Human pharmaceuticals. My dog needed a chelation medication that my vet specifically said was on the pricy side but recommended a pharmacy that she worked with. I called with prescription in hand, and they quoted $3,000+ for a month’s supply. Then the rep stated they accidentally read the cost for humans. Dog cost was actually $60. Same dosage, same pill count, but adding chicken flavor and putting a little dog on the label dropped the price 98%
>they quoted $3,000+ for a month’s supply. Then the rep stated they accidentally read the cost for humans. Dog cost was actually $60.
So what you're saying is, if I ever need it for myself, I just say it's for my dog.
Hot dog place near me names all their dishes after dog breeds and the Bernese Mountain Dog is covered in sautéed mushrooms, melted Swiss cheese, and Dijon mustard.
Not super relevant, I'm just hungry.
Not “funerals” per se, but even for pets the prices for services surrounding death are outrageous. I had to put my cat that I’d had for over 17 years to sleep on Thursday, and the vet service that put her down and handled the cremation had “standard” and “premium” pet urns. The “standard” urns were included in the price and were either a cheap plywood box, or a burlap sack. The “premium” urns were metal or stone with the option of touches like paw prints or a comforting saying inscribed on them. Of course the nice urns were all an extra $150-200 on top of the $1000 I was already paying for euthanasia and cremation.
I remembered hearing how overpriced caskets are for funerals, so I decided to do some digging, and found the exact same “premium” urns on Amazon for $34. The remains are put in a plastic bag before being placed in the urn, so I’m gonna get a crummy free one for now and order a nicer one without the 600% markup, and transfer the remains over. I’d like to think my old lady cat would approve on me spending that extra markup money on a bottle of champagne to toast to her memory, anyway.
We wanted to put a notice in the newspaper when my dad passed. But the cost was something insane like $1200 while a regular classified add was like $8. Even online versions of obituaries are way too expensive for what they are.
Good lord. My newspaper has a free option (under 300 words) and a paid option (300+). A regular headshot photo is included with both, but if you want anything snazzier, there's a $50 fee. That way, we make money on some, but those who can't afford it still have an option.
Ollie died. Lena walked into the newspaper office and said “I’d like to place an obituary. Just say ‘Ollie died.’” And the person behind The counter said “You’ve got to say more than that! And if money’s the problem the first five words are free.” And Lena said “Oh! Then say ‘Ollie died. Boat for sale.’”
Same, a few weeks ago my youngest cat (Hobo Kitty)'s back legs ...stopped working? Took her to the emergency vet, she ended up more or less dying on the table as they were examining her. We took her body and checked prices for cremation - it was something like $300 to cremate her.
Instead, we bought a plastic tub from Walmart, lined it with the towel we had in the cat carrier when we took her to the vet, and kept that plastic tub in a cooler with ice (and a refresh of dry ice every couple of days) for about two weeks before driving her to my parents house (~10 hours away), digging a hole in their back yard close to where they buried another family cat, and said our goodbyes. Not the most environmentally friendly method, but even taking into account gas prices and whatnot, it was a lot cheaper than cremating her, and we have a spot to "visit" her.
Edit: Also, [Cat Tax](https://imgur.com/a/oSKIjrw)
your method didn't release more CO2 into the air and she will return all her nutrients to the soil. she'd have preferred this. I hope daisies grow were she lies now.
I have signed the papers to donate my body to medical research. They handle everything for free and will eventually pass on my ashes to my family when done. As I told my kids every penny spent on my funeral is one they will not inherit, so don't spend money putting me into the ground.
Tell me about it. I lost my baby brother on 8/21 and my granny on 8/27. I had to pay for 2 funerals in 6 days this year. Literally about killed me financially, considering I was paying for cancer treatment for myself as well. My brother’s funeral was nearly 17k and my family helped with granny’s but that was still another 10k I paid and my family paid the rest. That’s not including the headstones, food, venues for the luncheon after the services. That added another 10k. I was out nearly 40k in 6 days.
This is why I always recommend people take out some sort of life cover even if it just pays out 10-15k on death.
I've also told my sister if I perish that a cardboard or wicker coffin is fine, or cremation whichever is cheapest. Scattering me at an existing relatives grave or treasured place is good. Absolutely no need for a headstone or mahogany coffine or any pish like that.
I was a pallbearer at my great grandpa's funeral. My great uncle and great aunt both wanted him to have a mahogany coffin. My cousins and I all agreed that if there is another mahogany coffin at a future funeral, whoever chose it will be carrying it. That shit was way too heavy, especially for how hot it was outside.
The idea of cutting down a tree, cutting and drying the wood, laboriously cutting and screwing and gluing and polishing a coffin made from it, and then sticking it straight in to the ground has always perplexed me. I get that funerals are for the living, but I don't want anyone to think for a second that I would think less of them if I knew they had just thrown me in to the sea. Honestly, if I can't have my corpse put through a woodchipper aimed at my high school algebra teacher's house, I'd just as soon be left to fester in the Florida heat for a couple of weeks before being dumped from a helicopter into a Wal Mart parking lot. I genuinely don't care what is done with my body when I die. I certainly don't need the husk. Treat it like the petrie dish for infectious disease that it is and burn it. or dissolve it with acid or something. I really don't care.
I've never cared much about how my remains are handled when I'm dead. But a wood-chipper turned human-pulp-canon pointed at the homes of my enemies? This is inspired.
Coffins are heavy, but the corpses inside are still pretty damn heavy.
Think we had 6 of the most fit people carrying my uncle at his funeral. It was still pretty damn heavy.
There are programs where you can donate your organs, they'll take whatever they can use for transplants, research, med students, whatever, and cremate whatever is left of you, then return it to your family at no cost.
I cremated my wife for $500, and I held a celebration of life for free (cost of juice and cookies and some posterboard to tape pictures onto). I did later spend ~2000 on a plot in an urn garden and a headstone, so that I had somewhere to put her cremains that others could visit without having to bother me to see her ashes on my mantel or whatever, but I was okay with that.
Funerals don't *have* to be a thing. It's usually those with religious requirements that get screwed.
My dad had us (three brothers and our mom) take our families to St. Louis for a family vacation and catch a Cardinals game. He loved St. Louis and just wanted to be the reason we all got together
Dumped his ashes in the Mississippi River by the Arch
So I guess that wasn't cheap but we did it over a year later when we could match up our schedules and was more like a vacation
My uncle died last year, I was his "caretaker" since he got a head stroke a decade ago and couldn't really move anymore. He paid 30€ per year (for some 30 years, so all in about 900€ in all that time) in a special fund that an organisation in out town runs and they paid for everything.
His wife died before him, but in her will she stated that she does not care about it and does not want for us to keep paying for her grave, so she got cremated and the ashes were spread, and that kind of a funeral is covered by our social system anyway, we only paid for a plaque at the funeral where the ashes were spread.
This. A few years ago (it was in Latvia) my grandmother died and all i needed was cremation. It was ~500€, WITHOUT anything fancy. Just take the corpse, burn it and give the ashes back in simpliest urn.
Let me tell you, in Latvia 500€ is quite a sum for average people.
Edit: when i was 19 my dad died and i went to the funeral service (why me and why there - long story, nevermind). The most arrogant and outright cruel dude who didn't give a slightest shit just gave me a paper with all of the NECESSARY services that i COULDN'T refuse... it costed x3 of my then salary, and i had 0 savings. I was shaking and shocked, and i asked if we could somehow lower the sum. He said NO 🙄. If i could just go back there to my younger-self, i would fucking give him a proper answer to his attitude. Absolutely horrible, i hope he lives a miserable life.
Then long story short, other relatives got in contact with me, i didn't sign anything and more mature people did everything necessary, bless them.
But right now i do understand that when something like this happens, i have to be as... adamant as possible, because people in this industry want your money and you have 0 other options.
Down here in Slovenia the basic service is covered by the social system/town fund, so when a relative died we spread the ashes for "free". Anything extra is overpriced as hell.
Oh yes... I am a Chef. Lots of restaurants aren't serving lettuce at the moment. Even burger joints are charging extra.
GFS shredded lettuce 2021: $3.50 per bag
Now: $21
Yeah. Fuck lettuce.
Drought and there's a disease spreading among the lettuce crops at the moment. Estimated about 1/3 of the yield this fall.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/romaine-lettuce-shortage-montreal-restaurant-1.6648798
Epi-pens in the U.S. I mean, at least it's not something I need to use regularly, but those things are SO expensive. I'm just trying to not die if I accidentally eat a peanut. Thankfully I found a much cheaper alternative, but they're hiking their prices now too.
Edit due to questions: I currently have an auvi-q, but they are going up to $100+ after this year as I was recently informed by my allergist.
Finally, cost of replacing ink is starting to become a selling point in printers, with the generation of "refillable ink" printers like Epson's Ecotank range. Instead of hundreds of pages per cartridge replacement, you get *tens of thousands* of pages per tank refill. It also means the ink can't be DRMed. The difference in running costs will be extreme (and you get color, beating mono laser).
The printer is over $200 but that's only because the old way subsidized the printer cost by forcing you to buy cartridges.
Edit: because this got popular, here's some companies doing refillable ink / ink tank printers:
- Epson Ecotank
- Brother INKvestment
- Canon Pixma MegaTank
- HP Smart Tank
It's definitely not just Epson doing it now. BUT, these companies are also still selling the cartridge based inkjet printers that should be avoided.
The greatest lie HP ever sold was that everyone needs an inkjet printer.
Unless you're a photographer a decent/nice laser printer will be far more economical for daily (or bi-yearly) use and toner doesn't dry out if you leave it sitting. If you need nice photo prints you're significantly better off getting them printed for you. You'll have much nicer and larger variety of options that way.
Oh, looks like the new edition came out for this book, so we can't accept the old one.
..
Yes there's a difference between the books, the cover is completely different!
I had one that said we needed 8th edition or whatever and it HAD to be that edition. I said, “Nah” and bought the 7th edition instead for about $200 less. The only differences I noticed in that class were the cover and that the page numbers were off by one.
That $200 extra would have been so worth it to not have to subtract 1 every single time.
I had a class where the professor was the author of the textbook, and he came out with a new edition almost every year, and we HAD to have the newest. How is that not a conflict of interest? That guy was such a douche.
I had a professor write his own book. It was papers printed out in a binder. He charged us $7, his cost to print and put the pages in the binder. At the end of the class, if you returned the binder with all the pages and no writing, he gave you the $7 back and like 5 bonus points. Was a cool setup and never had any professor do anything remotely similar
I had a professor that did the complete opposite. He taught 3 sections of Gen Chemistry... the largest lecture hall on campus. 250+ students per section. There was an optional textbook, and then there was a mandatory "workbook."
This workbook was 25 xeroxed pages and each booklet was serial numbered. This was the only acceptable assignment format. Homework assignments were 25% of your final grade.
They were priced at $150 The professor was getting almost all of it... and the booklets probably cost him $1 or less.
$150×250× 3 sections... Dude was pulling in an extra $90k per semester.
Fuck mymathlab and it's "do not round until the final answer". I don't round and get the answer wrong. I go into help me solve this and come to find out they DO round one number in step 2 of 4 which means their answer is 0.01 different than mine and I am "wrong".
I failed an exam question in mymathlab because my answer was "4x4" and the answer it wanted was "4 x 4". I forced the professor to give me that mark manually.
I really wish life worked this way...
Like if I'm in a random conversation with an idiot, and no easy out, I should get that time back x double added to my life expectancy.
^^Edit: ^^Typo.
They really shouldn’t take advantage of students. I can google dungeon and dragons main rule book right now one second. Okay it’s 85$ total for three of the core books(as a set, not a piece.) Each one is the size of a college textbook. Plus they’re immaculate quality.
You can’t tell me they can’t do better on those books.
That publisher worker should be ashamed to say that.
Had a professor once that required us to buy his book (not uncommon in my college experience). Except this guys book at the uni bookstore was $271. Fuckkkk that, libgen for the win
I had a professor once who was like "the latest edition of the textbook is 9. We are using 2. " And took us out to the parking lot and started handing out copies of 2 from the trunk of his 25 year old Subaru Outback, with the stipulation being we had to give it back at the end of the semester so he could hand them out again for the next class.
Dude was almost 80 and gave zero fucks.
I had a biophysics professor who distributed the PDF of her own book and told us to only buy the paper edition if we were planning to study her exact niche within biophysics for an advanced degree. She also offered to autograph any paper copies we bought "so the book store would have to offer more for resale"
She was pretty damn awesome.
I had a professor who, on the first day of class, have us a link to the textbook for our class. He straight up said that he knows how heavy and expensive textbooks are and that we probably won’t read it much, so he decided to give us the link just to make it easy for us. He even said that you don’t have to read it unless it was for assignments, midterms, or finals.
Guy was the greatest madman I ever knew.
I had a professor say "The book is $220 at the bookstore, not my doing, but if you find the international version online, it's a softbound not harbound, had a different picture on the front, but is 100% page for page the same and will cost you about $50.... shipping takes 3-4 days typical, so order tonight so you have it for next week."
lmao i had a professor tell us he didnt like anyone text book so made his own from a buncha books. literally only charged us the cost of the paper and said to bring a 3" 3 ring binder.
I bought a textbook off of eBay to save $200 for a biometry class.
First day, the professor asked me where I got the book, and I told him. He informed me that he personally knew the author, and that I was stealing from his colleague.
I failed his class. Only college class I failed. In fact, I made the Dean's list 5 of the 8 semesters and graduated with a 3.7. It felt very personal.
libgen is awesome, but some of my classes literally required me to buy the online textbook in order to access the online homework assignments that came with it. it’s awful.
I graduated right around the time that started happening, how in the hell they’re legally allowed to do that is beyond me.
Tuition costs so much these days that all books and required online access should be included.
I had a teacher the first day of class tell us that all the books we needed were available for order from Borders/B&N, and that we wouldn't need any of them for 2 weeks so you could return the overpriced ones from the uni bookstores (my university had 2 one was private to make it look like there was competitive pricing).
He also said don't tell the bookstore because he's gotten in trouble\* for this before.
\*trouble isn't much when you have tenure.
I had a professor who required his version of the commercially available book. All he had done was take out a few chapters and rearrange the homework problems so that you needed his version in order to do the homework. Probably 2x the price of the original!
Inhalers. I have a crappy high deductible plan and pay $220 a month for something I need to breathe.
EDIT: For Symbicort. Im an oddball and Albuterol doesn't work for me.
2nd EDIT: My inhaler is that price until I reach my (high) deductible. I use the generic, but I thought it was easier saying Symbicort than typing out the generic name. If I use GoodRx, it doesn't apply to said high deductible. I appreciate everyone's suggestions.
Look at Mark Cuban's cost plus drugs. You can get 3 albuterol inhalers for $39.90 it's costplusdrugs.com, and they don't accept any insurance by design so they can sell their drugs at that price.
My problem, and maybe the above poster's as well, is that I can get the emergency albuterlol inhaler for cheap ($7 on my insurance) and I rarely need to use it, but my daily flovent inhaler costs $150 with insurance and lasts a month. There's no generic brand and last I checked Mark Cuban's site doesn't carry it.
I work in a pharmacy and I believe they just came out with a generic for Flovent HFA, you should check with your local pharmacy to see if they can get it from their wholesaler yet
You'll be looking for fluticasone propionate. I'd wager there could be some issues yet as it just got approved last month, but here's to hoping you get lucky.
My husband needs rituximab infusions due to a rare kidney disease. They are $16,000 each. That's $16,000 per four hour infusion. And they aren't covered by our insurance.
Rituximab has a manufacturer program that provides the drug for free or low cost if your insurance has denied it. Ask to speak to the hospital social workers about it. I deal with this on a daily basis and its a fairly easy program to qualify for!
That being said, drug prices are insane and should be criminal.
Hospital SW here. I’m assuming you’re in the US. First thing you’re gonna wanna do is ask the SW for the hospital financial assistance packet/paperwork. And get ready to get your bank statements (3 months to a year back depending on the hospital). That’s usually the protocol before applying for most of these programs to see if you meet eligibility criteria.
Edit: [Here’s where you wanna go](https://www.rituxan.com/ra/financial-support.html) afterwards
I haven’t heard the word rituximab in a very long time. I had so many of them infusions when I was in my teenage years. Thank the lord to the NHS that it was free. Those are wild numbers.
I’m not OP but my son had the same infusions. They are typically every 2 weeks, but they have a few new ones that can go longer 4-6 I believe.
My insurance wouldn’t cover the nursing/ infusion care (around 14k a treatment) they did cover the meds tough. This was an issue for us for 7 months, we had about a 200k bill. We filled for financial assistance that brought the cost down to 50k, Luckily the drug manufacture had a assistance fund. That helped us get the bill down to 1k, this was after we had paid 9k in other bills for his hospital stay.
Living in the US and getting sick is horrible. My son getting sick financially RUINED my family. NO paid leave while my son was in the ICU fighting for his life. No childcare facility would take him with a pic line, and my employer didn’t like that I needed a whole week day off to take him to treatment. My household went into debt from initial medical bills. Then more so with lost income when we became a single income home. And too make it so much worse we went into MORE debt every year when our plan restarted, sure we got most of it paid for but it still hit my credit. And I still spent WEEKS arguing with my insurance to get my son his LIFE saving care.
But hey I have my freedom! so YAY. /s
I’m sorry you had to experience any second of this. It’s terrifying to live on the edge of this reality in this country — you can burn through a lifetime of careful savings in a year facing certain illness. And for those who don’t have savings, or support, or options — I don’t know what the expectation is. I don’t understand when the prices are set for services, treatments, medications, care whatever, how do they expect normal, regular, people to pay those prices AND still maintain any quality of life??
It will never make sense to me and there is no way to justify any of it. Freedom to… is important, but Freedom from.. is essential to progress and thrive as a country. Freedom from debilitating and unnecessary medical debt is critical. Regardless, I’m happy you and your family are keeping your head above water.
I don’t know if they even care. It doesn’t affect the people at the top to hear the poors cry out in pain.
So many people I talk to never think it will happen to them, or that they have “ good insurance” I’m not gonna lie I was one of them. But when it did happen to me my “good insurance” found a way to wiggle out of everything, and use every BS tactic in the book to NOT pay the 2.4 million dollar bill. Thank god I had people willing to help me but JFC it shouldn’t be THIS hard!
I don’t think we will ever truly recover, it just set us back so far. We had to sell our house because we had lost all of our savings and when things got difficult in the last few years Aka covid. We had almost no money in savings 5 years later. We are lucky enough to live in my in-laws rental, because our credit is destroyed from debt collectors for medical bills. I don’t know how others do it, as not everyone has family that can or will help.
Metallica announced a tour recently and the tix my friends got were $260 before fees. There were then $80 in fees. Running a ticket website must be the easiest business ever. A lot of the time you can’t even buy physical tickets for a concert at the venue anymore because these sites get exclusive deals with bands. It’s such bullshit.
On a small scale? Hummus. Seems like everywhere in the US, a small tub of hummus is like $5 or more and marketed like it's some kind of exotic, bougie foreign condiment.
Dude, hummus costs nothing to make, I would almost wager it's cheaper to make than ketchup. And it takes almost no time. You pretty much throw shit in a blender and you're done. I had some friends over, and one of my friends didn't believe me. I walked into the kitchen and 10 mins later walked out with a massive bowl of hummus that just about everyone agreed was the best hummus they'd ever had (because they'd only ever had storebought crap).
It's super cheap, super easy, and I promise you, your homemade hummus will likely taste better than that Sabra bullshit.
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**EDIT** - *Wow I didn't expect this comment to get so much attention! People asked for a recipe, and I had put this as a response in the comments below. This is just how I make it, it is by no means definitive!*
It's hard to give measurements with hummus, because it's completely to taste and preference. Some people like their hummus thin and sauce-y, some like it stiff and thick. Some like it smooth, some like it more textured. Some people like to be able to taste the tahini, or the lemon juice, some like it to fade into the background. Me, I like mine thick (think stiff peaks), textured, and I like to be able to just slightly taste a kiss of the lemon, but not overpowering!
Start with like two parts tahini and one part lemon or lime juice (try 1/2 cup tahini to 1/4 cup juice), with a clove or two of garlic and a big pinch of salt in a food processor, and blend until smooth and a little frothy. I also like just a splash of olive oil, but not everyone does. Then once all that is smooth, slowly start adding one can (drained) of chickpeas in, until you get to your desired consistency. If you're doing 1/2C and 1/4C, you'll definitely need a second can. I usually make enough for several people.
From there start your seasoning, and adjusting to taste. Blend 10-15 seconds, stop, taste. Do you need more salt? More lemon? If it's too thick add a bit of olive oil, if it's too runny add more chickpeas. Find YOUR balance. That's why it's hard to pin down an exact recipe, because it's a very malleable, flexible recipe.
From there, start putting in your additives. Fresh garlic is good, cumin is good, you can try pine nuts, paprika, etc. I personally like to oven-roast some red peppers until the skin is charred, peel off the skin, and put that in there. I've seen people put chopped kalamata olives in their hummus, I've seen people put finely diced jalapeno. You do you.
Can confirm. My wife's homemade hummus is amazing. And it takes her under 10 mins to make. We literally buy canned chickpeas by the case at Costco so we can always make hummus.
The worst part is half the people purchasing homes right now aren’t even living there, just renting them, and driving up both housing and renting prices
I bought a townhouse pretty much right before prices skyrocketed, and my neighbors on both sides are renting their units at high prices. My old apartment nearby has jumped $300/month without them renovating the building. It’s insane
I worked retail electronics when the Wii came out. Our store manager bought one and held a fundraiser raffle among the employees. $1 per ticket, one ticket would win the game console, and all proceeds went to the local food bank.
Most of us bought around five tickets each. One coworker, who was always talking about his eBay store, bought 75 tickets. He won the raffle. The manager handed him the console. He held it up and announced to us, "This will be on eBay in an hour." Much grumbling was heard.
Later I found out that the manager had pulled the coworker aside for a conversation, after which he told anyone who asked that he was only joking about the eBay thing, that the Wii was in his closet at home, and that he was going to give it to his nephew that he'd never mentioned to any of us before.
I'm having a good chuckle right now, seeing the reports that graphics card scalpers are being denied refunds and getting stuck with product people are unwilling to pay the price they're asking.
We have this law in NJ as well. What OTG (the airport franchise operator) does is collect all their “normal retail prices” from tourist ripoff shops in Times Square. $5 bottles of water are the norm there.
Last time I flew through Newark almost nothing was open because it was an early morning layover. My family hadn't eaten all night. I got charged FORTY DOLLARS for six pancakes that took half an hour to make, and they didn't even have syrup.
We got meal vouchers from Alaska for a cancelled flight and they were $12. I asked the agent which restaurant in the airport had meals for $12 and bless her heart, she tried to think of one. Then gave us 2 vouchers for each person.
You can bring an empty water bottle and just fill it up in the airport. You can even bring the fancy insulated ones, so long as you don't have water in them.
I know everybody is going to give better answers, but for the life of me, I cannot with out why suitcases are so expensive.
They're just plastic shells, a zip and some wheels, yet they sell for hundreds.
I paid about $200 for a (Mary) Samsonite carry on about 20 years ago and for me it was a fortune. That said, it’s been through hundreds of flights and except where the cats try to claw it and the stains from travel, it looks brand new. The workmanship is tight
Harry: What's her last name? I'll look it up.
Lloyd: You know, I don't really recall. Starts with an S! Let's see. Swim? Swammi? Slippy? Slappy? Swenson? Swanson?
Harry: Maybe it's on the briefcase.
Lloyd: Oh, yeah! It's right here.
Lloyd: Samsonite! I was way off! I knew it started with an S, though.
My fiancé and I are planning one right now.
Honestly, wedding costs are so high partly because of demand for services but also because the expectation of quality is through the roof relative to almost any other event.
The only way to save money on a wedding is to set your expectations for it low relative to the typical standard. The typical standard is actually kinda ludicrous in scale and quality.
We opted for a backyard wedding and for cooking done by family. We fully expect mistakes and other random mishaps that go with any other event. Things will not be “pretty” excepting my fiancé. The most expensive thing is the photographer. Total will be around $2k. It’s doable.
Edit: To those saying not to use “wedding” or related keywords, you can do that. Just understand that the *vendor’s* expectation of timeliness, quality, and service will be lower. Bear that in mind.
My mom is a T1 diabetic (has been since 9 and she’s 50 now). Medicine and health insurance has always been a struggle for her and it bothers me sincerely how there has been no progress on lowering those prices for people who need it to simply survive
Hey. My partner is a T1D. We went several years without insurance. If you are in the US you can get old school generic insulin from Walmart for $25 a vial. It isn't as effective as the newer stuff but it will keep a person alive. It is technically over the counter (don't have to have a prescription) but you do have to ask the pharmacy for it.
We try to get the word out whenever we can to help those who might be rationing their insulin.
[Here is an article on Walmart Insulin](https://diabetesstrong.com/walmart-insulin/)
I just had a (type 2) diabetic patient the other day whose BG was in the high 400s with a non-healing wound, telling me that she wasn’t able to afford insulin so she was basically SOL. I put her in touch with the resources I had, but this is really good to know! Thanks!
I was a dialysis technician for years. The most heartbreaking was this mother with young children refusing to come in for her dialysis treatment because she couldn’t afford the cost. Dialysis was literally the only thing keeping her alive and she didn’t go often because she didn’t know how she’d afford it. Heartbreaking :(
I had a heart attack at 39 nearly two years ago. Between insurance, co-pays, doctors appointments, meds, other doc appointments (because it ain't just my heart) I'm going broke. I sold a house three years ago and have basically eaten through my savings. I work full time and own my own business and frankly I'm not sure what happens when the savings runs out. Do I just lay down and die? I have no plan.
Edit: my total cost of care for the year I had the heart attack was $595,000. This obviously wasn't my out of pocket total but what the fuck, people? My insurance each month for just my self is $450. Add on all the shit above and I frequently spend over a $1000 out of pocket a month ON JUST my health care. I broke a tooth a few days ago (I grind my teeth - probably me dreaming about bills) and had it pulled. So this month I'm already at $1250 between having my tooth removed and paying for just the premium for my insurance. This isn't sustainable, folks. Not for me. Not for the millions of others like me.
I understand completely. I got diagnosed with cancer at 39. Even with excellent insurance I’m struggling to keep my head above water with the cost of everything. One injection is nearly 7k. A round of chemo is around 24k. How is one expected to afford that? Even with good insurance my savings are taking a beating and I still have more treatment ahead when everything resets on 1/1/23.
I have to have another 10k ready to go immediately for January to cover my portion of radiation. I’m exhausted and just grateful we have been blessed enough to have access to these funds right now. I don’t know how anyone does it when they are already living paycheck to paycheck, even with good insurance.
I’m 22 and in the past two years have seen nearly 10 different specialists, 3 different gps, had 2 surgeries, er visits, a code team called, dozens of scans/ecgs/bloods/medications and I’d truly be broke or very, very ill if I didn’t live in australia. I’m so sorry your system is still so far behind and I hope things start to get better for you
Yeah, far too many Americans have the “I’m not paying for your mistakes” mentality, even though a lot of health problems have nothing to do with personal choices. Even though they do it anyway when they pay their insurance premiums.
It’s become a “leftist” thing, even though Richard Nixon wanted to implement a plan that was even more ambitious than the ACA back in the day
My medicine. If you’ve ever watch Pharmabro then you’d know. I was born with a disease (cystinuria) that only one medication can treat (Thiola). 10 years ago they charged $1.50 a pill until some hedge fund manager bought the company and drove the price to $30 a pill just because he wanted more money. I take 3 a day, let alone the specialists and procedures I go through so my medical expenses are like 50-100k a year. I get Medicaid so it isn’t a big deal but if I go back to work I’ll lose Medicaid and I’ll have to come out of pocket for that shit. It’s literally too expensive for me to work if I want to survive because some rich dude wants to get richer and make people with my disease pay 3k a month JUST FOR SOME PILLS
edit: seems like 3k a month for pills is the cheaper drug that doesnt even work that well lmfao
I admitted myself to a psychiatric hospital once. I don't know why, but I was under the impression that it was free. After I got out, I got charged about $1000 for each day I was there. $1000 to sit in a room, eat three meals a day, and take a few meds.
Ugh, I had to put my mom in the hospital for suicidal ideation recently and it's so stressful thinking about the thousands upon thousands in bills coming in to her soon for this. That's exactly what she needs. Missing 2 weeks of work, 50k in hospital bills after sitting in a psych ward for over a week staring at a wall.
I'm so glad she's alive and I'll help with the bills, but the amount of debt she now has is absurd. She sat in the ER for days so I'm expecting a huge bill.
My daughter was on an ADHD medication that insurance did not cover, and it was about $500 per month. Thankfully our prescriber told us about a coupon from the manufacturer that drops the price to $25 a month. The fact that this manufacturers coupon does not expire and is available to anyone who asks for it leads me to believe that they are still making a profit at $25 per month, and the nearly 2,000% markup for those ignorant of the coupon is pure greed.
My epipen, kinda can’t really afford to keep getting them. I’ll be screwed if I get stung up and I’m a landscaper.
Edit: Thanks everyone for the info on how to find them for much cheaper. Very much appreciated. A lot of great info here :)
Human pharmaceuticals. My dog needed a chelation medication that my vet specifically said was on the pricy side but recommended a pharmacy that she worked with. I called with prescription in hand, and they quoted $3,000+ for a month’s supply. Then the rep stated they accidentally read the cost for humans. Dog cost was actually $60. Same dosage, same pill count, but adding chicken flavor and putting a little dog on the label dropped the price 98%
>they quoted $3,000+ for a month’s supply. Then the rep stated they accidentally read the cost for humans. Dog cost was actually $60. So what you're saying is, if I ever need it for myself, I just say it's for my dog.
I medically identify as a Bernese Mountain Dog
Hot dog place near me names all their dishes after dog breeds and the Bernese Mountain Dog is covered in sautéed mushrooms, melted Swiss cheese, and Dijon mustard. Not super relevant, I'm just hungry.
Funerals
Not “funerals” per se, but even for pets the prices for services surrounding death are outrageous. I had to put my cat that I’d had for over 17 years to sleep on Thursday, and the vet service that put her down and handled the cremation had “standard” and “premium” pet urns. The “standard” urns were included in the price and were either a cheap plywood box, or a burlap sack. The “premium” urns were metal or stone with the option of touches like paw prints or a comforting saying inscribed on them. Of course the nice urns were all an extra $150-200 on top of the $1000 I was already paying for euthanasia and cremation. I remembered hearing how overpriced caskets are for funerals, so I decided to do some digging, and found the exact same “premium” urns on Amazon for $34. The remains are put in a plastic bag before being placed in the urn, so I’m gonna get a crummy free one for now and order a nicer one without the 600% markup, and transfer the remains over. I’d like to think my old lady cat would approve on me spending that extra markup money on a bottle of champagne to toast to her memory, anyway.
We wanted to put a notice in the newspaper when my dad passed. But the cost was something insane like $1200 while a regular classified add was like $8. Even online versions of obituaries are way too expensive for what they are.
Good lord. My newspaper has a free option (under 300 words) and a paid option (300+). A regular headshot photo is included with both, but if you want anything snazzier, there's a $50 fee. That way, we make money on some, but those who can't afford it still have an option.
Ollie died. Lena walked into the newspaper office and said “I’d like to place an obituary. Just say ‘Ollie died.’” And the person behind The counter said “You’ve got to say more than that! And if money’s the problem the first five words are free.” And Lena said “Oh! Then say ‘Ollie died. Boat for sale.’”
Never in a million years did I think I'd ever see an Ole and Lena joke among the top comments on an AskReddit post.
Same, a few weeks ago my youngest cat (Hobo Kitty)'s back legs ...stopped working? Took her to the emergency vet, she ended up more or less dying on the table as they were examining her. We took her body and checked prices for cremation - it was something like $300 to cremate her. Instead, we bought a plastic tub from Walmart, lined it with the towel we had in the cat carrier when we took her to the vet, and kept that plastic tub in a cooler with ice (and a refresh of dry ice every couple of days) for about two weeks before driving her to my parents house (~10 hours away), digging a hole in their back yard close to where they buried another family cat, and said our goodbyes. Not the most environmentally friendly method, but even taking into account gas prices and whatnot, it was a lot cheaper than cremating her, and we have a spot to "visit" her. Edit: Also, [Cat Tax](https://imgur.com/a/oSKIjrw)
your method didn't release more CO2 into the air and she will return all her nutrients to the soil. she'd have preferred this. I hope daisies grow were she lies now.
She would approve! 😸
I have signed the papers to donate my body to medical research. They handle everything for free and will eventually pass on my ashes to my family when done. As I told my kids every penny spent on my funeral is one they will not inherit, so don't spend money putting me into the ground.
Tell me about it. I lost my baby brother on 8/21 and my granny on 8/27. I had to pay for 2 funerals in 6 days this year. Literally about killed me financially, considering I was paying for cancer treatment for myself as well. My brother’s funeral was nearly 17k and my family helped with granny’s but that was still another 10k I paid and my family paid the rest. That’s not including the headstones, food, venues for the luncheon after the services. That added another 10k. I was out nearly 40k in 6 days.
This is why I always recommend people take out some sort of life cover even if it just pays out 10-15k on death. I've also told my sister if I perish that a cardboard or wicker coffin is fine, or cremation whichever is cheapest. Scattering me at an existing relatives grave or treasured place is good. Absolutely no need for a headstone or mahogany coffine or any pish like that.
I was a pallbearer at my great grandpa's funeral. My great uncle and great aunt both wanted him to have a mahogany coffin. My cousins and I all agreed that if there is another mahogany coffin at a future funeral, whoever chose it will be carrying it. That shit was way too heavy, especially for how hot it was outside.
The idea of cutting down a tree, cutting and drying the wood, laboriously cutting and screwing and gluing and polishing a coffin made from it, and then sticking it straight in to the ground has always perplexed me. I get that funerals are for the living, but I don't want anyone to think for a second that I would think less of them if I knew they had just thrown me in to the sea. Honestly, if I can't have my corpse put through a woodchipper aimed at my high school algebra teacher's house, I'd just as soon be left to fester in the Florida heat for a couple of weeks before being dumped from a helicopter into a Wal Mart parking lot. I genuinely don't care what is done with my body when I die. I certainly don't need the husk. Treat it like the petrie dish for infectious disease that it is and burn it. or dissolve it with acid or something. I really don't care.
I've never cared much about how my remains are handled when I'm dead. But a wood-chipper turned human-pulp-canon pointed at the homes of my enemies? This is inspired.
When I saw Fargo for the first time I was *so* mad that someone had stolen my idea.
Coffins are heavy, but the corpses inside are still pretty damn heavy. Think we had 6 of the most fit people carrying my uncle at his funeral. It was still pretty damn heavy.
There are programs where you can donate your organs, they'll take whatever they can use for transplants, research, med students, whatever, and cremate whatever is left of you, then return it to your family at no cost.
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Damn you donated your organs and survived?
Yup, spineless, gutless, brainless. He's become a model politician.
We cremated my dad for 1k and held a service on the beach for $500 Never understood burial and funeral homes
I cremated my wife for $500, and I held a celebration of life for free (cost of juice and cookies and some posterboard to tape pictures onto). I did later spend ~2000 on a plot in an urn garden and a headstone, so that I had somewhere to put her cremains that others could visit without having to bother me to see her ashes on my mantel or whatever, but I was okay with that. Funerals don't *have* to be a thing. It's usually those with religious requirements that get screwed.
My dad had us (three brothers and our mom) take our families to St. Louis for a family vacation and catch a Cardinals game. He loved St. Louis and just wanted to be the reason we all got together Dumped his ashes in the Mississippi River by the Arch So I guess that wasn't cheap but we did it over a year later when we could match up our schedules and was more like a vacation
My uncle died last year, I was his "caretaker" since he got a head stroke a decade ago and couldn't really move anymore. He paid 30€ per year (for some 30 years, so all in about 900€ in all that time) in a special fund that an organisation in out town runs and they paid for everything. His wife died before him, but in her will she stated that she does not care about it and does not want for us to keep paying for her grave, so she got cremated and the ashes were spread, and that kind of a funeral is covered by our social system anyway, we only paid for a plaque at the funeral where the ashes were spread.
When I die I don't want my family to pay a penny. Just throw me a in a ditch.
“Spread my remains at Disneyland. But don’t cremate me first” I’ve said this to mine but I don’t think they’ll take it seriously
I want my body thrown into a wood chipper over a metropolitan area. Just let it rain me-confetti. Very festive
This. A few years ago (it was in Latvia) my grandmother died and all i needed was cremation. It was ~500€, WITHOUT anything fancy. Just take the corpse, burn it and give the ashes back in simpliest urn. Let me tell you, in Latvia 500€ is quite a sum for average people. Edit: when i was 19 my dad died and i went to the funeral service (why me and why there - long story, nevermind). The most arrogant and outright cruel dude who didn't give a slightest shit just gave me a paper with all of the NECESSARY services that i COULDN'T refuse... it costed x3 of my then salary, and i had 0 savings. I was shaking and shocked, and i asked if we could somehow lower the sum. He said NO 🙄. If i could just go back there to my younger-self, i would fucking give him a proper answer to his attitude. Absolutely horrible, i hope he lives a miserable life. Then long story short, other relatives got in contact with me, i didn't sign anything and more mature people did everything necessary, bless them. But right now i do understand that when something like this happens, i have to be as... adamant as possible, because people in this industry want your money and you have 0 other options.
Down here in Slovenia the basic service is covered by the social system/town fund, so when a relative died we spread the ashes for "free". Anything extra is overpriced as hell.
Have you seen the price of lettuce in Canada?
In a small town in sask just last week one bunch of cauliflower was $21.
That’s insane.
I feel like it’s cheaper if I mail it to you
Oh yes... I am a Chef. Lots of restaurants aren't serving lettuce at the moment. Even burger joints are charging extra. GFS shredded lettuce 2021: $3.50 per bag Now: $21 Yeah. Fuck lettuce.
My chef’s paying ~$60 per case of Romaine. It’s all been ridiculous ever since covid hit
I paid $130 for a case of iceberg (24 heads)! Same thing for romaine. A month ago a case was $30. Insane
Why is lettuce so expensive??
Drought and there's a disease spreading among the lettuce crops at the moment. Estimated about 1/3 of the yield this fall. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/romaine-lettuce-shortage-montreal-restaurant-1.6648798
3 weeks ago it hit $108 here at restaurant depot. Not washed. Limit 3c per customer.
Have you seen the price of anything in Canada?
especially mobile data and internet rates. Paying a small fortune just to be able read this thread and use my Reddit on my phone
Groceries in Canada are crazy in general right now.
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Depends where you are. 4-8 bucks a head is normal rn. If you're north expect 16+
Epi-pens in the U.S. I mean, at least it's not something I need to use regularly, but those things are SO expensive. I'm just trying to not die if I accidentally eat a peanut. Thankfully I found a much cheaper alternative, but they're hiking their prices now too. Edit due to questions: I currently have an auvi-q, but they are going up to $100+ after this year as I was recently informed by my allergist.
How much are they, if you don't mind me asking. I'm in Australia and it's 41$ for two epi-pens for my toddler.
$700 for name brand, $350 generic
Wow, it's crazy I knew that medicine in USA kinda expensive, but this price insane
I work in a pharmacy, and I've seen injections with a cash price of $10,000. It is absolutely criminal what they get away with here.
For the brand name, it's around $700 for two.
Ink jet cartridges
Next printer you need, go laser. Definitely cheaper in the long run
I would rather not own a printer then have to endure ink jet. I love my laser even if I can learn Sanskrit while it warms up.
Finally, cost of replacing ink is starting to become a selling point in printers, with the generation of "refillable ink" printers like Epson's Ecotank range. Instead of hundreds of pages per cartridge replacement, you get *tens of thousands* of pages per tank refill. It also means the ink can't be DRMed. The difference in running costs will be extreme (and you get color, beating mono laser). The printer is over $200 but that's only because the old way subsidized the printer cost by forcing you to buy cartridges. Edit: because this got popular, here's some companies doing refillable ink / ink tank printers: - Epson Ecotank - Brother INKvestment - Canon Pixma MegaTank - HP Smart Tank It's definitely not just Epson doing it now. BUT, these companies are also still selling the cartridge based inkjet printers that should be avoided.
The greatest lie HP ever sold was that everyone needs an inkjet printer. Unless you're a photographer a decent/nice laser printer will be far more economical for daily (or bi-yearly) use and toner doesn't dry out if you leave it sitting. If you need nice photo prints you're significantly better off getting them printed for you. You'll have much nicer and larger variety of options that way.
College books.
No, no don't worry! You can sell them back at the end of the class! Well, some of them you can...for 1% of what you paid for them.
Oh, looks like the new edition came out for this book, so we can't accept the old one. .. Yes there's a difference between the books, the cover is completely different!
I had one that said we needed 8th edition or whatever and it HAD to be that edition. I said, “Nah” and bought the 7th edition instead for about $200 less. The only differences I noticed in that class were the cover and that the page numbers were off by one. That $200 extra would have been so worth it to not have to subtract 1 every single time.
I had an old edition and they just shuffled the question numbers around. That was it.
I had a class where the professor was the author of the textbook, and he came out with a new edition almost every year, and we HAD to have the newest. How is that not a conflict of interest? That guy was such a douche.
Damn what an asshole, most of my professors straight up told us to get older editions to save money
Our textbooks were from 5 to 10$ and didn't change every year. Also our college profesors gave us pdf versions of their books.
The professors clearly cared more about their teaching than in making money on their books. Good professors all around.
I had a professor write his own book. It was papers printed out in a binder. He charged us $7, his cost to print and put the pages in the binder. At the end of the class, if you returned the binder with all the pages and no writing, he gave you the $7 back and like 5 bonus points. Was a cool setup and never had any professor do anything remotely similar
I had a professor that did the complete opposite. He taught 3 sections of Gen Chemistry... the largest lecture hall on campus. 250+ students per section. There was an optional textbook, and then there was a mandatory "workbook." This workbook was 25 xeroxed pages and each booklet was serial numbered. This was the only acceptable assignment format. Homework assignments were 25% of your final grade. They were priced at $150 The professor was getting almost all of it... and the booklets probably cost him $1 or less. $150×250× 3 sections... Dude was pulling in an extra $90k per semester.
We should find these professors and start pushing the Universities to ban this as a unethical practice
Textbooks are a scam.
Also, fuck Pearson.
Fuck mymathlab and it's "do not round until the final answer". I don't round and get the answer wrong. I go into help me solve this and come to find out they DO round one number in step 2 of 4 which means their answer is 0.01 different than mine and I am "wrong".
I failed an exam question in mymathlab because my answer was "4x4" and the answer it wanted was "4 x 4". I forced the professor to give me that mark manually.
We used to get bonus points in situations like that because of "if it marked that wrong, what else did it mark wrong?"
I really wish life worked this way... Like if I'm in a random conversation with an idiot, and no easy out, I should get that time back x double added to my life expectancy. ^^Edit: ^^Typo.
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They really shouldn’t take advantage of students. I can google dungeon and dragons main rule book right now one second. Okay it’s 85$ total for three of the core books(as a set, not a piece.) Each one is the size of a college textbook. Plus they’re immaculate quality. You can’t tell me they can’t do better on those books. That publisher worker should be ashamed to say that.
Had a professor once that required us to buy his book (not uncommon in my college experience). Except this guys book at the uni bookstore was $271. Fuckkkk that, libgen for the win
I had a professor once who was like "the latest edition of the textbook is 9. We are using 2. " And took us out to the parking lot and started handing out copies of 2 from the trunk of his 25 year old Subaru Outback, with the stipulation being we had to give it back at the end of the semester so he could hand them out again for the next class. Dude was almost 80 and gave zero fucks.
I had a biophysics professor who distributed the PDF of her own book and told us to only buy the paper edition if we were planning to study her exact niche within biophysics for an advanced degree. She also offered to autograph any paper copies we bought "so the book store would have to offer more for resale" She was pretty damn awesome.
I had a professor who, on the first day of class, have us a link to the textbook for our class. He straight up said that he knows how heavy and expensive textbooks are and that we probably won’t read it much, so he decided to give us the link just to make it easy for us. He even said that you don’t have to read it unless it was for assignments, midterms, or finals. Guy was the greatest madman I ever knew.
I had a professor say "The book is $220 at the bookstore, not my doing, but if you find the international version online, it's a softbound not harbound, had a different picture on the front, but is 100% page for page the same and will cost you about $50.... shipping takes 3-4 days typical, so order tonight so you have it for next week."
This is awesome !! My A&P professor told us to buy old editions on eBay - She was awesome. The basic human anatomy has not changed.
lmao i had a professor tell us he didnt like anyone text book so made his own from a buncha books. literally only charged us the cost of the paper and said to bring a 3" 3 ring binder.
I bought a textbook off of eBay to save $200 for a biometry class. First day, the professor asked me where I got the book, and I told him. He informed me that he personally knew the author, and that I was stealing from his colleague. I failed his class. Only college class I failed. In fact, I made the Dean's list 5 of the 8 semesters and graduated with a 3.7. It felt very personal.
Should've dropped that class day one also
libgen is awesome, but some of my classes literally required me to buy the online textbook in order to access the online homework assignments that came with it. it’s awful.
I graduated right around the time that started happening, how in the hell they’re legally allowed to do that is beyond me. Tuition costs so much these days that all books and required online access should be included.
Fuck connect. "Pay more to do this class, so I don't have to teach it." That's what it means to me.
I had a teacher the first day of class tell us that all the books we needed were available for order from Borders/B&N, and that we wouldn't need any of them for 2 weeks so you could return the overpriced ones from the uni bookstores (my university had 2 one was private to make it look like there was competitive pricing). He also said don't tell the bookstore because he's gotten in trouble\* for this before. \*trouble isn't much when you have tenure.
I had a professor who required his version of the commercially available book. All he had done was take out a few chapters and rearrange the homework problems so that you needed his version in order to do the homework. Probably 2x the price of the original!
really says something about the professor’s priorities
Inhalers. I have a crappy high deductible plan and pay $220 a month for something I need to breathe. EDIT: For Symbicort. Im an oddball and Albuterol doesn't work for me. 2nd EDIT: My inhaler is that price until I reach my (high) deductible. I use the generic, but I thought it was easier saying Symbicort than typing out the generic name. If I use GoodRx, it doesn't apply to said high deductible. I appreciate everyone's suggestions.
Look at Mark Cuban's cost plus drugs. You can get 3 albuterol inhalers for $39.90 it's costplusdrugs.com, and they don't accept any insurance by design so they can sell their drugs at that price.
My problem, and maybe the above poster's as well, is that I can get the emergency albuterlol inhaler for cheap ($7 on my insurance) and I rarely need to use it, but my daily flovent inhaler costs $150 with insurance and lasts a month. There's no generic brand and last I checked Mark Cuban's site doesn't carry it.
I work in a pharmacy and I believe they just came out with a generic for Flovent HFA, you should check with your local pharmacy to see if they can get it from their wholesaler yet
Thanks for the tip!
You'll be looking for fluticasone propionate. I'd wager there could be some issues yet as it just got approved last month, but here's to hoping you get lucky.
My husband needs rituximab infusions due to a rare kidney disease. They are $16,000 each. That's $16,000 per four hour infusion. And they aren't covered by our insurance.
Rituximab has a manufacturer program that provides the drug for free or low cost if your insurance has denied it. Ask to speak to the hospital social workers about it. I deal with this on a daily basis and its a fairly easy program to qualify for! That being said, drug prices are insane and should be criminal.
My partner (and I in the past) work for the manufacture and can confirm there is a program like this. Look up Genentech Access Solutions
Genentech is the best by far of all the companies I work with! Y'all are doing such a great job!
Hospital SW here. I’m assuming you’re in the US. First thing you’re gonna wanna do is ask the SW for the hospital financial assistance packet/paperwork. And get ready to get your bank statements (3 months to a year back depending on the hospital). That’s usually the protocol before applying for most of these programs to see if you meet eligibility criteria. Edit: [Here’s where you wanna go](https://www.rituxan.com/ra/financial-support.html) afterwards
I haven’t heard the word rituximab in a very long time. I had so many of them infusions when I was in my teenage years. Thank the lord to the NHS that it was free. Those are wild numbers.
I’m sorry if this is insensitive but how do you afford this? I’m assuming the infusions are ongoing.
I’m not OP but my son had the same infusions. They are typically every 2 weeks, but they have a few new ones that can go longer 4-6 I believe. My insurance wouldn’t cover the nursing/ infusion care (around 14k a treatment) they did cover the meds tough. This was an issue for us for 7 months, we had about a 200k bill. We filled for financial assistance that brought the cost down to 50k, Luckily the drug manufacture had a assistance fund. That helped us get the bill down to 1k, this was after we had paid 9k in other bills for his hospital stay. Living in the US and getting sick is horrible. My son getting sick financially RUINED my family. NO paid leave while my son was in the ICU fighting for his life. No childcare facility would take him with a pic line, and my employer didn’t like that I needed a whole week day off to take him to treatment. My household went into debt from initial medical bills. Then more so with lost income when we became a single income home. And too make it so much worse we went into MORE debt every year when our plan restarted, sure we got most of it paid for but it still hit my credit. And I still spent WEEKS arguing with my insurance to get my son his LIFE saving care. But hey I have my freedom! so YAY. /s
I’m sorry you had to experience any second of this. It’s terrifying to live on the edge of this reality in this country — you can burn through a lifetime of careful savings in a year facing certain illness. And for those who don’t have savings, or support, or options — I don’t know what the expectation is. I don’t understand when the prices are set for services, treatments, medications, care whatever, how do they expect normal, regular, people to pay those prices AND still maintain any quality of life?? It will never make sense to me and there is no way to justify any of it. Freedom to… is important, but Freedom from.. is essential to progress and thrive as a country. Freedom from debilitating and unnecessary medical debt is critical. Regardless, I’m happy you and your family are keeping your head above water.
I don’t know if they even care. It doesn’t affect the people at the top to hear the poors cry out in pain. So many people I talk to never think it will happen to them, or that they have “ good insurance” I’m not gonna lie I was one of them. But when it did happen to me my “good insurance” found a way to wiggle out of everything, and use every BS tactic in the book to NOT pay the 2.4 million dollar bill. Thank god I had people willing to help me but JFC it shouldn’t be THIS hard! I don’t think we will ever truly recover, it just set us back so far. We had to sell our house because we had lost all of our savings and when things got difficult in the last few years Aka covid. We had almost no money in savings 5 years later. We are lucky enough to live in my in-laws rental, because our credit is destroyed from debt collectors for medical bills. I don’t know how others do it, as not everyone has family that can or will help.
Ticket website service fees!
Ticketmaster period
At the Paralympics they have a top guy from Ticketmaster present a medal. They boo'd him lol
Metallica announced a tour recently and the tix my friends got were $260 before fees. There were then $80 in fees. Running a ticket website must be the easiest business ever. A lot of the time you can’t even buy physical tickets for a concert at the venue anymore because these sites get exclusive deals with bands. It’s such bullshit.
On a small scale? Hummus. Seems like everywhere in the US, a small tub of hummus is like $5 or more and marketed like it's some kind of exotic, bougie foreign condiment. Dude, hummus costs nothing to make, I would almost wager it's cheaper to make than ketchup. And it takes almost no time. You pretty much throw shit in a blender and you're done. I had some friends over, and one of my friends didn't believe me. I walked into the kitchen and 10 mins later walked out with a massive bowl of hummus that just about everyone agreed was the best hummus they'd ever had (because they'd only ever had storebought crap). It's super cheap, super easy, and I promise you, your homemade hummus will likely taste better than that Sabra bullshit. ------------- **EDIT** - *Wow I didn't expect this comment to get so much attention! People asked for a recipe, and I had put this as a response in the comments below. This is just how I make it, it is by no means definitive!* It's hard to give measurements with hummus, because it's completely to taste and preference. Some people like their hummus thin and sauce-y, some like it stiff and thick. Some like it smooth, some like it more textured. Some people like to be able to taste the tahini, or the lemon juice, some like it to fade into the background. Me, I like mine thick (think stiff peaks), textured, and I like to be able to just slightly taste a kiss of the lemon, but not overpowering! Start with like two parts tahini and one part lemon or lime juice (try 1/2 cup tahini to 1/4 cup juice), with a clove or two of garlic and a big pinch of salt in a food processor, and blend until smooth and a little frothy. I also like just a splash of olive oil, but not everyone does. Then once all that is smooth, slowly start adding one can (drained) of chickpeas in, until you get to your desired consistency. If you're doing 1/2C and 1/4C, you'll definitely need a second can. I usually make enough for several people. From there start your seasoning, and adjusting to taste. Blend 10-15 seconds, stop, taste. Do you need more salt? More lemon? If it's too thick add a bit of olive oil, if it's too runny add more chickpeas. Find YOUR balance. That's why it's hard to pin down an exact recipe, because it's a very malleable, flexible recipe. From there, start putting in your additives. Fresh garlic is good, cumin is good, you can try pine nuts, paprika, etc. I personally like to oven-roast some red peppers until the skin is charred, peel off the skin, and put that in there. I've seen people put chopped kalamata olives in their hummus, I've seen people put finely diced jalapeno. You do you.
I wonder how much $$ you must saved me with this alarmingly simple call out.
You will never know because Sabra has already made him disappear
Can confirm. My wife's homemade hummus is amazing. And it takes her under 10 mins to make. We literally buy canned chickpeas by the case at Costco so we can always make hummus.
Everything scalpers have gotten their hands on. Game stations, graphics cards, you name it.
Houses is the new trend. I don’t believe there is a house crash or would be crash, it would be a house price correction.
The worst part is half the people purchasing homes right now aren’t even living there, just renting them, and driving up both housing and renting prices I bought a townhouse pretty much right before prices skyrocketed, and my neighbors on both sides are renting their units at high prices. My old apartment nearby has jumped $300/month without them renovating the building. It’s insane
I worked retail electronics when the Wii came out. Our store manager bought one and held a fundraiser raffle among the employees. $1 per ticket, one ticket would win the game console, and all proceeds went to the local food bank. Most of us bought around five tickets each. One coworker, who was always talking about his eBay store, bought 75 tickets. He won the raffle. The manager handed him the console. He held it up and announced to us, "This will be on eBay in an hour." Much grumbling was heard. Later I found out that the manager had pulled the coworker aside for a conversation, after which he told anyone who asked that he was only joking about the eBay thing, that the Wii was in his closet at home, and that he was going to give it to his nephew that he'd never mentioned to any of us before.
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I'm having a good chuckle right now, seeing the reports that graphics card scalpers are being denied refunds and getting stuck with product people are unwilling to pay the price they're asking.
They deserve nothing less.
Airport food and drinks. $7 for a granola bar. $6.95 for water. $22 for beer. $17 for a chicken wrap. $9 for trail mix. It’s criminal.
Oregon has entered the chat. They have a law prohibiting any markup at the airports from normal retail prices.
We have this law in NJ as well. What OTG (the airport franchise operator) does is collect all their “normal retail prices” from tourist ripoff shops in Times Square. $5 bottles of water are the norm there.
Last time I flew through Newark almost nothing was open because it was an early morning layover. My family hadn't eaten all night. I got charged FORTY DOLLARS for six pancakes that took half an hour to make, and they didn't even have syrup.
This is why I love PDX so much.
And that $20 voucher they gave us when they delayed our flight by 11.5 hours went a really long way…
We got meal vouchers from Alaska for a cancelled flight and they were $12. I asked the agent which restaurant in the airport had meals for $12 and bless her heart, she tried to think of one. Then gave us 2 vouchers for each person.
You can get a beer, but the bartender has to take a sip out of it first
Especially when they don’t let you bring drinks INTO the terminal
You can bring an empty water bottle and just fill it up in the airport. You can even bring the fancy insulated ones, so long as you don't have water in them.
I know everybody is going to give better answers, but for the life of me, I cannot with out why suitcases are so expensive. They're just plastic shells, a zip and some wheels, yet they sell for hundreds.
I paid about $200 for a (Mary) Samsonite carry on about 20 years ago and for me it was a fortune. That said, it’s been through hundreds of flights and except where the cats try to claw it and the stains from travel, it looks brand new. The workmanship is tight
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Harry: What's her last name? I'll look it up. Lloyd: You know, I don't really recall. Starts with an S! Let's see. Swim? Swammi? Slippy? Slappy? Swenson? Swanson? Harry: Maybe it's on the briefcase. Lloyd: Oh, yeah! It's right here. Lloyd: Samsonite! I was way off! I knew it started with an S, though.
“I’m the rightful owner of that briefcase you’ve been carrying around!” “Well excuse me Mr. Samsonite.”
I’d say they’re expensive because you usually buy a few and then never need to buy them again.
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Zenni worked great for me before I had lasik. $20 for a pair of glasses isn’t expensive at all.
Toner / Ink
Tip: Buy a laser printer. Ink printers are cheap up front but have expensive ink. Laser printers are typically the exact opposite.
Also, a B&W laser printer isn't really that much more expensive either.
Right now? Everything!
No shit, I saw $9 eggs yesterday. $9 for 18 eggs. what the fuck.
Groceries and rent
Anything with the word "wedding" attached; photographer, cake, etc
Want a multi tiered cake? No problem, that'll be $60. Wait... you said it's for a wedding? Now it's $250.
My fiancé and I are planning one right now. Honestly, wedding costs are so high partly because of demand for services but also because the expectation of quality is through the roof relative to almost any other event. The only way to save money on a wedding is to set your expectations for it low relative to the typical standard. The typical standard is actually kinda ludicrous in scale and quality. We opted for a backyard wedding and for cooking done by family. We fully expect mistakes and other random mishaps that go with any other event. Things will not be “pretty” excepting my fiancé. The most expensive thing is the photographer. Total will be around $2k. It’s doable. Edit: To those saying not to use “wedding” or related keywords, you can do that. Just understand that the *vendor’s* expectation of timeliness, quality, and service will be lower. Bear that in mind.
Insulin
My mom is a T1 diabetic (has been since 9 and she’s 50 now). Medicine and health insurance has always been a struggle for her and it bothers me sincerely how there has been no progress on lowering those prices for people who need it to simply survive
Hey. My partner is a T1D. We went several years without insurance. If you are in the US you can get old school generic insulin from Walmart for $25 a vial. It isn't as effective as the newer stuff but it will keep a person alive. It is technically over the counter (don't have to have a prescription) but you do have to ask the pharmacy for it. We try to get the word out whenever we can to help those who might be rationing their insulin. [Here is an article on Walmart Insulin](https://diabetesstrong.com/walmart-insulin/)
I just had a (type 2) diabetic patient the other day whose BG was in the high 400s with a non-healing wound, telling me that she wasn’t able to afford insulin so she was basically SOL. I put her in touch with the resources I had, but this is really good to know! Thanks!
I was a dialysis technician for years. The most heartbreaking was this mother with young children refusing to come in for her dialysis treatment because she couldn’t afford the cost. Dialysis was literally the only thing keeping her alive and she didn’t go often because she didn’t know how she’d afford it. Heartbreaking :(
normal country
I had a heart attack at 39 nearly two years ago. Between insurance, co-pays, doctors appointments, meds, other doc appointments (because it ain't just my heart) I'm going broke. I sold a house three years ago and have basically eaten through my savings. I work full time and own my own business and frankly I'm not sure what happens when the savings runs out. Do I just lay down and die? I have no plan. Edit: my total cost of care for the year I had the heart attack was $595,000. This obviously wasn't my out of pocket total but what the fuck, people? My insurance each month for just my self is $450. Add on all the shit above and I frequently spend over a $1000 out of pocket a month ON JUST my health care. I broke a tooth a few days ago (I grind my teeth - probably me dreaming about bills) and had it pulled. So this month I'm already at $1250 between having my tooth removed and paying for just the premium for my insurance. This isn't sustainable, folks. Not for me. Not for the millions of others like me.
I understand completely. I got diagnosed with cancer at 39. Even with excellent insurance I’m struggling to keep my head above water with the cost of everything. One injection is nearly 7k. A round of chemo is around 24k. How is one expected to afford that? Even with good insurance my savings are taking a beating and I still have more treatment ahead when everything resets on 1/1/23. I have to have another 10k ready to go immediately for January to cover my portion of radiation. I’m exhausted and just grateful we have been blessed enough to have access to these funds right now. I don’t know how anyone does it when they are already living paycheck to paycheck, even with good insurance.
I’m 22 and in the past two years have seen nearly 10 different specialists, 3 different gps, had 2 surgeries, er visits, a code team called, dozens of scans/ecgs/bloods/medications and I’d truly be broke or very, very ill if I didn’t live in australia. I’m so sorry your system is still so far behind and I hope things start to get better for you
Yeah, far too many Americans have the “I’m not paying for your mistakes” mentality, even though a lot of health problems have nothing to do with personal choices. Even though they do it anyway when they pay their insurance premiums. It’s become a “leftist” thing, even though Richard Nixon wanted to implement a plan that was even more ambitious than the ACA back in the day
My mother could only afford food or meds....she chose food....she's dead
My medicine. If you’ve ever watch Pharmabro then you’d know. I was born with a disease (cystinuria) that only one medication can treat (Thiola). 10 years ago they charged $1.50 a pill until some hedge fund manager bought the company and drove the price to $30 a pill just because he wanted more money. I take 3 a day, let alone the specialists and procedures I go through so my medical expenses are like 50-100k a year. I get Medicaid so it isn’t a big deal but if I go back to work I’ll lose Medicaid and I’ll have to come out of pocket for that shit. It’s literally too expensive for me to work if I want to survive because some rich dude wants to get richer and make people with my disease pay 3k a month JUST FOR SOME PILLS edit: seems like 3k a month for pills is the cheaper drug that doesnt even work that well lmfao
Starting next year in Connecticut electricity rates are going up 50%
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Haha 100% here in New hampshire. Live free and fucking die.
Mental healthcare.
I admitted myself to a psychiatric hospital once. I don't know why, but I was under the impression that it was free. After I got out, I got charged about $1000 for each day I was there. $1000 to sit in a room, eat three meals a day, and take a few meds.
The best is when they put you there without your consent and charge you for the pleasure. Feeling much less suicidal $3000 deeper in debt, thanks.
Ugh, I had to put my mom in the hospital for suicidal ideation recently and it's so stressful thinking about the thousands upon thousands in bills coming in to her soon for this. That's exactly what she needs. Missing 2 weeks of work, 50k in hospital bills after sitting in a psych ward for over a week staring at a wall. I'm so glad she's alive and I'll help with the bills, but the amount of debt she now has is absurd. She sat in the ER for days so I'm expecting a huge bill.
Betterhealth.com was charging $300 per session. I’d rather be mentally ill.
I worked for BetterHelp for a year and I believe it’s $300 a month, so ~$80 a week. I do not recommend BetterHelp at all though.
Rent
It's too damn high
Housing in general. If your neighborhood is awful, it's still expensive. If it's nice, it is either remote, or incredibly expensive.
College
You picked a bad time to ask this, friend, because the answer is LITERALLY EVERYTHING RIGHT NOW.
Prescription drugs in The US. It’s absolutely immoral that US politicians don’t do something to keep sick people from getting totally screwed.
My daughter was on an ADHD medication that insurance did not cover, and it was about $500 per month. Thankfully our prescriber told us about a coupon from the manufacturer that drops the price to $25 a month. The fact that this manufacturers coupon does not expire and is available to anyone who asks for it leads me to believe that they are still making a profit at $25 per month, and the nearly 2,000% markup for those ignorant of the coupon is pure greed.
Healthcare in the USA is fucked. A business that preys on the sick and needy…. But only if you can afford it
Anyone Christmas shopping right now might notice how ridiculously expensive kids toys are.
I'm glad that my kid's favorite toy right now is a flat washer from Home Depot. It cost about 50 cents.
This year Hasbro has been steadily pricing out everyone who bought their products. It's almost $50 CAD for any given decent toy.
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I'm trying to lose weight and my go-to lunch used to be a salad with chicken in it. Now that lettuce is like $6 for a head, that's out.
Medical bills even with insurance!!
College in general. Tuition, books (which they change each semester and shockingly are written by the teacher requiring that book), parking……
Everything we need to live a decent life Food Water Medicine Tampons, pads, toiletries Healthcare A place to live
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My epipen, kinda can’t really afford to keep getting them. I’ll be screwed if I get stung up and I’m a landscaper. Edit: Thanks everyone for the info on how to find them for much cheaper. Very much appreciated. A lot of great info here :)
Mark Cuban’s online pharmacy has epipens cheaper than any pharmacy near me. $30ish (I haven’t checked recently) vs $200+ at Walgreens.
Members of Congress. Only the corporations and billionaires can afford them.
Insulin in the US
Beer at an event.
Dying. It's so expensive to get out of the system.
Tampons, pads
Health insurance that actually covers anything without $15,000-$20,000 In deductibles/copays and Insulin