October & November 2017 Debt Update

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October and November brought the end of soccer season, the beginning of fall, a few holidays, and the ceremonious start of band and chorus craziness for Bookworm. Budget wise, November was an extra pay month for us. At first, I was looking forward to making a pretty hefty payment on our snowball with the extra pay, but we had medical bills come in at the end of October making our snowball payment no where near what I was initially hoping for.

That’s okay though. The money is better off keeping us current so we don’t accumulate more debt.

If you’re interested in other debt updates I’ve done this year, you can check out these:

October Debt Update

In October, we paid $1,120.07 on debt.

Credit Card:  $390.07
Student Loans:  $180
Mortgage:  $500

October’s debt snowball is lower this month because we started receiving medical bills for procedures that were done in August and the beginning of September, along with one of two dental bills for the month of October. In mid October we also had an EOB arrive for Monkey’s methacholine challenge. Being asthmatic myself, I knew pulmonary function tests were expensive, but this one absolutely floored me.

And that’s only one of the EOB’s we received for this test! There was also the facilities charge and the doctor’s charge.

Overall this whole year has been like a whole new world for me as far as our medical expenses go. At the beginning of the year, I posted about how our income was changing because Hubs’ employer was modifying their insurance plan offerings. It left us with 250% higher deductible, co-pays at every visit, some remarkably high co-pays for some services, and higher paycheck deductions.

While we did prepare by opening a to cover our deductible and an extra amount, the reality is that the FSA wasn’t enough for the year we had. By June, the FSA money for the year was gone, and so we started paying out of pocket for medical bills. Smaller expenses like co-pays and prescriptions were no big deal, but larger bills we had to start taking out of our monthly budget.

But it’s also been a really weird year where we’ve had more doctor’s appointments than usual. Between three rounds of Lyme disease treatment, an ER visit, two MedExpress visits for possible fractured bones, non-routine blood work… that methacholine challenge just added the icing to an already very expensive cake.

November Debt Update

Throughout November, we paid $1,460.68 on debt.

Credit Card: $730.68
Student Loans: $180
Mortgage: $500

November for us was a 5 paycheck month, and normally that means that we can have a looser than normal monthly budget, or we make a larger payment to our debts. I was looking forward to knocking down a large chunk of debt this month, but as I explained with October, November had some other medical bills come in. I did a no spend month throughout November, and it really helped keep my miscellaneous spending down so we could pay off more on the card.

My September laryngitis/pharyntigis visit left us with a $100 bill towards the deductible, and Monkey’s methacholine challenge in September left us with owing $550 of a nearly $9000 bill. We also had one more dental bill arrive, with us owing another $42 for Hubs’ most recent visit. Since I was determined to not let the medical bills become more debt, and rather than taking money from our emergency fund {I don’t see medical bills as true emergencies}, we lowered our debt snowball for the month to cover the costs. Thankfully it was an extra paycheck month, so it didn’t reduce our debt snowball by too much.

I also want to note that throughout October we had a few more medical related expenses crop up that I didn’t owe any additional money, beyond co-pays, for. The first was for Lady Bug who had a sinus infection in the middle of October, and the second was for Monkey who sprained his thumb during his second to last soccer practice for the fall season. The copay’s were the normal $15 and $35 respectively at the time of service. But when I got the EOB’s in the mail in November, I didn’t have to pay the full co-pay amount. Now we have a credit at the two offices for those visits.

The EOB’s had noted at the bottom that since we hit our family maximum throughout the year, the insurance company now had a higher payment threshold. I was pleasantly surprised at that fact, but it didn’t last long when I saw we have paid over $2,000 out of pocket in medical expenses this year. I’ll touch base on this a little more in a later post because it directly affects what we’re doing to prepare for our finances in 2018.

Last two month’s we’ve paid $2,580.75 on our debts, putting our grand total debt paid off at $80,624.44.

I want you to remember this is life. There will absolutely be months where you’re crushing it, and months where life happens and you’re just getting through. In the end, all of that is completely okay! The end game is all about changing your spending habits, and getting yourself set up for a secure financial future. To do that, you need to spend within your means, save for the known, and have a little on hand for the unknown.