Boy, do I understand about the car insurance! I will try to be diplomatic here....I had the same insurance company for 15 years with no claims, consistent discounts on my policy for good driving, etc. Then I got married. DH is not the most cautious driver, and since he drives all day for work (he's in sales) he has that much more opportunity for...erm...driver error. Within 2 years of having him added to my policy our rates went up and up until they just decided to drop us. After that, we didn't exactly have our choice of companies and policies, we had to take whatever we could get. So we currently pay a ridiculous amount of money every month, all 12 months. Now that we've refinanced our first mortgage I'm going to put my energy into finding better insurance and try to take advantage of a multi-policy discount if I move my homeowner's insurance along with the car insurance. Small steps.
I wish I was on the "A Year to save for a trip" thread instead of this one.
But, I guess we will all get there one day, right.
I'm feeling very frustrated today. Now that we've started YNAB and can see that in a "normal" month we would be able to put a decent amount toward building a buffer, it doesn't look like we'll have a "normal" month for a while. A while back I mentioned my cat that has been undergoing radiation and chemo. Those hefty bills have put a real dent in our paychecks, and she had another treatment in a couple of weeks. Well, last night we noticed a large lump on another one of our cats' legs. I'm pretty certain it's a tumor. She's going to the vet this afternoon. And a third cat...my best buddy...has been drinking a ton of water the past few days, and at 17 years old I think it might be kidney disease. He goes to the vet on Monday. I'm so scared of what's going to happen with them. Last but not least, I'm having an ultrasound on Tuesday, and I need to meet my insurance deductible before any scans are covered. I have no idea how much I will be charged for that, but based on what is left on my deductible I could owe up to $800. I'm stressed about the tests and almost as stressed about the bill.
Thanks for letting me vent.
I feel your pain. I re-did my YNAB categories last month to include annual bills we can predict (car insurance, registration fees, etc), but then the process if allocating money to those expenses in the budget ate up a large chunk of what I had hoped to send to the CC. It's worse right now because none of those bills are a full year out, so I couldn't save 1/12 of the cost yet, making the amount I have to put in those categories abnormally large. I'm so ready to have a year under my belt so that we can have all those categories properly buffered and our rainy day funds established so that maybe we can experience some truly normal months.
In British Columbia we don't have the option of shopping around for car insurance; we have one company, ICBC, and it's government run. So everyone has to use them to insure a vehicle in BC. Both DH and I are on both policies; our 2013 Mazda 5 is $135/month and our 2003 Mazda Protege 5 is $113/month. Having an insurance monopoly sucks
PrincessKymm said:
