I had to put a lot of expenses on the back burner recently while my wife has recovered from her kidney surgery.
We’ve had to pay for medical supplies on top of insurance co-pays from her time in the hospital and at various doctors offices to see numerous specialists the whole time.
This was a huge financial burden on both of us, despite being upper middle-class before this happened. Even the prescription co-pays were more than we expected, but it’s because her employer’s medical insurance company tried to balk about certain drugs that were only available as brand versions at the time. Some of them still don’t have generic equivalents but she has been off them all since she finished her recovery. During this time, we tried to save money wherever we could to afford the medical expenses associated with her surgery and the kidney complications that led to the surgery in the first place. We went as far as switching to a cheaper laundry detergent because we were using Tide for years which is famously among the most expensive options for laundry soap. We also stopped replacing the filters in our air conditioner so much, stopping from once a month to every two months. During this time, I forgot to replace the filter in our air purifier for roughly eight months straight. One day I couldn’t figure out why my pollen allergies were so bad indoors despite having the doors and windows shut for hours. We had just replaced the a/c filter so I knew something wasn’t right. When I looked at the old air purifier filter, it was so badly clogged that I’m amazed any air was able to get through the machine itself.