My dearest beloved kitty had cancer when I was on unemployment. I cut corners in my budget to pay her vet bills, I didn't go begging to strangers on the internet. Pets are a beautiful gift, but your responsibility.
Yes, I will admit to accepting some money from my dad and stepmom, but they offered to help, I didn't ask.
I love how people assume that A) I dont have kids, dont have a mortage and C) havent tried all other avenues such as CareCredit. This was something to be posted to help a cat who is just as much a family member as the rest of my family. DONT Assume when you dont know the full scenario. There is no shame in asking others to help, Im sure if you had a sick family member and did not have the funds because you used everything you had in your bank account and all cards at the moment you would ask. I find people are highly critical and selfish at most times. Its not like Im asking money to pay for a wedding, this was a emergency situation and with all other bills all of our savings including for our wedding has been used. Anyone planning a wedding should know when you have contracts you dont get your money back and most dont have a huge savings you save month to month and pay as you go along. The 1300 has been from this past week ALONE. Plus the additional 1500 from this visit alone Trolling is all this is, I am just glad for those who have helped from family to strangers who are compassionate to help those in need. I hope nooone ever runs into a emergency situation where they cannot afford to pay the remainder, a vet ER is different from a human ER you have to pay funds upfront and then any remaining balance upon pickup if you cant pay you dont get your pet back. Emergencies happen. Implying it is shameful to ask for help when you truly need it is laughable thats like saying dont donate to charities, dont use your health insurance, dont give money to a friend if they forgot a lunch etc... What is wrong with the world today....
You are what's wrong with the world today! It sounds like you've been living well past your means. I'm not saying a couple thousand dollars isn't a lot of money, but having to spend that on an emergency situation shouldn't put you so over the edge that you need to ask strangers for money on the Internet. Maybe you should have had a smaller wedding budget, in which case your vendor deposits would have been smaller and you would have been able to set money aside for a rainy day. We all work hard for our money, it's just that some people choose to spend theirs differently. Stop asking for handouts.
Owning a pet comes with certain financial responsibilities. That's just how it works and your FI knew those responsibilities when he bought/adopted the cat. Sure, most times cats are really really inexpensive - I know, I own two of them -- and I pretty much just need to make sure there is enough food and litter and cat toys to keep them entertained. But I also know that if something serious were to happen to them, it's all on me to pay for it because they are MY pets and it's MY responsibility and nobody else's.
If somebody else OFFERED to help me out that's one thing, but I would never in a million years ASK and I cannot get over the sense of entitlement that comes from going online and asking a bunch of strangers under some false pretense of "Oh we're all planning weddings and we all know how expensive it is and budgets and lalala"
Maybe I'm too much of a farm girl for the bleeding hearts of the world, but if a pet has racked up so much of a bill that its owners are scrambling to get it paid and don't have the money in savings and it's cutting into the money that the HUMANS need to survive? Yeah, Miss Puss is getting put down.
OP, I ain't paying for your cat. And yes, I'm judging the hell out of you for asking strangers on the internet.
Our dog had to have emergency surgery right before the New Year. It cost us around $3300. We scrounged up money from my savings and FI's credit card. We were also in the middle of buying a house. Did that mean we had to make some sacrifices elsewhere? You bet. Did we go on the internet to ask for money from strangers? Fuck no. Grow up and figure out your own problems.
I was home Friday and couldn't log in on my phone (and we already established that DS killed the laptop), so I'm probably too late to do the OP any good.
First off, OP, I'm going to put aside all of the hateful things you wrote (stealing money and beating kids, srsly?) and say that I'm sorry your FI's cat is sick, and I hope he recovers.
Second, if the cat is a member of the family, as you claim, then why wasn't his healthcare budgeted for? I understand that, by definition, no one expects an emergency. But that what emergency funds are for. And honestly, as someone who's had pets for a while, you don't expect any given month to be THE month when the shit hits the fan, but you know it's coming eventually. So you budget for it. Like a grown up.
Third, you say that you didn't prioritize the wedding above the cat, but since you spent money on the wedding and not the cat, the results speak for themselves. As other posters pointed out, you could have spent less on the wedding so that you would have more in reserve in case of any large, unexpected expense. What if you have car trouble, get injured or seriously, ill, etc.?
Fourth, if you were hoping for help, I think all the drama and namecalling were a poor way to go about it. To say nothing of the gofundme. Fortunately, the free advice you received was good, so I hope you take this opportunity to really think about it, and make some changes. I hope this will be the wake up call you need to start some better financial planning so that you're on a more stable footing going forward, regardless of the wedding. Good luck to you.
I love how people assume that A) I dont have kids, dont have a mortage and C) havent tried all other avenues such as CareCredit. This was something to be posted to help a cat who is just as much a family member as the rest of my family. DONT Assume when you dont know the full scenario. There is no shame in asking others to help, Im sure if you had a sick family member and did not have the funds because you used everything you had in your bank account and all cards at the moment you would ask. I find people are highly critical and selfish at most times. Its not like Im asking money to pay for a wedding, this was a emergency situation and with all other bills all of our savings including for our wedding has been used. Anyone planning a wedding should know when you have contracts you dont get your money back and most dont have a huge savings you save month to month and pay as you go along. The 1300 has been from this past week ALONE. Plus the additional 1500 from this visit alone Trolling is all this is, I am just glad for those who have helped from family to strangers who are compassionate to help those in need. I hope nooone ever runs into a emergency situation where they cannot afford to pay the remainder, a vet ER is different from a human ER you have to pay funds upfront and then any remaining balance upon pickup if you cant pay you dont get your pet back. Emergencies happen. Implying it is shameful to ask for help when you truly need it is laughable thats like saying dont donate to charities, dont use your health insurance, dont give money to a friend if they forgot a lunch etc... What is wrong with the world today....
A-fucking-scuse me. My 4 year old nephew has AML (leukemia). My brother isn't begging people to help pay for everything. It's his own son, and he knows he has to care for him.
My brother and SIL just had another baby, live in a town home too small for their family, and are bankrupt from chemo, stem cell transplant, and medical bills from the children's hospital my nephew has been living in since last year.
My brother is bankrupt and can't afford the +$150k in bills he's drowning in. He has never asked for help because he doesn't expect others to take care of his child. Another person started a GoFundMe for his family, but he never asked for it or initiated it. If people want to help, they know to go there from friends and family. My family helps because we want to, not because he asked us.
Spamming these threads for your cat's bills is against TOS and it's making me judge you so hard. YOU are what is wrong with this world, expecting others to help you when you demand it.
I'm very sorry for the cat and for your fiance having to deal with its illness. That always sucks.
That said... if you can't afford a cat, you shouldn't own a cat. It sucks, but it's reality.
Years ago, while single and had only my own spotty income (I was running my own fledgling business) to rely on, I found a lump on my dog's leg and had to shell out about $1900 I didn't have for tests and biopsies... thankfully to find out it was nothing but a skin tag. Immediately after that, my 10-week-old kitten was dying, and I was paying vet bills out the wazoo to try and save her as well (she died).
I didn't ask for financial help from anyone - not strangers, not friends, not family.
While H & I were planning our wedding, I lost my job. We had rent, one dog (same one that cost me $1900 several years before), 4 cats, two cars, insurance, etc. And wedding contracts we were tied into. I have no idea how we got the money together, but we must have pulled it out of our asses, because what we did NOT do was ask strangers, friends, or family.
During the summer of 2012, everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. My dog got sick, racking up more vet bills (same dog). One of the cats got very ill and after racking up a plethora of bills, died of kidney failure. I got into a car accident that was my fault (no collision insurance, because it was an older car, so all repairs - almost $4,000) had to come out of our pockets. I fell down the stairs and bashed myself up good, plus crushed my cell phone, resulting in the need for a new phone. The day I found out what my car was going to cost me - about 5 minutes later, in fact - our landlord showed up at the house we were renting to tell me that he'd broken up with his fiance and needed his house back. We had to find a new place to the tune of first, security, and realtor fee. All in all that summer, we had FIFTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS in UNEXPECTED expenses. I can tell you quite honestly we did not have $15,000 in savings. Again, I have no idea how we managed it, but ...
We didn't ask for financial help from anyone - not strangers, not friends, not family.
The "expense-inducing" dog died this past June at 16.25 years old of cancer, but lived like a queen until she did.
We now have a house, two big dogs (eating between them 8-10 cups of premium food/day), two cats (one on prescription food, the other premium pet store food), two guinea pigs (who need hay, food, fruit, and veggies), a slew of fish (saltwater and freshwater), and two honeybee hives (which require at various times of the year sugar, fondant, pollen patties, HoneyBHealthy supplement, and varroa mite treatments).
You're an adult. Figure it out.
You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough. ~Mae West
We got our first nuc (nucleus colony of bees) last May, and the second nuc in early June (which is actually somewhat late in this part of the country). The first nuc's queen died in the summer, we re-queened, but lost that one too & the whole colony died. The June nuc went gangbusters, though, and when we were finally able to check on them recently (it has to be at least 40F & sunny) we found they're doing really well. We're getting another nuc for the other hive in May, because we'd like at least two hives going, probably 3.
What do you want to know?
You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough. ~Mae West
We got our first nuc (nucleus colony of bees) last May, and the second nuc in early June (which is actually somewhat late in this part of the country). The first nuc's queen died in the summer, we re-queened, but lost that one too & the whole colony died. The June nuc went gangbusters, though, and when we were finally able to check on them recently (it has to be at least 40F & sunny) we found they're doing really well. We're getting another nuc for the other hive in May, because we'd like at least two hives going, probably 3.
What do you want to know?
My husband and I are hoping to start a hive and get some chickens over the next couple of years!
We got our first nuc (nucleus colony of bees) last May, and the second nuc in early June (which is actually somewhat late in this part of the country). The first nuc's queen died in the summer, we re-queened, but lost that one too & the whole colony died. The June nuc went gangbusters, though, and when we were finally able to check on them recently (it has to be at least 40F & sunny) we found they're doing really well. We're getting another nuc for the other hive in May, because we'd like at least two hives going, probably 3.
What do you want to know?
My husband and I are hoping to start a hive and get some chickens over the next couple of years!
Terrific!
We're talking chickens perhaps next spring too. It depends on how we think the dogs will do with them; we've got a half yellow lab/half something huge & a half chocolate lab/half English pointer, so we're worried they may want to hunt the poor birds. We know people with chickens, so we plan to introduce them and see what they say.
If you can, do two hives together. It can be helpful to have more than one, if one is weaker and the other stronger, you can use brood frames from the strong one to help out the weak one, etc.
We were discussing it today, and came to the conclusion we'd like 3 hives in our own yard, and then to keep up to 7 more in other people's yards. A lot of people in this area want bees on their property but don't want to be beekeepers.
You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough. ~Mae West
Re: Help
Yes, I will admit to accepting some money from my dad and stepmom, but they offered to help, I didn't ask.
Maybe I'm too much of a farm girl for the bleeding hearts of the world, but if a pet has racked up so much of a bill that its owners are scrambling to get it paid and don't have the money in savings and it's cutting into the money that the HUMANS need to survive? Yeah, Miss Puss is getting put down.
OP, I ain't paying for your cat. And yes, I'm judging the hell out of you for asking strangers on the internet.
First off, OP, I'm going to put aside all of the hateful things you wrote (stealing money and beating kids, srsly?) and say that I'm sorry your FI's cat is sick, and I hope he recovers.
Second, if the cat is a member of the family, as you claim, then why wasn't his healthcare budgeted for? I understand that, by definition, no one expects an emergency. But that what emergency funds are for. And honestly, as someone who's had pets for a while, you don't expect any given month to be THE month when the shit hits the fan, but you know it's coming eventually. So you budget for it. Like a grown up.
Third, you say that you didn't prioritize the wedding above the cat, but since you spent money on the wedding and not the cat, the results speak for themselves. As other posters pointed out, you could have spent less on the wedding so that you would have more in reserve in case of any large, unexpected expense. What if you have car trouble, get injured or seriously, ill, etc.?
Fourth, if you were hoping for help, I think all the drama and namecalling were a poor way to go about it. To say nothing of the gofundme. Fortunately, the free advice you received was good, so I hope you take this opportunity to really think about it, and make some changes. I hope this will be the wake up call you need to start some better financial planning so that you're on a more stable footing going forward, regardless of the wedding. Good luck to you.
p.s. @6fsn is not a bitch.
I didn't ask for financial help from anyone - not strangers, not friends, not family.
You're an adult. Figure it out.