As much as I want to pay off Sallie Mae it’s time to beef up my emergency fund. For the month of January I’ll pay paying just the minimum $452 for the month. Between bills from the holidays and my pending medical bills it’s spreading me thin.

Today I was wheezing heavily and coughing at work. This has never happened to me before and lasted for a full 45 minutes. Luckily my job has a clinic on-site. I went down there and both people who worked there and those waiting felt really bad for me. So I was seen a full hour before my appointment. Chest x-ray ruled out pneumonia, tested negative for flu and negative for strep. Got a nebulizer treatment for a half hour, blood work drawn and two injections in my backside. I immediately started to feel better. My prescriptions were only $12. Went home and did 0 work afterward.

My current health plan has a $4000 deductible. That is going to $2000 in about two weeks. Still not enough to make a big difference in what I will end up owing. I hope most of the stuff at the clinic is covered by my co-pay but I cannot say so for sure. The x-rays will be a couple hundred dollars I figure.

Currently I have $197 in my bank account so an emergency fund is non-existant. I need to pull back at least for a month to do some damage control. Credit card balance is just under $700, close to $900 after pending transactions hit. That will be paid off in full after my next paycheck. I put the ATT ($87), Verizon ($150) and electricity bill (not yet added but $212) on it.

It’s a wakeup call that health is important and having insurance matters. Coming out of the holidays without super much massive damage (though I spent more than I wanted to) and that makes me happy. That’s all for now.

Update: Maybe the X-Rays aren’t as much as I thought. I see an estimated cost online of $32 for the center I went to.