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Let me begin this post by saying: my baby nephew was born early this morning! Just after midnight, my best friend gave birth after her water broke at 3am yesterday. I couldn’t be happier or more proud of her, and I cannot wait until I get to go meet little man.

Yesterday, I got my birthday package from my mom. Should be fun, right? Also enclosed was the replacement phone Sprint sent out – that will probably be a separate rant on its own. Also enclosed was some mail I had missed – including two letters from a collections company about the ER visit the night before I moved, and student loan information. Admittedly, the collections letters look like junk mail – but two from the same address didn’t spark her curiosity? She didn’t think student loan info was important to give me?

I called a month after the ER to pay what I owed, and they hadn’t processed the claim at that point. Fast forward to a particularly stressful point (I’m not sure if it was in December or January,) but I finally got a call from collections that I owed $250, not the $25 copay I’d anticipated. I called my mom in tears because it was around the time I found out I needed the root canal and I just couldn’t imagine being able to pay everything. She said that she would cover it, even though I wasn’t asking, I just needed to cry and vent to someone. That was that, I never got another call, and I figured it was taken care of. Guess not.

This isn’t the first time it’s happened, and its part of why I’m so terrified to check my credit score. I know things like this have been happening all my life, and I’m scared to see how badly it’s damaged my credit. Granted, this was my bad. Maybe I should have been checking into it more. I love my mom, but she wasn’t the best example of how to manage money (nor was my dad, for that matter.)

So, pf blog world, how bad do you think it is? Are overdue medical bills any different than late credit card payments? Did you learn poor money skills from your parents?