I haven't meant not to write over the past several days. It's become one of those weeks, where nothing has gone according to plan. I enrolled Bekah and Jeremy in preschool in a way that I hoped would give me one-on-one time with Doug and a couple of free days.
Their preschool has not been cooperative. Within the past week, I have gone from only having to be at the preschool Monday, Wednesday and Friday to having to be there every morning. It's exhausting.
It doesn't help that I spent most of the week feeling like I had rocks in my head. I couldn't remember what time Bekah's dance class started. I couldn't remember when their dental appointment was. I didn't have the energy to sit at the computer and write some necessary e-mails. My head was jumbled and I felt like someone had shaken my brain.
It was going to be a busy weekend. I am a member of Mothers & More. We have a resale twice a year; this weekend was the second resale of the year. And Murphy's Law required that it was also the weekend of my girlfriend's bachelorette party, a Beth Moore simulcast, my other friend's open house for her home-based business and a weekend I had committed to watch my parent's dogs.
In the past, I would have run around to all of these events. It would have been hectic, I wouldn't have enjoyed any of them more than a little and I would have gotten home late, exhausted. Fortunately, as I was listing all of these items out loud to Brian, it became very apparent I would not be able to attend more than 2.
I was most devastated to not be able to attend the bachelorette party. It was in direct conflict with dog-sitting and required money for dinner/dancing and money for gas. Owing to the fact that it's the weekend before Brian gets paid, money is (as usual) very tight. I shops for all of my kids' clothes at the resale. I save probably hundreds of dollars by getting their clothes secondhand. I also sell at this sale. I am hopeful that what I sold will outpace what I bought, but there is a two-week lag between selling and getting paid.
I am fortunate that my parents were able to help pay for the purchases. If not for their generosity, I would be looking at a negative balance in my bank account. It is frustrating that I am still having to ask my parents for help at age 34. I am discouraged and humiliated that I applied for financial aid through my children's preschool and then was humiliated some more. They approved us for a need-based scholarship and then, after the fact, demanded that we sign a letter indenturing us to serving the preschool throughout the school year.
There is nothing fun about working hard and not being able to get ahead. I get stressed every time I go to the grocery store. I have to plan my meals and my list to the smallest detail. It hurts to have to always be mindful of money. I hate that every decision I make has to be plotted out on a graph. I'm not saying I want to throw money around willy-nilly, but I grew up thinking that working hard would actually bear fruit.
So far, it hasn't. I'm living in a house that is worth far less than what I paid for it. I never had equity in my house. I never had a chance to refinance. We moved in just before the bottom fell out of the market. We are currently unable to make even our modified mortgage payment. I can't think of any business that could be successful, long-term, for asking people to pay more for something than what it's worth.
Then, let's take a look at the medical situation in which we find ourselves. We have experienced multiple hospitalizations over the past four years. Our health benefits have slowly gotten more expensive and less beneficial. As I'm writing, see have a health plan with a $6000 family deductible. Yep, $6000. And after we meet that, we are still responsible for paying 30% of our bills.
Meanwhile, my husband, who was perfectly capable of performing his job from our house, has to drive from Crystal Lake to Northbrook every day. He drives a Honda Civic with $170K miles on it. His boss felt like he was distracted at home, but the reality was that he was selling less because the manufacturing sector has been so sluggish. He is stuck at his job because there are no better jobs out there. He looked for a year straight and went on one interview.
It is so frustrating to have medical bills come in. I received one yesterday for $964 for one visit to Jeremy's cardiologist. That's in addition to the $30 copayment I have to make just to be seen by the doctor. I'm sure you'll be quick to tell me that I can negotiate this down and then make monthly payments.
That's all good and fine, but when you have 10-15 different providers to whom you owe money, even small monthly payments can balloon into something unmanageable. We are also staring down a $1500 bill for Brian in November. He has to go in every year to make sure that his cancer has not recurred. Centegra will not negotiate with us; we are paying them because if we don't, they won't even allow us to make an appointment with them. I spent $900+ to pay off a bill from my OB/GYN for Doug's delivery.
Yeah, and that was fun, sitting across from my OB's business manager, explaining to her that we didn't have the $600+ their office required before they would even deliver Doug. When I explained my situation, that we were on the verge of bankruptcy (we filed in April, Doug was born in July), that we didn't qualify for all kids, for WIC, for any kind of public aid, she looked like she had just sucked on a lemon.
I wish I could explain to you that feeling. I wish I could help you understand how utterly humiliating it is to sit across from someone and talk about how you can't afford something. It's one thing to say no to junk food, or to a bachelorette party (even though that was a huge bummer); it's an entirely different feeling to tell someone you can't afford to give birth to your son.
The peculiar twist of fate was that when we conceived Doug, we had an insurance plan that covered everything at 100% after the deductible was met. In February of the year he was due, our plan shifted into this current iteration. Because we had no way of knowing this, we were unable to plan financially for it. We were caught completely off-guard. Imagine dealing with the stress of going bankrupt and changes in insurance while carrying your third child. Not fun.
I don't know why I'm sharing this, other than to say I am so frustrated. I had hoped that I would be in a different place at 34. I had hoped that buying a house (one that was well within our means) would give us some stability, some security. It has done nothing but the opposite.
It is now, weekends like this, that the revelation that our ill-engineered garbage disposal having a clog becomes enough to deflate my faith. That's a $140 call to our plumber. We have to call once a year to have it unclogged. We have no credit cards. We owe my brother money for having taken my dog to the vet a few months ago. My parents have their own mortgage to worry about and have already been so incredibly generous.
We cannot create an emergency fund for plumbers when we are struggling just to put gas in our tanks, (Brian can't get to his job without it), food on our table and send our kids to preschool. We would visit the food pantry, but the shelves are bare; there was an article about how Crystal Lake's food pantry is floundering on MSNBC a few months ago. In a addition, the food at food pantries is generally highly processed and high in sodium content; not good for two people who take medication every day for high blood pressure.
I know money is not the answer to our situation; I know ultimately it's a spiritual problem that needs a spiritual solution. I just wish I didn't feel like God has been consistently sleeping on the job. I wish I knew what the endgame was, because as I sit here, it seems to not be anything cheerful.
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