You all are fucking awesome, you know that?
I have thought a lot about all of these things, usually in one for or another every day. First, the student loan is something that we decided we will wait out, it will be forgiven in our 60's. In that time the original borrowed amount will be paid for, personally I don't have an issue with that. The house and everything else is in my name. Ironically the more disabled I get the more I rely on him to do things for me, and issue to take into consideration when thinking he should get a job. That is the obvious solution, of course, but comes with its own set of complications. My husband says he will be out of the stock market on April 1st, we shall see. I can see how it's captured his attention and he does get angry with me when I say something about it. He made $5k last year doing it.
The house, I have also thought these same things about selling and moving somewhere less expensive. We are in a desirable part of the country, a half hour from Durango CO. We bought our place, a stick built house on 3 acres with a seasonal creek, in 2001 for $160,000. Over the years we built a barn, an attached garage and shop, replaced linoleum for tile, changed out carpet for wood flooring, re roofed the house, and painted it. All this was done by my husband, mostly. We had a friend we would hire from time to time, but he has since passed away. The house is worth $280,000 according to Zillow, I am not sure how accurate that is. I LOVE living here, we already did a big move from the Denver area to here because it offered more for less.
What my husband wants to do with the 370000 in investments is to do something with a 401K to lower our income for this year. Apparently I could access this money once I have successfully acquired disability, which can take a year or longer and you can't have a income during the process. So I am a it uneasy about locking up any money right now. We have to stay around $30K of income this year to not get hit with huge student loan payments or pay more for our Obamacare. Last year we made a paltry $24k. I have had years where I made $70K to $100K, esp before 2008. I haven't had to get by by on this little since my early 20's :)
The vehicles, yes I think about this a lot. We both work at home and go to the small town 5 miles away maybe once per week, and Durango maybe 2 times a month. So they don't get driven much. We have a large horse trailer that is part camper and that is why we have an F450. Truth is it is getting harder form me to even get into the camper, let alone the overhead bed, so after this summer and fall we may sell it, and then the F450 could be sold as well. I would be devastated to give it up, we use it to go to Utah a few hours away in the spring and fall to ride in canyon country and it is one of my great passions in life. I have thought about tent camping, and we do tent camp on backcountry trips, it is something that could be possible. Last year we did not go do any Utah trips to save money.
I think it is difficult for non disabled people to grasp the level of complexity being disabled adds to ones life. I use a wheelchair and some of the things we have done to our house, like widening doorways, is to make it workable for me. I cannot just buy another house, it would all have to be done again. So many considerations, it is a big part of why I often feel so overwhelmed.
So my minor surgical procedure is not something that can be put off, and it will wipe out our HSA and then some. I wish now I would have opted for a lower deductible, as mine is $6500. We made our decisions on our deductibles based on the good health and extremely low medical expenses we have had for the last few years. My current medical situation is all about an abnormal Pap smear, I feel as healthy as I did last year, but they do not feel confident that cancer has been ruled out until further searching and poking around, this time under anesthesia. So far two in office tests will cost me over $1000.
Anyhow, I really appreciate all the great advice and info and time that has been put into these replies :) Fuckin A