Twenty Eight Dollar Salad

"F**king salads. Man it's so frustrating, sometimes I just want something light and it costs me more than 6 hamburgers."-toddmflong

"I just ate at a restaurant this evening that offered a Caesar salad for $15. The chicken was $6 extra."-A_Very_Living_Me

Seems Important

"Epi-Pens. This, a thousand times this. I have 4 kids, each needed pens for school, and they couldn't share of course, and pens only came in sets of two."

"So a single $35 pen turned into $3200 because pens were $400 each, and each had to be bought in pairs, and I had to have a specific prescription for each kid. F**king stupid."

"Got the doctor to prescribe a vial of epi and a filter needle (glass vials need filter needles) and the single script cost about $16. Gave to the school nurse. Done. Oh, and the vial didn't 'expire' in 1 year."-ericzhill

Noms Will Break You

"Concessions at sporting events in the US. Our taxes pay for the stadiums. Then the public has to buy tickets to get in. Then when we finally get inside, they are gonna charge $14 for a $3 beer."-ArminTanz

"I remember a coworker told me a story of a baseball game he went to. After buying tickets and beer/food, they sat down and it started to rain."

"It was raining too bad to keep going so they called the game. He said that was $50 down the drain."-superzenki

Are you seeing things here that you immediately roll your eyes at?

Can't Get Out Easy

"Death. Even with no funeral/service/etc - there will be a cost for cremation, burial, etc that your next of kin will need to deal with/pay for. Your will needs to state what you want done, and plans made to fund it."

"My dad passed away earlier this year, and even with no funeral, service, etc (per his request) I still had to pay over $3000 just days after he passed to have his body dealt with, and another $600 for someone to dig a hole at the pre-purchased cemetery plot."

"(His requests were similar to my mom’s when she passed away about 7 years ago, so I wasn’t surprised by the cost - but it’s definitely difficult to put so much money into basic post-death/funeral care.)"-whiteink-13

D'uhhmerican Insurance

"For a family of four it can cost you $1,400 a month to HAVE THE PRIVILEGE of paying the first $12,000 of all your medical bills YOURSELF before insurance kicks in and covers 70-80%. Like, WTF…"

"Doing the math: you pay $28,800 per year BEFORE insurance kicks in…"-CURCANCHA

The Biggest Scam

"Texas Instruments Calculators. Honestly. You have all the necessary software available for you as free or at worst cheap apps on any smartphone."

"I understand you cannot obviously use your phone on exams, but at intro levels, you want to know the graphs of the simpler functions, at least in the appropriate bounds."

"In more advanced levels, the kind of assessment that requires you to use a graphing calculator could easily be done differently, resorting to a computer or a phone."

"The technology might be amazing, but I haven't used my graphing calculator since high school, and I do lots of maths on the daily."-FroggyWatcher

I Just Wanna Play WoW

"Graphics cards is the reason why I bought my first prebuilt. I have always built my own computers, because traditionally it was cheaper for better parts, and it was usually easier to swap out parts if something failed."

"This past year I tried to upgrade my computer as it was finally starting to struggle with new games. After a few weeks experiencing the graphic card sh*tshow, I finally just went ahead and bought a whole pre-built via Costco that had a 3080."

"It was more money than I wanted to pay and the computer is way beefier than what I needed, but after seeing scalper prices and realizing I’ll probably be spending who knows how many months playing the graphic card lottery, I actually feel like I came out ahead."-kamikaze_puppy

The worst part of spending all this money is there's no way to STOP spending it.

Kontakte

"College textbooks - They can cost hundreds of dollars, and professors will publish new ones all the time to force students to get the newest version instead of reusing an older one."-terminat323

"I’m just finished an online program and bought all of the books since I was responsible for teaching myself the material. I went onto my college’s bookstore site and tried to have them buy the books back that I didn’t want."

"They offered 15$ for a textbook over 150$. 15 f**king dollars."-emmma9321

Trauma Often Equals No Money For Therapy

"I tried to get a trauma therapist recently and the one I was recommended charges $200 an hour and doesn’t accept insurance. That in itself is traumatic."

"While we’re here, two things I can recommend from someone who has been in the system for 16+ years and just recently received a correct diagnosis of narcolepsy."

"-Advocate for and get a medical work up if you can before attending therapy. Even if your PCP or psychiatrist just tries to send you to therapy without any testing, keep fighting for it, especially if you have chronic symptoms like depression."

"Many symptoms related to underlying medical conditions can mimic psychiatric conditions. It’s really dangerous to sit in therapy for years without adequate medical testing to make sure you don’t need medical treatment first."

"Also, don’t take meds from a psychiatrist who doesn’t order labs first or gives you a hard time about ordering labs or a sleep study."

"The best psychiatrists should ask for these right away and help you advocate getting them. Out of the long list of doctors I have worked with, only one ordered a sleep study and labs. And she saved my life.

"-For those who have had terrible experiences within therapy, check out the Very Bad Therapy podcast. It’s a podcast that gives a platform to those who have been harmed by therapists and different therapeutic models. It helped me to not feel so alone."-ThisNerdyGirl

The "No Calorie" Diet

"It costs money to be poor. God I hated being poor so much. My old boss asked me if I was working out since I had lost like 15 pounds but the reality of it was I couldn’t afford food."

"We had snacks in the office that accounted for probably 75% of my daily caloric intake. I was going further and further into debt just to keep the bills paid, and for many months could only make the minimum payment on my credit card so the interest was also killing me."

"So glad I’m in a better, debt free position now and have the ability to help out those less fortunate than myself."-FILTER_OUT_T_D

These things are things we have to live with in order to survive, but the truth is, there might be a better way.

As we all navigate these things, and how to stay on top of an ever-more-expensive world, the best thing we can do is rely on each other for tips and tricks on how to make this mess of a life just that much more easy.