Hi, all. Not gonna lie, I'm feeling pretty hopeless about everything right now after getting some really awful news.
I'm 24 years old. I split bills with my fiancé, so I am currently responsible for my student loans, half of our mortgage, my car payment, half of our insurance payment, and our electric bill. With my honestly amazing pay, I am comfortably able to pay these bills with money leftover, and I pay those bills immediately when I get my paycheck, sometimes up to a full week early, because I like sending that money off quickly so it's all done and I don't risk missing anything. My fiancé can't really take on any more of the bills because he makes lower pay than I do and he's doing his best too.
The problem is....something literally always comes up to drain any leftover money so I can't build up any savings or emergency fund. Some of the things I've dealt with over the past month include...
---Moved out of our apartment into our house? Boom, apartment complex calls with a $530 bill to replace the carpets. They were trying to make me pay $800 until I demanded to know whether they had applied my deposit towards it. Pretty sure they were trying to con me, because that payment came down to $530 paid over 3 months. My fiancé and I split that bill, and I just sent in the last payment for that yesterday.
---And the awful news I mentioned earlier came this morning. I was finally feeling comfortable enough to start playing more than the minimum on my student loans when boom, my TEACH grant apparently kicked in a few months ago and has been overdue for 120 days and I had literally no idea. TEACH grants state that if I teach for 4 years in a low-income school, that loan is forgiven. But I no longer teach. I knew that loan existed, but it was my understanding that the sum would be added to my current student loan payment on Nelnet. Instead, it went to FedLoan. I take full responsibility for this mistake. I should have been more aware and knowledgeable, and I regret that. The $89 payments have snowballed over 3 months in addition to late fees and I now owe over $600. Luckily, that payment is not due until November 13th. My November 9 paycheck will let me pay the mid-month bills as well as this overdue balance, and still have money leftover. I'm incredibly lucky and nearly started crying because I was so relieved. The only way I even knew about the delinquency was when I checked my credit score while considering a credit card and noticed the overdue payment. Needless to say, I'm not even looking at a credit card until all of this is dealt with.
--EDIT: completely forgot to mention that I had to go to the emergency room last week because I had an allergic reaction that was causing my throat to swell. I have never had such a reaction as I have no known allergies and I hadn't done anything differently than I usually do like changing laundry detergent, new foods, etc. The doctors have no idea what caused it. So I'm anticipating that bill to come in eventually...yay USA emergency room costs. I have excellent health insurance through BlueCross BlueShield, but I'm nervous over what the bill could possibly look like. I was there for 2 hours, got a Benadryl IV, and sat on a nebulizer for about 10 minutes.
--The holidays are coming up, and there are multiple family birthdays between now and the end of the year to deal with. Luckily my family is the type to set a firm budget on how much we can spend on each other, so I'm only looking at a hard maximum of $200 for gifts. I limit myself to no more than $30 for birthday presents, and I do handmade gifts sometimes because I'm crafty and that saves some money.
---And of course, on top of all this, I'm trying to plan a wedding too. It won't be until March 2019 or later, so there's a lot of time, but it feels like this looming terror haunting me every time an unexpected payment rears its ugly head. We have a fair estimate of what it's going to cost us, and we've highballed all the numbers just in case. Plus both sets of parents have stated that they will buy things like wedding dress, venue down payment, etc.
So...I guess what I'm trying to ask is for literally any advice on what to do. My life this year has been nothing but one unexpected payment after another. I started trying to save in July and only have $200 to show for it. What can I possibly do to make this easier and less stressful?
Submitted October 25, 2017 at 08:00AM by TheClericofLight http://ift.tt/2h6o8QP
