations are at a standstill. What does that mean? No raises last year for both me and DH. Most likely, there will be no raises this year, unless they can get their sh*t together in the next few weeks. There is some good news though, when they finally reach an agreement, our raises will be retroactive, so we will get the pay we were denied since last July. Ok, that’s wonderful, but it doesn’t help me right now.
I also graduated to a permanent appointment (I was provisional for the last year), and I now have to contribute 5% of my pay to the retirement plan. It is not optional. I’m all for saving for retirement, but I just can’t afford to lose any money from my pay right now.
So, there it is. We have still managed to keep our heads above water, but just barely. The bills are all paid, but only slightly more than the minimums. I am hoping that this month will be a little better. It has to be, right?