Bills

I went to the dentist yesterday. After examining my teeth (X-rays and poking around with that small sickle and mirror), they said they found 3 cavities. 2 that needed to be re-filled (re-filled?! I thought it was a 1 time thing!), and 1 that was new. The total for this procedure came out to be about $700. I just came in for a cleaning, but they wouldn't do it without the other things bundled in. They recommended I do a payment plan. Mind you, I'm paying for a dental plan (This is different from insurance, I'm not sure how though) to handle most of the costs, so the total is after the discount.

The evaluation they gave me was $87. I can't take this no more. How the heck am I supposed to afford anything? I never thought being an adult would be this hard. It seemed like my parents had everything under control growing up. They never really showed us how insanely expensive literally everything is in comparison to how much money they had. Well, for the most part.

I grew up in the suburbs for most of my life. When my parents divorced, my dad moved into some apartments. He later moved into a house, and my mom is currently living in an apartment (Where I'm living right now. I alternate between my dad's house and my mom's apartment). I often wonder why my mom decided to move out of the house she lived in initially. I feel like it's because of a lack of money management. There would be times when the cable would go out for a few weeks, or the times when she would go to a payday loan place on our way home from school. Just yesterday, I asked her about a letter on our door threatening to evict her if she didn't pay the rent in 3 days. She says it was because of a change in payment methods that they were unaware of. I don't believe it.

No matter how much I look at it, there's just no way I can keep living with these constant bills looming over me. It just doesn't seem feasible for me to achieve my goals without subtracting a huge portion of the things I'd like to have. My dad told me he had to stop collecting comic books when me and my siblings were born. This is one of the main reasons I don't plan on having a relationship or children. With the insane amount of bills that are thrown my way on the daily, there's just no way I can hope to accomplish anything without getting rid of unnecessary things.

Here's an example: The image below is an unpaid debt of mine:

When I lost that Wells Fargo job, I no longer had a way to pay off my credit card bills. This, along with another credit card adds up to about $15,000 in debt. If you add my student loans to the picture, that's about $45,000 of debt. Luckily, I'm not paying any student loans right now because I was able to get them deferred for a year. I might have to pay them later on this year if I'm unable to do that again. Before that happens, I gotta find me a job.

Mark my words, I'm not gonna make this money mistake again. As soon as these debts are paid off, I'm gonna start saving up. This is gonna be much easier to do now that I'm living with my parents again. But don't get it twisted, I will still be traveling to track meets and tournaments to compete. That's what I've prepared my car for.

My tax return came in, so I've got about $900 to spare at the moment. I've just been eating whatever my parents have in the kitchen, and restricting my driving to only going to my dad's house or sister's temporary apartment. Once I get a job, I'll start planning other travel ventures.