I’ve Paid For This Twice Already…

Archive for the ‘musings’ Category

My spouse drives a 1996 Toyota Corolla with just under 200,000 miles, which he has been driving for the past 8 or so years.  It is a decent little car, and has had its share of maintenance and other expected expenses, but hasn’t really had any major problems.  My spouse affectionately refers to it at this point as his junker, and fully plans to replace it when the time comes with another “junker” type car that just gets him from point A to point B.

The question for me has always been, how do you decide when “the time comes”?  One way, of course, is when there is a significantly large repair that needs to be done that would cost more than the cost of replacing the car.  For example, if the engine in this car died, or the transmission, that would be a dealbreaker, and the car would need to be replaced.  His car, according to the Kelley Blue Book value, would cost us about $3000 to replace with a similar car, so any repair approaching or exceeding that just wouldn’t make sense.  We would probably  actually replace his car if we had to do it right now with a 7-8 year old Toyota or Honda of a similar body type and half the mileage, and running Kelley Blue Book values for those cars, it would cost in the range of $6000.   Any repairs that were a significant portion of that amount beyond normal maintenance costs would cause us to seriously reevaluate keeping the car.

The grey area for me begins when the car starts showing its age and needing significant but not drastic repairs.  Today the car went in for its oil change, and the mechanic discovered that the radiator needs to be replaced.  Replacing the radiator with an aftermarket model is going to cost about ~$300-$350, which is not by any means a dealbreaker in terms of the car’s value to us, but makes me start to wonder about it this will be an isolated incident or is just a sign of things to come.   And replacing the car with another car that is also several years old means that there will probably be repairs associated with that one too sooner rather than later.  It’d be nice if we had a crystal ball to see into the future and know what lies in the future for the car, but since we can’t, we just go by what we do know.  The car isn’t due for any major regular maintenance for at least another 2 years going by its current maintenance schedule and projecting how much we drive it, and doesn’t have any signs of something else going wrong in the near future.  So replacing the radiator and hoping this isn’t the first in a chain of car repair events seems the smart choice right now.

It will drive me crazy though if we spend this money to replace the radiator and then we have to replace the entire car soon.  But for our financial situation and for how the car seems to check out right now, replacing the radiator is the sensible choice, and so that is what we are doing.  Hopefully this allows the car to last another few years when we’d be in a better position to purchase a replacement.  As for the repair, I have to adjust how much money is going into our emergency fund right now and it isn’t a pleasant expense, but we’ll manage it.  More on that tomorrow afternoon.

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I feel like I’m in a pretty weird place right now, but an assuredly common one as well. I’ve been going all out at our debt reduction for almost a year now. It’s been our first priority when considering any and all financial decisions, and I’ve been very committed to eliminating all of our non-mortgage debt as soon as possible. We’ve weathered several setbacks, yet kept our eyes on the prize and eliminated all of our credit card debt as well as making significant progress on my spouse’s student loan.

But now I’m almost at a (temporary) standstill. Uncertainty about a number of things, including possible expensive repairs to our home as well as my own health have caused me to pull back on the aggressive debt reduction stance and re-evaluate our savings plan as well. As of right now, our electrical system is performing as it should, and the tests I’ve had so far as far as my health have all come back fine. But I know there will be expenses looming as far as both those things go - more tests for me, and an inevitable board replacement for the electrical system of the house - if not now, then someday soon. Add to that the possibility of traveling to a world championship in a few weeks and my financial focus feels anything but straightforward.

Such is the ebb and flow of the debt reduction journey. Sometimes it feels like there’s nothing else but debt reduction to think about, and things roll along like a freight train. Nothing can stand in my way, and our progress feels unstoppable. And then there are the times, like now, where it feels like I need to be cautious and reserved and hold back, even if I want to move forward, until things become more clear. It is, for me, a very frustrating place to be, for patience is not at all my strong suit. When I decide I want something done, I want it done yesterday. But here I sit, biding my time, and trying to figure out exactly what to do next.

As much as the lull in debt reduction frustrates me, I know there is a high just around the corner where I’ll be knocking debt down again faster than I ever imagined. I just have to have the patience and perseverance to get there.

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The regular normal posting will continue bright and early tomorrow morning, I just wanted to let everyone know that I survived the wisdom teeth extraction just fine and am almost back to normal. I spent two days in a lot of pain and my sockets took forever to stop bleeding, but all seems well now. I had a bone fragment work itself free last night (apparently unremarkable and fine, but yuck) but today I almost feel completely normal.

On the financial side, although the surgery cost us only $155 out of pocket, there were a few other minor expenses I didn’t think about I also had to cover. First was the prescription pain medicine - which ended up being about $14. Not bad. The other was the special food my spouse went out to get me. I was on a diet of basically liquid for a day and then not much firmer than that on day two. My spouse went shopping for yogurt, ice cream, milkshakes, and the like and somehow spent $50. Ah well. But in his defense he did all the grocery shopping this weekend and managed to only spend ~$70 of his $85 budget so that was good. He told me he never wants to grocery shop again.

Not the most exciting of weekends but I did get to just laze around and watch whatever I wanted on TV for a few days. When I wasn’t sleeping.  I found a really funny show on Discover called Cash Cab. Otherwise, I don’t remember a thing. Hope all of your weekends were even more relaxing for much better reasons!

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My brain, frankly, just hurts right now.  I’m not sure yet what exactly wrong with the electrical.  I’m not sure what has to be done to fix it.  I did find out yesterday that our electrical board is one of two brands that lost their UL certification, so that makes me oh so pleased about it.  Not.  Regardless of what we find out about our specific current problem, that gives me pause about keeping the board at all if we can help it.  Argh.

And I have decided that hiring a home inspector when we were considering buying the house was, apparently, in our case a total waste of time and money.  For I am not sure he did much of anything past come for a visit and get paid to do so.  I still love my house.  But it is trying my patience.  I’m not sure how we could have done better with a home inspector but obviously the one we picked didn’t do much.

So this post - not very useful.  I have no idea how to pick an electrical contractor.  If I ever figure it out, I will be sure to tell you all.  Many of them want to charge a trip charge just to come out and do an estimate.  I understand why, but it doesn’t please me.  But I can tell you one thing for sure.   The one my spouse called yesterday that said they could do it without a permit for one price, and if we insisted on having permits then it would be a lot more, well…

We won’t be going with that one. 

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As we start to pay down more and more debt, I’ve started to think beyond debt. That’s an interesting idea for me, especially since it isn’t certain to me that we’ll soon be at a place where we are beyond debt for good, but yet my mind wanders to “When we are done with the car and the student loans, we can…” a lot more now than it used to.

We bought an older house, with great space and layout but with slightly older interiors. I’m fine now, my more frugal and reflective self, with things that I thought we would replace right away, like the dated and not-in-good-condition floors in most of the downstairs, and the wallpaper in the front entry that goes up the stairs so I would have to hire someone to take it down, but there are a few things we can’t just ignore. Our house has some updated appliances, but the stove and refrigerator are not among them. Both are a bit over 20 years old and past their predicted life span. One of the things we’ll need to do sooner rather than later is replace both of them, which would make me feel more secure that we won’t be forced to replace them because of a crisis (especially the refrigerator).

But my mind continually wanders from security to comfort. There is one luxury I dearly love, and that is a nice hot bubble bath. Hot. Hot is the key word there. Our water heater is adequate, and at 8 years old not in danger of expiring anytime soon, but I must be frank. I hate it. It doesn’t hold heat. It has a blanket on it already, but it is in our garage (which is cold) and unless it is soon after it has been emptied and refilled, it just doesn’t stay hot.

It’s warm. But I want hot. It’s set high, it doesn’t care. It is warm. We’ve had it serviced and nothing is wrong with it. It just doesn’t provide hot baths upstairs very well at all.

So instead of replacing the security items, I want the comfort one. I want a tankless water heater. I want water to be hot, come out hot, make hot baths, and oh, I want it. A tankless water heater would be a nice thing to have, but definitely not something we need to have at all. Really, ever. Although it would use less energy, not having to heat a tank of water continually. See, I want an earth-conscious thing. That’s why, right?

Good that I have another year or more (hopefully nothing breaks and forces my hand!) to think this over before I figure it out, since debt reduction is a higher priority for us than any of this stuff. I know that needs trump wants, in my head. But my heart says this want is important. I hate lukewarm baths.

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