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Paying out of pocket

Cost with no end date and how I think about that

Started 1 February 2025 · 17 replies · 175 hearts · read 3.2k times

NadirCasablanca, MA · 1 February 2025
1.5 years ago

Something I have been sitting with: Cost with no end date and how I think about that Not looking for advice so much as other people's experience.

I have a letter in front of me and I do not know what it actually says.

Money post. No apologies, this circle is for it, and I would like actual figures rather than reassurance if anybody is willing.

My situation has changed and the arrangement I built no longer works, and I need to rebuild it before something runs out.

Any experience welcome, including the ones that did not work out. I would rather know what I am walking into.

58

HettieLancaster, UK
#1

I found that being honest with my partner about the number was harder than the number itself, and better once done.

6

SaffHastings, UK
#2

The comparison shopping is worth doing once a year and not worth doing every month, in my experience.

9

OttoPrague, CZ
#3

Something worth knowing: prices moved over two years and I only noticed because I was tracking. Worth checking occasionally.

10

PetraFacilitatorMelbourne, Australia
#4

Facilitator note: nobody in this circle is asked to justify what they can or cannot afford, and nobody is asked to explain what they spend the rest of it on.

21me too 8

GwennoPwllheli, UK
#5

Grateful you posted rather than kept it to yourself.

7me too 7

LlianCarmarthen, UK
#6

What surprised me was how many people here are in the same position and how little it gets discussed anywhere else.

10

PeronelCanterbury, UK
#7

My prescriber was completely unembarrassed by the money conversation, which made it much easier than I had expected.

9

GavinDundee, UK
#8

Building on what Llian wrote rather than answering the original question.

Something that helped was writing down what it buys me, in plain terms, which made the annual figure feel like a decision rather than a drain.

11

ZoëHackney, UK
#9

Coming back to say I have kept it going for two years, that it has been tight in places, and that the planning is what made it possible.

11

IlyaAlmaty, KZ
#10

The arithmetic is the arithmetic and there is no shame in it. I sat down with a calculator and a cup of tea and worked out what it actually costs me per year.

13me too 2

MoBradford, UK
#11

I would gently say that if cost is about to force you to stop, talk to your prescriber first. There were options in my case.

8

NadirCasablanca, MA
#12

Zoë — yes, and the bit that took me longest to accept was the next part.

What helped was somebody here being completely frank about their own numbers, which gave me permission to look properly at mine.

12me too 3

HettieLancaster, UK
#13

My review appointments cost money too, and building those into the annual figure changed my sense of the total considerably.

6

SaffHastings, UK
#14

Something practical: I set up a separate account for it, which sounds excessive and means I always know where I stand.

11

OttoPrague, CZ
#15

What I got wrong was not budgeting for the first six months properly, because that period cost more than the steady state does.

9me too 7

PetraFacilitatorMelbourne, Australia
#16

I want to name what pausing gets met with here: recognition rather than concern. That is the right response, it is not the usual one elsewhere, and it is why people say so in this circle at all.

12

GwennoPwllheli, UK
#17

Agreed, and I have nothing to add to it.

10