This month has been one hurdle after another. I threw out my back, and my wife was diagnosed with a disease that causes her esophagus to be constantly inflamed. so she’s been on a liquid diet for 3 weeks now. And while the insurance company and pharmacy try to figure out this weird drug, we have come to find that it will cost us a little over $2,000/month. The only saving grace is that the manufacturer has a payment assistance program, which will pay for the first $13,000 of co-pay, which should last us around 6 months. So we’ll be on the hook for $12,000-13,000 for the rest of the year. It is a newer drug so it is only in one pharmacy by special order, so there aren’t generics yet. We currently are planning to work towards saving $1,200/month into a savings account to pay for her drugs as the year goes on. To boost that account, any freelance designing I do with schools, or theaters will go into this account, which gives us an extra $2,000-3,000 to play with. So the house will be on hold until we get our new life figured out.
With the added stress, and only having to cook for myself, I’ve slipped on healthy eating and even stepping on the scale every morning. I started checking again because my wife has been told by a nutritionist to weigh herself because getting your daily calories in when you can’t swallow anything remotely solid is tough. At my peak this month, I was at 212lbs. I’ve started to work on eating better, and working out. Because of the rough change we’ve been enduring, I’m starting up seeing a therapist next week. I’ve been super agitated lately because the drugs that might allow my wife to life a somewhat normal life are over 10% of our pretax income, for 6 months, I’m pissed that our healthcare system is so expensive, especially since together we make around $100,000/year, so we don’t qualify for any assistance because we make just enough to be over the limit. I feel awful that all I can really do to help is save money and make a monumental amount of mashed potatoes, soup, and protein shakes. I want it to be clear, zero anger is going towards my wife. She didn’t chose to have this problem. It’s just the situation is almost no win every way we go. And I’m struggling with it. We have joked about moving to any of the other universal healthcare countries, but that’s probably not a reality for a little while.
January 2023 Food Spending: $635.26
Total Assets: $74,633.53
Total Liabilities: -$37,534.10
Net Worth: $37,099.43
Monthly Change:+$3,366.64
YTD change:+$3,366.64
Weight: 204.0lbs
Monthly Change:+5.8lbs
YTD Change:+12.6lbs
Personal Fixer Upper 