I get my health insurance from my job at the Forum. Through them, I participated in the Flexible Health Spending accounts (where a certain amount is deducted from my pretax pay, and I can use it to pay off my health expenses.) It's a "use it or lose it" expenditure for each tax year.

This past year (probably exacerbated by my crazy work schedule) I had quite a few doctor's bills. I wanted to save my reimbursement as long as possible, so I could use the $$ to pay off a bill, or for rent, whatever.

I will never do that again. I submitted all my paperwork near the deadline, and I got my check in the mail a few days ago, BUT I was only reimbursed for 1/4 of the amount I had deducted. So now, I'm not sure what happened - did my stuff get lost, or did I send the wrong stuff? I had actually talked to the health plan rep and sent in exactly what she said, but I don't have a record of who spoke to me so I can't prove anything. Now I have to appeal the reimbursement, and there's no guarantee it will work.

Plus, I got a letter in the mail yesterday: evidently I had gotten a parking ticket a few months ago. Probably it either fell off the windshield or was taken off, because I never saw it. So now, the $$ has been tripled, because it's late. So I have to go to City Hall to give them the $$$ before I get arrested or whatever happens to you when you haven't paid a parking ticket you didn't know you had.

AND, one of the bills that I had been paying sent me a nasty-gram: I was told (verbally, and I'm realizing that verbal=big mistake) to send in regular payments even though it wasn't for the full amount of the bill. But this letter is looking very legalese, and a few days after I got it, I got a phone call from their brass-knuckle division. I wasn't home, so I called them back and left a message on how and where to contact me. I'm hoping that this is an opportunity to formalize a repayment plan rather than a chance to kick me in the throat or something.

Did I ever mention that debt sucks? Because it does.