I received a phone call today that I normally would not answer from one of the medical bills I’m paying on. Actually I was in the middle of texting and accidentally answered the phone, but that’s neither here nor there.

So, imagine my surprise when the operator says, “the payment plan you set up is finished. Your last payment was debited on Monday (the 10th).

Finished? I thought to myself. They obviously had the wrong number right?

Apparently I had set up some kind payment plan that only went to August or something. Just when I started to get excited she said, “Yeah, you only have $125 left to pay. Did you want to set that up monthly too?”

Aw damn. But, you know what? $125 is manageable. I was paying $25 a month before and was half tempted to do the same thing again except that would take 5 more months to pay off. Instead I set up the first payment of $25 and requested that she call me back in October. My plan is to just pay off the last $100 and be done with it.

I do have various other medical bills to pay off that are larger and I have a surgery scheduled for next Friday that won’t be nearly as painful as the bill. I’m amazed at how good it feels to be done or almost done with one of them. I’m not going to worry about them because no matter how slow, eventually they’ll be paid off.

A few things that occurred to me though, regarding the medical bills:

1. I should keep better track of what I’m paying and when. It’s easy to just get overwhelmed and forget about the bills but feels so good knowing when something is close to being paid off.

2. Medical facilities and collectors of medical bills will work with you and are usually pretty nice. Of course I’ve had my experience with the rude and nasty ones but I genuinely believe that everyone’s just trying to do their jobs.

3. Slow and steady wins the race. Okay, that’s corny but there’s a wealth of children’s story stuff in this head of mine. Point is, as mentioned, that although it would be nice to just pay everything off, I can’t right now. No sense in worrying about it or killing myself trying to do it.

Well, those are my great thoughts for the day. May everyone accidentally accept a rejectable call and receive some kind of good news as well.

Have a great weekend!