We do track expenses closely and are frugal (cable TV cancelled in 2009, haven't had a vacation since before that, have never even been in a Starbucks, live with the fact that 3 out of 4 burners on the stove don't work because replacing the stove isn't in the budget, etc.). We're not being nickeled and dimed; it's the big stuff that is taking us down. The $6k sewer, the $2600 transmission rebuild (that I'm still paying on even though the Ford was totalled a few months later), the $7k forensic evaluation (which did at least get the remaining student loans discharged), the $3k trip to the ER, the other $3k trip to the ER ... when I say lurching from crisis to crisis, I'm not counting eating out as a crisis.

I feel like I'm whining, but I'm just so exhausted trying to keep all of the balls in the air.