@machia This is about where we are too, although we rent, we don’t own, which is something we’re really hoping to do in the next year. Daughter will move up to pre school in the fall, so her rate will go down, and we’re going to re-evaluate and hopefully save some of that money. No car payments, use credit cards for all expenses, and pay off every month.
But it might all go to hell when student loan repayments come back.
@sunflower232 I feel this. We were just starting to feel better but then had to replace all of our drain plumbing (all the way to the main water line). I get stressed about it because I feel like we make plenty of money so where does it go? We are really cracking down on budgeting and such and I’m kicking myself for all the money I spent before kids on restaurants and bars.
@sunflower232 Ugh same. We rent and are trying to save for a house and it’s so hard when everything is so damn expensive. We’ve had to put tires on both cars in the last 3 months, baby’s first birthday party, student loans resuming etc. All the money vanishes and we never hardly eat out, take lunch to work and don’t spend on extras. It’s so frustrating.
@sunflower232 Yup, but our big struggle is medical bills. We just got one from a small ER visit for our baby- $1500. They didn’t even do anything for him either!
@herrmannj11 I had my second beginning of jan and my first was in the ER 3 times + an overnight hospital stay in mid jan so we hit our out of pocket max very quickly this year. Silver lining I guess
@herrmannj11 One of my coworkers had a baby on our work insurance (we work FOR THIS HOSPITAL!!!) and it ended up being $1000 cheaper for them to not run her uncomplicated vaginal birth through insurance and pay OOP.
@herrmannj11 I’ve always had the benefit of really good health insurance as an adult, so even though I know how messed up the system is, see it happen to patients, listen to our docs fight with “peer to peer” while trying to do surgery, etc., this was the first time I’d really seen it first hand in one of my friends. I’m covered under my husband who works for the state, and has excellent health coverage, and it’s the only reason I can work at this hospital that has better work/life balance than the level 1 trauma center down the road where I worked for 9 years…taking 300 hrs of call/month on top of working 40+ hours. But I could have a baby for $25.
@abbagirl2017 I can relate. I’m still on my parent’s insurance (only for a few more weeks, unfortunately) and since my mom is a public school teacher in a union, we’ve always had great insurance.
And then my husband had to get on his work’s insurance so our son could be covered. Wow. I did not realize that insurance could be so bad. They covered $500 of a $2000 ER trip. Not to mention a crazy NICU bill and how little mental health coverage my husband gets. It’s rough out here.
@sunflower232 Single mom in a middle(?) COL area. Im a teacher and have worked though summer at odd and end jobs and still can't survive. Im going deeper in to debt and have no escape except when my daughter finally finishes daycare or I magically win the lottery. So basically flying by the seat of my pants every month crossing my fingers that somehow bills will get paid and we'll be okay.
@sunflower232 I had to stop contributions to my 401k in hopes that we can stay on top of everything right now. Absolutely struggling to make ends meet sometimes, and it's mostly because of daycare. My kids' daycare is great and on eof the cheaper ones in the area, but HCOL area so its still freaking expensive. We're behind on daycare payments but thankfully our center is understand if a bit annoyed about it.
Right now I'm basically working a ton of overtime and we're cutting down wherever we can to make things work. It's ridiculous though, we both make good money and should have more than enough to be financially stable, but it seems like everytime we get ahead of things costs either go up or something happens to throw a huge and unexpected bill our way.
At this point I'm just gonna keep swimming and hope everything works out soon
@devinc Same. But I feel like we all have different standards for ourselves, which is why we don't find commiseration in our real life acquaintances. I always get stressed out about finances, then my husband reminds me that we have a house and retirement savings and cars, and that we are doing ok from that perspective.
We also have home equity loans and student loans and 3 more years of daycare, and that's what makes me feel like we're drowning.
Earn too much to qualify for any type of daycare assistance or income-driven student loan plans, earn too little to actually save or put a dent in our debt. Oop.
@sunflower232 Yup. I had to pull some money out of my 401k to deal with medical expenses on top of having a ton of credit card debt. Just straight drowning over here. My husband I both have good jobs, over 6 figures, but everything is just so freaking expensive. Food, utilities, daycare, summer camp, diapers, etc. I don’t know what to do.
