I suppose this is mostly a vent since I can't really tell anyone IRL about these problems. Some of it is seeking some advice/guidance on how to handle it.
tl:dr If you (or family member) have had major illness/disability - how did you handle it in terms of trying to FIRE? How do you handle offers of financial help?
Here's the story:
I am very blessed to have a wide circle of friends/family and a very supportive community to be helping us through our situation.
On July 13th, my 13 y/o son was diagnosed with Leukemia. He has a good prognosis but it will be a rough road and has been a life altering experience in the last few weeks. One of the many emotions I had was "there goes early retirement".
However, after analyzing everything, we will probably only be out a few thousand dollars by the end of the year. For medical expenses, we were very close to our per person max payment for him already due to therapies for his disability, so our total out of pocket for him will only be like $600 before everything is covered for the family. Needless to say the rest of us will be having everything possible done before Dec. 31st.
We are getting meals delivered, which has lowered our grocery bills. (and is a HUGE help). We are currently a 1 car family, but need to have 2 since he will need (not may need) to be rushed to the hospital at certain times and the chemo clinic for him is across town.
We will be saving a significant amount of $$ on both eating out (he can no longer go due to compromised immune system) and vacations (can't happen). Both of those we were spending way too much on.
I will lose about $3K in income from taking short term leave from work, but will also have time to finally sell some stuff on craigslist, do more scratch cooking, do more shopping sales, etc.
Here's the problem: We are getting a lot of offers of help, some of it financial. I get gift cards in the mail for take out or groceries, someone even mailed me a check. My sister has offered to do a Go Fund Me.
While I have no problem accepting help and am reaching out to people for things like babysitting, making meals, etc. the financial offers make me very uncomfortable, especially the check we got in the mail. For some reason the gift cards are less bothersome than the check, but I still feel uncomfortable accepting money from people who probably have significantly less money than us. A neighbor just made us a meal tonight and included a 6 pack of fancy beer. I know they have NO money.
I did tell my sister no for the GO Fund Me and explained we were close to our insurance max.
Then I feel uncomfortable b/c the same people who are sending me gift cards are also going to see we are buying a car and I am taking a leave from work. Of course, we also just took a very expensive vacation which they all know about.
How do you say thanks but no thanks? So far I have accepted everything under $50 and will send a nice thank you note. Should I say no to things when at this point I don't know if financially it could get much worse? If he needs a bone marrow transplant, I could miss significantly more work than previously thought.
The other part is I feel so conflicted about planning for the future. Long term planning is the hallmark of trying to FIRE. However, when your child has cancer and may die - living through the every day and trying to make the best of it is the goal. How do you balance keeping your eye on a long term goal when the goal is just to get through everyday?
Also, FWIW - I am so happy we have been financially conservative for years. This would be a nightmare with no money. Also, while both DH and my employer have been fantastic, this has only strengthened my resolve to be FI so there is no job to have to go to when the next tragedy strikes.
Thanks for listening and any advice/guidance.