It's all about the money

I'm trying to be financially responsible with finances. Hamilton is touring and I thought it might be cool to go for our anniversary. Ticket availability was slim pickins as it was nearly sold out, but I found a pair together on a date and time we could go. It was $714 for the two tickets in the nosebleed section. We thought it would be fun but we're not that into it and for that amount of money we don't need something just for the 'gram. We'll have to find something a little more budget friendly to mark the occasion.

Speaking of finances, I got a bill from May 2017 from the genetics lab that did the testing on the material from the d&c. I called them and tried not to take out my frustration on the rep who answered the phone. There's no way we'd leave an outstanding bill that long and since they dropped the ball I feel like they need to eat the cost. The rep tried to tell me that sometimes things get held back with insurance and I responded with saying that it may take a few months, maybe even a year, but if it's been two years and they still haven't settled that's on them. I seem to remember that I was told at the time that this doesn't even go through insurance and that I was charged directly from the clinic. I told them that I didn't ask for any kind of testing, that I didn't receive any kind of results from them, and since it all went through the clinic they should go after the clinic for the payment. It worked to get him to open an investigative case about it but I'm not sure it's the last we've heard of it.

In other news on the topic, I followed up with my account in the current clinic. Back in March I got some troubling news that there were $9k worth of outstanding claims on our account that we may be responsible for. After a lot of back and forth with the billing office they said they'll look into it and get back to me. It's been a few months and I didn't hear back so I emailed to follow up. If there was still a balance we'll need to figure out how to pay it off before we have more expenses, and if there's a credit there's no reason it should sit over there when we could use the money. Waiting to hear back from them.

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Shavuot Sameach <3

If I had $5,000...

Every so often I like to think about what I would do with an extra $5,000. It's not millions of dollars winning the lottery which is so unlikely to happen. Five thousand dollars is technically an attainable amount of money, like a new job sign-on bonus or a crazy tax refund. It could happen.

Obviously I could only do one of these things, but in no particular order:

• Replace kitchen appliances
• Fancy yard landscaping
• Car down payment
• New furniture
• Living room
• Dining room
• Bedroom
• Home repairs
• Update fence
• Kitchen floor
• Kitchen granite 
• Bathrooms
• New roof
• New air conditioning
• Add bedrooms basement
• Redo floorplan upstairs
• Lasik eye surgery
• Invisalign 
• Vacation
• Throw it at the mortgage
• Put it in savings or lock it in something that earns interest

I think of all the money we spent on treatment and wonder if we'll ever have extra for any of these things. They're not needs, they're wants. We can absolutely go without most of them but it's fun to dream. I like having a wishlist and adding to it every so often. It may be boring but it's mine.

We've been living intentionally frugally so that we can do what we need to do to build a family while still trying to be financially responsible. It's kind of ridiculous to think about trying to stay out of debt when I still have an insane amount of student debt, but it's the principle of the matter. It's easy to let spending get out of control so we do our best to curb it as much as possible. The holiday season kind of put a monkey wrench in the budget so we're going on a temporary spending diet. It's a pretty trim budget to begin with but I know we could be more careful about grocery shopping and food waste so that will be our goal for November.