A few financial tidbits for the month
From my $450 car repair total (2 tows, a triple AAA membership and a $250 mechanic bill) $200 will come from my car fund – I had completely forgotten I had anything left in it!, and $100 will come from this month’s budget, so I will only have to deplete my emergency fund by $150!!! Not as bad as I had feared.
I can return my purchased (and unused) alternator at Napa and refund my credit card by $200.
I saved a tank of gas by not driving this past week, carpooling with J in his car (we have slightly divergent schedules, so we often don’t carpool), and using J’s car to do errands or just not go anywhere. I saved about $30-$35.
Found out that my landlord has paid the electric, water, sewage bills through the end of the year, so I don’t have to pay for December. Though once I do live in my house, these bills are paid quartly, so I may get burned when I move out (unless they prorate them with a refund at the end?).
I have to go get boxes for moving at the supermarket. I alsorealized that I can utilize a TON of used cube boxes from work, so I can pretty much start packing this weekend.
We had an unexpected transport to do last night at work, so I got a nice 4 hour overtime addition at the last minute, to my timecard. Whoo hoo! This was going to be an otherwise lean paycheck.
I also got a major deal on a rental truck from a vendor we work with. A flat $25, no mileage, for a truck for Weds night through Sunday. Can’t beat that!!! And I can get all the padded blankets, foam, boxes, straps and ratchets that I could possibly use from work.
Things aren’t looking as bad as I had thought financially. I will spend a little from my EF, but still make my debt payments this month. I don’t want to fall behind, I’ll just have to build up my EF again. There are $750 of extra deposits that I’m going to have to supply, and I may just use part of my EF for that and pay extra in savings each month until I can get it back to $1000.
Murphy & my car
So I’m moving soon, and have to pay extra deposits and such. I also made the mistake of looking at my past year’s expenses on my truck and thinking, I did good this year and I can decrease my car (truck) fund next year. I think Murphy heard me.
After driving home from looking at the new house we’re going to rent, everything died on my car and it just stopped working. Just prior the dash lights were fading, the windshield wipers were slow as molasses. The window was moving up and down like snails. Hardly any heater air was coming out, even on 3 (it was raining really hard, and the windshield was fogged up). We were halfway home. We think it’s the alternator. So now I have a broken truck out in the parking lot, I’m out $100 for the tow, and $150 on a rebuilt alternator (I had to pay $50 extra until the core gets returned afterwards). J offered to fix it, so I’m stuck until he does. If he can’t, or if the rain keeps up and he doesn’t feel like standing in a cold downpour to fix it, I will have to pay yet again, a second tow and a mechanic to fix it. And of course, there are complications – the bolt was loose, the belt was looser than it should be, and a plug that goes into the alternator has a wire sticking out, broken. Is it one of these things or something completely different? Time will tell, though I really really want a working vehicle back (it’s been broke since Thurs evening).
Ugh. My car fund is empty, so even more will be coming out of my EF savings. I just can’t win this month! And I know there will be extra expenses with moving, like renting a truck, maybe getting a wireless router for internet, various deposits for utilities and such (I’m sure).
