11 Adult Expenses That Feel Like A Scam But You Have No Choice But To Pay
Being an adult isn't always all it's cracked up to be, at least not financially.
Kmpzzz | Shutterstock Adulthood awards a sense of agency and independence you don't have access to as a kid. You become the driver of your own life, complete with the privilege of making decisions for yourself. If you want to sleep until noon on Sunday and eat ice cream for breakfast, you have the freedom to do so.
Yet being an adult comes at a high price — literally. Rent is due on the first of every month for the rest of your life. Your fridge doesn't fill itself. Paying bills and covering the basics doesn't mean you've crossed the financial finish line. You have to put your hard-earned money toward adult expenses that feel like a scam but you have no choice but to pay them.
Here are 11 adult expenses that feel like a scam but you have no choice but to pay
1. Dentist appointments
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No matter how financially literate you are, the hidden costs of life add up fast. One minute you're at the movies eating popcorn, and the next minute you're getting emergency dental work done because you chipped a tooth on popcorn.
Due to rules set by the all-powerful leaders of the healthcare system, dental insurance and medical insurance are kept separate. For this reason, many Americans don't have dental coverage. The cost of dental care keeps going up, due to price increases on supplies and higher lab fees and labor costs.
According to a study by Synchrony, a financial services company, 92% of people might delay going to the dentist because of the cost. Less than one-third said they save money for dentist visits. The average amount saved is $648, but common procedures, like root canals, can cost over $1,000.
Routine cleanings can lower your risk of tooth-based emergencies, but covering that cost is low on most financial to-do lists. Even though going to the dentist feels like a scam, it's one of the adult expenses that feels like a scam but you have no choice but to pay.
2. Filing fees to pay taxes
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Taxes are one of two things that are certain in life, according to the wise words of Benjamin Franklin. Until you make your way to the second thing, you can't avoid paying taxes, or rather, you can, but eventually, the federal government will come after you.
Being an adult means you have to pay taxes. To add insult to injury, you also have to pay filing fees, which is one of the adult expenses that feel like a scam but you have no choice but to pay. As The Tax Policy Center pointed out, "lawmakers all have normalized the idea of having to effectively pay a tax for the ability to pay your taxes."
During the 2022 tax season, 61 million individual income tax returns were electronically filed online by commercial tax prep software, which means that 61 million hard-working Americans were forced to pay for the honor of pressing "send" after inputting all their financial information themselves. That adult expense feels like a scam, because it is a scam, yet the fees still need to be paid without a choice.
3. Homeowners insurance
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As liberating as getting older can be, you also carry adult responsibilities. You have to go to work to earn money, so you can pay for the cost of being alive, which gets more expensive with each passing year. You have to spend your hard-earned money on things that are way more expensive than they're worth, like homeowners insurance.
In theory, homeowners insurance protects you from shelling out an exorbitant amount of money when something goes wrong with your house. In reality, most disasters aren't covered by homeowners insurance, even though companies keep raising their prices. Insuring your home only to get very little in return feels like a scam you have no choice but to pay.
4. Veterinary care for pets
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Pet parents would do anything for their furbabies. They wake up at dawn because their dog demands a walk the moment the sun rises. They let their cat drink water from the faucet when they're taking a shower, even though they've had many conversations about boundaries and alone time.
They're so devoted to their furry friends, they'll pay astronomically high vet bills, even though it's an adult expense that feels like a scam. According to NPR, trade groups estimated that Americans would spend over $30 billion on vet care for their precious pets in 2021 alone.
Karen Leslie, founder of The Pet Fund, explained that more and more vets are corporately-owned, "so that increases the cost of veterinary care. On the side, the cost of medication and rental for the office and equipment has gone up." She pointed out that pet insurance seems like a money-saving approach, but they won't "necessarily reimburse the entire bill, or they will cap reimbursement at a much lower rate than you were billed for the procedure or treatment."
Adulthood involves accepting the things you can't change, like spending thousands of dollars on urgent surgery because your dog decided that eating an entire sock was the best way to show you how much they love you.
5. Fees for concert tickets
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Some things are worth spending money on: a trip to your dream destination, dinner at a really nice restaurant, or seeing a show by your favorite band. While the experience of scream-singing at a concert is priceless, the cost of the ticket was probably more than you felt comfortable spending.
In 2024, the average ticket price for a top concert tour was $122.84, costing even more on the resale market. It would be one thing if all that money went directly to the band, but you're actually paying the massive machine of concert promoters.
Ticket fees feel like an adult expense that feels like a scam but you have no choice but to pay, which is why the U.S. Justice Department sued Live Nation and Ticketmaster for illegally inflated prices.
Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the lawsuit and spoke truth to power, noting that "Ticketmaster can impose a seemingly endless list of fees on fans. These include ticketing fees, service fees, convenience fees, platinum fees, price master fees, per order fees, handling fees and payment processing fees."
6. Streaming services
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Binge-watching shows is one of the most beautiful parts of being an adult. There's nothing quite like sinking into the couch and staring at a screen until you lose any sense of passing time, even though streaming services feel like a scam.
According to the marketing firm Collective Measures, streaming services saw a year over year increase in subscriptions in 2023, but at the same, cancellations grew by 36.2 million. The total number of subscriptions and cancellations was almost equal, and you don't have to be business-savvy to know the reason why.
Streaming platforms keep hiking prices and people keep paying for them, because they feel like they have no other choice. Watching TV has always been the definitive American pastime, even though streaming now feels like a scam.
7. Student loan interest
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Student loan interest is an adult expense that absolutely feels like a scam due to the interest attached to it, but there's not really a choice to refuse paying it back. The cost of a college degree has gone beyond the roof, into a galaxy most people can't reach, and it shows no signs of slowing down.
The price tag on tuition is high enough and adding in student loan interest makes a lot of young people reconsider if college is worth the cost. According to Pew Research Center, 36% of adults under 40 with a college degree have outstanding student loan debt; 29% of graduates who owe on their loans said they live comfortably, while 52% without loans said the same.
8. Checking bags at the airport
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In an ideal world, buying a plane ticket would afford you the luxury of putting your suitcase onto the plane for no extra charge, but that's just not the way this world works. Airline baggage fees feel like a scam but you have no choice but to pay them unless you want to go without on your next vacation.
In 2023, the airline industry earned 5.5 billion dollars just for charging you to check a bag. The average cost of the first bag you check falls between $30 and $40, and charges increase for each additional bag and any suitcase that weighs over 50 pounds.
Baggage fees feel like a scam because they are. Airlines have to pay 7.5% of their ticket prices to the federal government for domestic flights, and they don't want to foot the bill. They make up the cost of that transportation tax by passing the cost down to you and everyone else who's just trying to get from one place to another.
9. Parking
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When you factor in maintenance and gas prices, owning a car is an expensive investment. For most adults, driving is a necessary part of daily life. They're willing to swallow the costs of keeping a car on the road. Yet there's one specific aspect of driving that feels like a scam: paying for parking.
There's something especially cruel and unusual about spending money so your car can sit in a parking lot. Parking lots are just empty, undeveloped space, full of air and pavement and nothing else, but the powers that be still figured out a way to make you pay for them.
10. Canceling a gym membership
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If you were to do a cost-benefit analysis of going to the gym, you would find that you don't actually go to the gym. You set your intentions high and decided to get in shape, and then, the rest of life got in the way, as it usually does.
Even though you want to cancel your membership, you don't want to pay the cancellation fee, because it feels like such a scam. It doesn't matter how many times you tell the membership office that you haven't stepped foot in their facility for over a year. They're determined to make you pay up, just so that you can keep not going to the gym.
11. Air pumps at the gas station
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As convenient as a car can be, there's the pesky little issue of having to pour a lot of money into it. It's one thing to buy gas or pay the mechanic to make sure your brakes work, but it's something else altogether to have to buy air from a pump at the gas station.
Even though air pumps aren't especially expensive, it's the principle of the thing that feels like such a scam. Air is a free resource, in the sense that it literally exists all around us, yet you have no choice but to pay for it to keep driving.
Alexandra Blogier, MFA, is a staff writer who covers psychology, social issues, relationships, self-help topics, and human interest stories.
