The money chase

I seem to have spent the entire day chasing money around or worrying about money. I'm supposed to be booking my trips to two conferences, one in July and one in October. I have pending expense claims out for some of my July expenditure, but had to book additional stuff today as the deadline for registration was approaching fast. The one in October is a huge international conference so my boss was freaking out about cheap flights and hotel rooms booking up quickly and basically insisted that we booked those a few weeks ago. Except I don't have any budget left for traveling, and have to get the money separately approved by my employer. And my boss doesn't seem to sense any urgency in following up with the big boss for that approval, except I now have to pay the $850 flight cost because my credit card is due for payment. So I've been chasing up approvals and expense claim forms. Basically I'm out around $1700 at the moment for work trips, and I still haven't fully registered for the October conference yet. It's a nice system (for my employer) that they expect us to pay out of pocket for things, and then take their sweet time to reimburse us.

Then there's the little matter of the IVF expenses. The sperm cost over $900. I just had to pay $1400 for the embryo freezing for the last IVF cycle, as they don't charge for that in advance, and I'd put off paying for it for as long as possible. The pharmacy keeps calling me because the doctor faxed through my prescription last week for my meds for the next cycle, and although I shouldn't feel bad about telling them they have to wait until payday on Friday before I can order (so I can pay some money off my credit card to free up enough credit to cover the drugs), I hate having to do stuff like that. Oh, and does it count for an IVF expense that I bought a bunch of new clothes lately because I went up a size after the last cycle?

And I need to take my car in for a tune-up, and my roof has an ominous crack in it.

I know, many many people have it much worse than me. I feel bad for even posting this, because I read Calliope's post on her money worries earlier today, which are way more gargantuan than mine, and then I thought I really shouldn't post on the same subject. But here I am anyway, because worrying about money is something I'm just not used to - yes, I'm a whiny little rich girl! I make a good living, and I've always been a saver so I've always had a nice savings cushion to tide me over for those little bumps in the road that you come across. But 9 IUI's, an IVF, hormone testing, frozen sperm, surgery and acupuncture can sure drain a person's rainy day cushion pretty quickly! Aaaah, I think back to those heady days of my first insem cycle, when I thought it might cost a couple of grand at most to get knocked up. Silly little naive me!