Making the Internet My Accountability Partner

My dog’s surgery went really well; he tolerated anaesthesia well and didn’t have to have any teeth pulled. The total came out to $1600. For various reasons, I’m still working on the insurance claim. Thankfully, I have up to 90 days to submit the claim, though I do not intend to take nearly that long. I’m waiting until after I receive a refund (assuming it is approved) to transfer the money back to my savings.

I’ve unfortunately been struggling to keep up with tracking my non-essential spending and temptations. I suspect it’s because I’ve started a 3-month goal challenge and I’m tracking a lot of things right now. I’m deciding to give myself some grace on the spending tracking and maybe do monthly budget check-ins for the moment.

Unfortunately, the past few days have been really expensive (and really stressful, but that’s maybe a separate post). First, my computer dies. I took it to Best Buy to get checked out and they told me it would need a major component (I think the circuit board or something) replaced, and considering how old it was, that would take longer than typical and be more expensive than a new computer. Thankfully, this is why I have emergency savings. Just last week I was celebrating hitting $5k in savings and I start this week dropping $900 on a new computer.

The next major financial issue I faced is a travel clinic appointment. I had missed an email telling me that the clinic I scheduled with does not take insurance. So I show up and I am informed that the vaccines that are recommended for me would cost $4,000. I decided I have some time and am not willing to deplete my emergency savings, especially when I have people close to me going through the same thing and having very different experiences.

Part of the difference is that their PCP is willing and able to provide the travel-specific care, mine is not. (I have a few other issues with my PCP so I have been looking to find someone new.) The other difference is that their PCP required a blood test to check immunity, the travel clinic didn’t. My loved ones had 1 vaccine recommended, I had 10 recommended. So I passed on getting $4k of vaccines out of pocket and am exploring alternatives like a CVS Minute Clinic or maybe an urgent care.