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Being a grownup is hard. There is too much to think about. Careers, bills, investments, rent, the future... It sucks. Today, we took Mike to the emergency room because his tonsil is abscessing again. We already owe 220 dollars to Carle for services previously rendered, so another trip to convenient care and then to the ER is not going to be pretty. Plus, seventy-one dollars for medicine! Owie! The only good thing is that Carle apparently has a discount program for low income patients, which I'm going to try and find out more about tomorrow. Mike only makes about 16,000 a year, and I'm unemployed. If you count his whole income and all the money I get for student loans, we should have the household income that would get us a 25% break. If they only count the student loans I get that don't go straight to the school, we're at the income level (200% of the poverty level) that would make us eligible for 100 percent discounts. That would be very nice. I'm sure there are a million catches, but it can't hurt to check. We have insurance for Mike, but it's the sort where you still have to count on not getting sick.
When we got home, we found that our renewal notice for the apartment had come in the mail. We have to decide if we want to keep this apartment for next year (with only a 15 dollar a month rent increase, not bad) or pass it up and move someplace cheaper. I don't know that Lauren's made her decision yet on whether she's going to still live here next year. If not, we might have to move someplace cheaper, just looking at our finances. I don't want to move, but my dad is always encouraging me to be practical and pragmatic. Part of it, I suppose, will be whether or not Mike gets accepted to the U of I. If he does, he's eligible for loans too, and he gets student insurance, which means we won't have these medical bills to worry about. And it would be nice to have so much extra room. This is a huge apartment for the price, I can't say it's not a good deal. And I hate moving so much. We have about a month and a half to decide that.
One nice thing, I checked on our Roth IRAs today and things are looking pretty good. We opened IRAs last year when I was working for Primerica, and I seeded my US Bank account before we left Chicago so they could be fed each month. Just 25 dollars a month per account, but that'll add up, if we keep it up for the next 25 years or so. And apparently our fund had a good year this year, so that makes me happy. There's enough left in the account that I won't have to think about refilling it for another six months or so, so that's nice. It's good to have one thing that doesn't take a lot of worrying. If Mike would just get better without getting me sick in turn, that would be another awesome thing. But I'm not holding my breath.
When we got home, we found that our renewal notice for the apartment had come in the mail. We have to decide if we want to keep this apartment for next year (with only a 15 dollar a month rent increase, not bad) or pass it up and move someplace cheaper. I don't know that Lauren's made her decision yet on whether she's going to still live here next year. If not, we might have to move someplace cheaper, just looking at our finances. I don't want to move, but my dad is always encouraging me to be practical and pragmatic. Part of it, I suppose, will be whether or not Mike gets accepted to the U of I. If he does, he's eligible for loans too, and he gets student insurance, which means we won't have these medical bills to worry about. And it would be nice to have so much extra room. This is a huge apartment for the price, I can't say it's not a good deal. And I hate moving so much. We have about a month and a half to decide that.
One nice thing, I checked on our Roth IRAs today and things are looking pretty good. We opened IRAs last year when I was working for Primerica, and I seeded my US Bank account before we left Chicago so they could be fed each month. Just 25 dollars a month per account, but that'll add up, if we keep it up for the next 25 years or so. And apparently our fund had a good year this year, so that makes me happy. There's enough left in the account that I won't have to think about refilling it for another six months or so, so that's nice. It's good to have one thing that doesn't take a lot of worrying. If Mike would just get better without getting me sick in turn, that would be another awesome thing. But I'm not holding my breath.
