<prompt> Human: Hi, all. Not gonna lie, Im feeling pretty hopeless about everything right now after getting some really awful news.Im 24 years old. I split bills with my fiancé, so I am currently responsible for my student loans, half of our mortgage, my car payment, half of our insurance payment, and our electric bill. With my honestly amazing pay, I am comfortably able to pay these bills with money leftover, and I pay those bills immediately when I get my paycheck, sometimes up to a full week early, because I like sending that money off quickly so its all done and I dont risk missing anything. My fiancé cant really take on any more of the bills because he makes lower pay than I do and hes doing his best too.The problem is...something literally always comes up to drain any leftover money so I cant build up any savings or emergency fund. Some of the things Ive dealt with over the past month include...---Moved out of our apartment into our house? Boom, apartment complex calls with a 530 bill to replace the carpets. They were trying to make me pay 800 until I demanded to know whether they had applied my deposit towards it. Pretty sure they were trying to con me, because that payment came down to 530 paid over 3 months. My fiancé and I split that bill, and I just sent in the last payment for that yesterday.---And the awful news I mentioned earlier came this morning. I was finally feeling comfortable enough to start playing more than the minimum on my student loans when boom, my TEACH grant apparently kicked in a few months ago and has been overdue for 120 days and I had literally no idea. TEACH grants state that if I teach for 4 years in a low-income school, that loan is forgiven. But I no longer teach. I knew that loan existed, but it was my understanding that the sum would be added to my current student loan payment on Nelnet. Instead, it went to FedLoan. I take full responsibility for this mistake. I should have been more aware and knowledgeable, and I regret that. The 89 payments have snowballed over 3 months in addition to late fees and I now owe over 600. Luckily, that payment is not due until November 13th. My November 9 paycheck will let me pay the mid-month bills as well as this overdue balance, and still have money leftover. Im incredibly lucky and nearly started crying because I was so relieved. The only way I even knew about the delinquency was when I checked my credit score while considering a credit card and noticed the overdue payment. Needless to say, Im not even looking at a credit card until all of this is dealt with.--EDIT: completely forgot to mention that I had to go to the emergency room last week because I had an allergic reaction that was causing my throat to swell. I have never had such a reaction as I have no known allergies and I hadnt done anything differently than I usually do like changing laundry detergent, new foods, etc. The doctors have no idea what caused it. So Im anticipating that bill to come in eventually...yay USA emergency room costs. I have excellent health insurance through BlueCross BlueShield, but Im nervous over what the bill could possibly look like. I was there for 2 hours, got a Benadryl IV, and sat on a nebulizer for about 10 minutes.--The holidays are coming up, and there are multiple family birthdays between now and the end of the year to deal with. Luckily my family is the type to set a firm budget on how much we can spend on each other, so Im only looking at a hard maximum of 200 for gifts. I limit myself to no more than 30 for birthday presents, and I do handmade gifts sometimes because Im crafty and that saves some money.---And of course, on top of all this, Im trying to plan a wedding too. It wont be until March 2019 or later, so theres a lot of time, but it feels like this looming terror haunting me every time an unexpected payment rears its ugly head. We have a fair estimate of what its going to cost us, and weve highballed all the numbers just in case. Plus both sets of parents have stated that they will buy things like wedding dress, venue down payment, etc. So...I guess what Im trying to ask is for literally any advice on what to do. My life this year has been nothing but one unexpected payment after another. I started trying to save in July and only have 200 to show for it. What can I possibly do to make this easier and less stressful?Assistant: Here is the thing - none of the items you listed are actually unexpected. This is a trap many people fall into; they think that because it is not an expense that comes up every month, that it is unexpected. But its not and it can be budgeted for.Take the birthday and holiday presents example you gave. Birthdays dont change date. The holidays come every year. All of that should be budgeted at the start of the year. None of it is unexpected.The grant was simply you not paying enough attention to your finances and assuming everything would simply turn out alright. Obviously this could be a slip of the mind that anyone could make, but you specify that you simply assumed it would be added to a different loan. Why? There is no reason to assume that. This type of problem usually comes about from those who are used to people really trying to help them and bailing them out of problems they get into. Once you become an adult, the amount of people who will hold your hand and move mountains in order to help you drops significantly. This is a hard lesson to learn, but it is essential.Then there is the carpet charges. There are two possibilities here - one is that the landlord shouldnt have charged for that and it was illegal. In that case, small claims court will sort you out and get you the money stolen from you back. The second is that you terribly messed up the carpets and thus it was a very plannable expense since you cant destroy a rented places carpet and not be expected to pay for it. If it is the latter, then not only was it a completely expected expense, but you were also relying on the same thing that you relied on the loan issue - that other unrelated people would be willing to do anything to help you out.So your issue is less unexpected expenses and more a lack of planning and taking personal responsibility for your adult life. It can be a hard transition for many people, but you will benefit greatly from sitting down and doing a thorough budget. That will encompass all of these future expenses as well as show you what debt and other liabilities you have so that you can ensure they are all taken care of.Human: Youre absolutely right. I completely dropped the ball in regards to that loan. The carpets was definitely unexpected because the carpets looked great when we left. We had them professionally cleaned, we had multiple people confirm that they looked excellent. I think the apartment complex was being really over the top because it was a pretty new complex thats had a lot of management changes in the couple years its been around. But they had a history of screwing us and other residents over, not honoring deposits because the deposits were made with previous management. We were so desperate to get out of there. I fought that carpet payment and threatened legal action if they did not honor the deposit. Lo and behold, they came back later with the lower price. Im not trying to come across as overly defensive in this, just explaining why I felt so confused and felt it kind of came out of nowhere.You are absolutely correct. Though in some areas I may feel a bit taken advantage of, thats just how life works sometimes. At the end of the day, I am the only one who is personally responsible for myself and my mistakes. Im learning many, many lessons that Im going to use to prepare myself for future events. Get everything in writing, have a fund ready to go, assume nothing.  <response>: 100 agree with the poster above.As for the carpet charges, you should be defensive because you should not have paid it.Regular replacement of carpets falls on the landlord, not the tenant. So if you did not cause excessive wear you should have paid nothing towards them and got your full deposit back. You could likely reverse this mistake in small claims if you took pictures when you moved out.Source: am landlord. 