I haven't blogged in a while -- things are really stressful right now and I haven't found any time to sit and blog.  This will be short since I'm still at work.

Matt and I have almost been married one full year! And what a year it has been.  The year started out well - we have enjoyed married life, saved some money, and put quite a bit on our student loans. For the record, we started with over $100k in student loan debt, and now we have $84.5k.  Over the past three months our interest rates have dropped -- the biggest student loan went from 6.25% to 5.25%.  Two of Matt's student loans dropped from 7.22% and 7% to 4.22% and 4% respectively.  But that's about it for the good news.

These past three months have also been very traumatic for us.  We found out that Matt needed over $1500 in dental work a few months ago. But as he's been going to the dentist that number keeps increasing. Thankfully they think they can prevent him from needing a root canal, but I think it actually costs us more in the end not to have one.  Aside from normal dental work, Matt bit into something hard at a wedding and crushed one tooth.  He did the same to another tooth a few months later. 

Then Matt tore his ACL.  Little did we know that the surgery itself would put us over the "maximum $3000 out of pocket" fees, and has also cost us upwards of $400 a month in physical therapy. And now his health insurance won't cover physical therapy, so that number will double for the next month.  We've learned that the term "maximum out of pocket" doesn't actually mean anything at all -- it's just there to make you feel better.  If we switch health insurance (mine is much better), we're going with an HSA next time.

Then on August 21 I got rear-ended. But it wasn't just any kind of "rear-ended".  I was at a full stop when I was hit by a car going 40 mph.  Needless to say, my car is totaled.  Apparently the government doesn't even bother putting Toyota Celicas through the 30-mph and 40-mph impact test.  So if anyone in the government is reading this and would like to do a study on all the adverse health problems I may have from this, feel free to contact me, and be prepared to pay off our student loans this year.  Just kidding. Sort of.

The accident wasn't THAT bad and I wasn't overly injured. In fact, I went home and cleaned the house that day.  The major damage came from when my airbag deployed and my rear bumper somehow made it into my backseat.  But that was just the beginning of the problems.  The guy who hit me was driving his girlfriend's car (a brand new 2008 Honda Accord), which only had the minimum insurance Florida requires. That meant it only had $10,000 in PIP (personal injury protection) - for the driver of the vehicle - and $10,000 in property damage.  Now I realize that a 1996 Toyota Celica isn't exactly going to take all that much cash to replace.  But my car was slammed into a souped up 2006 Ford Mustang -- and the bumper damage on that could easily run 3 to 4 grand.  So the guy cried and was sorry and all that. Until it came to actually contacting the insurance companies.  It didn't take him all that long to realize that he is now going to be responsible for paying our damages and health bills out of pocket because he was completely irresponsible in not even owning a car or insurance, and not making sure the car he was driving was properly insured.  So he hired an attorney and is trying to make me liable for the accident.  Over a week after the accident, I finally faxed the police report to my insurance, proving that I was not at fault at all for the accident (and they saw my car, which proved I was not at fault for the accident), so I will not have to pay my gynormous deductible.  But I'm not sure where this will be going.  It's possible that he will take this to court (very, very bad idea).

So I not only no longer have a car, I don't even have a replacement check yet, and lawyers are sending me letters asking me for liability information.  Thankfully USAA is taking care of it.  But we still need to buy a car -- which is quite frustrating because we've taken really good care of my car and just replaced the clutch and we were hoping to make it to $200k miles on it before we finally retired it.  I'm pretty sure I won't be getting all that much for my car, so we'll be hemorrhaging money by this weekend or the next when we finally decide on a car.

Moral of the story:  don't buy a really expensive new car and then have shoddy insurance on it.  But a fairly nice used car and use all you saved to pay for good coverage.  That's the responsible thing to do.  Remember -- if you live in Naples, you may find yourself plowed into a Maseratti or Lamborghini.  You'll want good coverage in that situation.

Every time we think things are finally getting better, another disaster strikes.  I know Dave Ramsey is all about only having a $1000 emergency fund while you pay off loans. But if that was the case for us, we'd be absolutely dead in the water right now.  Matt and I both have fairly respectable jobs and we are still working second jobs to keep up with the bills.

Thankfully our relationship is rock-solid and we've had a great year in terms of our marriage. We both have the same spending habits and we're going through all of this together.  So I'd take a terrible year like this any time with a great relationship with my husband, than a few great years and a terrible relationship.  Hands down.

So that is our life right now. That and a few other issues.  But we are coming up on our anniversary and we keep saying that 2009 can't possibly be worse than 2008.  I mean, in reality it could.  But Matt's forever the optimist and I'm taking his side on this.  And we're going to Disney for our anniversary, so that means at least a long weekend where we can escape reality.  Yay!