Quote from: Dena on May 23, 2019, 06:38:11 PM
I figured my spending off what I earned. I spent 1/3 on apartment rent. Another 1/3 on living expenses including food, car and car insurance. The final 1/3 went to transition expenses including therapy, medical treatment, hormones, electrolysis and other assorted expenses. Insurance didn't pay for any of this. Your numbers might vary but for a while you may find you spend money as fast as you can make it.
+1
Like Deena, it was pretty much the same for me, during the period of late 1998 to late 2003 (start of transition to SRS). Everything with the exception of HRT (after 2000 and later, when it was learned at work, that I was transitioning, and I was told by HR, that my employer provided health insurance would cover HRT, and HRT related Drs. Appointments), was paid out of pocket. As a result, FFS was off the table (I wanted SRS, and passed well as it was, and had talked to a few girls who had FFS, who were so broke afterwords, they had no idea when they would ever be able to afford SRS - I didn't want to end up with that situation).
Be VERY HARDCORE about your finances with regards to your end-goals transition-wise. Things will happen, that will in all likelihood, make transitioning, cost more than you expected it to. Despite literally providing a budget to my therapist, after she asked me how I was going to be able to financially pull off transitioning, and SRS (the budget showed things were doable, as long as I was diligent with handling my money), I still ran out of money by 2002, and was up to my neck in debt. Luckily things worked out in 2003 (the economy improved enough, that I was able to earn more, and save enough money for SRS). The more you can control your finances, the less hard hit you will be by the financial speed bumps you'll encounter, during transition. When it came down to spending a significant chunk of change for anything during 1998-2003 (especially in the year 2003, when I finally started making additional money), I used to ask myself,
how badly did I want or need it, considering that spending the money, would have a negative impact on saving for SRS. With the exception of electrolysis (which I needed, due to a ridiculous amount of facial hair [which was weird - my body was very un-hairy]), and clothing (which was mostly taken care of by the time I went full-time in late 2000 [the infrequent times when I did buy clothing after 2000, it was usually on the cheap]), typically, the need/desire to spend on other high dollar things, went by the wayside, when this thought was taken into consideration.
