Thursday, June 26, 2008

Economic Realities

What 700 Dollars Can Buy
  1. 70 lunch dates for Larry and me
  2. A fun week at the beach for our family in the off-season
  3. Over a year of YMCA membership for Larry (forget about me, I gave up exercise for the year)
  4. Many, many fun books
  5. One year of the accredited homeschool curriculum we use for the high schoolers
  6. Almost a month's worth of food for a family of 8
  7. 175 gallons of gas
  8. Let's not think about the yarn, okay? Let's just not go there. Ow.
  9. 8 community college credits, for a hard-working teenage boy
  10. 2 weeks of High Adventure Boy Scout camp for same

What 700 Dollars Will Be Spent On Instead
  1. Repairing the bumper I accidentally scraped (not even dented) on some stranger's hybrid Camry the other day in a parking lot.


We're just made of money...

41 comments:

  1. AnonymousJune 26, 2008

    oh, OUCH!!

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  2. Oh. Rats.

    Wait you forgt one 700 will buy.. Four months worth of auto insurance for a teenage boy.

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  3. AnonymousJune 26, 2008

    Oh, I feeling for you - I cleverly parked my little car 'in a skip' last month, then ripped off the sill on a rock cunningly concealed in long grass....then the loan car - the insurance companies biggest punishment...a car so small and tinny it wobbles in a light wind.

    My insurance company asked if the skip had been damaged!!!!!

    Cars are SO boring when things go wrong.

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  4. hen - Oh, I love your comments! They're so educational - tell me, what is a "skip" and what is a "sill"?

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  5. I've played this game so many times. It is a horrible game to play.

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  6. Our minivan was damaged in two separate incidents last summer on the same day. The one neighbor backed into the front bumper, then tried to drive away. Lucky for us, other neighbors saw himdo it and wrote down his plate number. He about died when the body shop estimated the repairs at 500 bucks.

    Then someone drove into the back bumper and dented it horribly. That person also drove away and there were no witnesses. That cost 1500 to fix. Thank goodness for our excellent insurance.

    It makes me wonder why the repairs are so expensive, but the body shop guys had all these details about paint and underlying structures that was too complicated to understand.

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  7. I feel your pain sista! I blew a tire a few weeks back to the tune of $135 to replace what was a new tire to begin with. UGH! And it was entirely my fault.

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  8. I guess what really bugs me is that I was the idiot who created the problem.

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  9. AnonymousJune 26, 2008

    Ouch!

    I was spoiled in CA by the low college costs. I paid $13 a unit, so $33 per class per semester. I wanted to take classes in FL, but they were something like $100 per unit, just for community college!

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  10. Our gas shot up 12cents over night. My hubs called me, and I almost cried. Wow in the world did we decide to buy a house 45 minutes from where he works when we moved here. *sigh*

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  11. $700- gas for a Suburban for a month or two?

    (I don't drive a Suburban, by the way.)

    I once scraped a mailbox (apparently pretty hard) and did *gasp* $1600 worth of damage to our van. Yes. $1600. We had to turn it into insurance, but I don't know why because after our $500 deductible, our rates went up for the next 3 years causing me to pay $900 more in premiums for that timeframe. I just love insurance and how much it HELPS you.

    KEEP BELIEVING

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  12. Oh - I'm sorry! That sucks. I do the same thing too though when we have unexpected dental bills or bounce a check. Sometime I think I should just spend the money on the fun things before the bad things can happen - wouldn't that stave off the bad things? Wouldn't it? God knows I'm broke and He seems to protect the foolish....

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  13. Ugh. There's nothing like spending money and having NOTHING to show for it.

    Heidi

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  14. Must it be repaired? Obviously, if you're planning to sell or trade it, the cost will come off the value. And if insurance is paying, you may not care. But.

    If it's a plastic bumper, it won't rust. Do nothing. (That's how I deal with the results of my neighbors' and co-workers' park-by-Braille technique.)

    If it's a metal bumper, sand it down in the driveway and hit it with rust-stopping paint. Won't look great, but it's not a functional issue.

    (I have plastic bumpers and plan to drive my little car until it falls apart underneath me, so resale isn't a big concern for me.)

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  15. Here's what you should do: in that square garden you have, just grow the $700!!!!

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  16. Dang it, Dang it, Dang it!!!
    Stupid hybrid cars that are built like a house of cards!!!

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  17. Ouch. I know that feeling.

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  18. ohhh the yarrrrrn...
    eh, the kids can eat dirt from the back yard like they usually do...it's apparently tastier than what I make for dinner anyway

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  19. AnonymousJune 26, 2008

    OH Crap!
    Today I posted about how I just spent a trip to Hawaii in my bathroom.. arrrggghhh

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  20. AnonymousJune 26, 2008

    Ouch! We should talk about my little incident last summer. He was a jerk. and now he's the pool chairman. There's just no justice.

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  21. Your autombile insurance should cover it. Not that I've ever done anything like that and have firsthand knowledge or anything like that.

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  22. Oooh. I'm going to guess on Hen's--skip = ditch and sill = bumper.

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  23. jenn - Wrong! On both....details tomorrow...

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  24. Oh yuck.

    I liked the thought of the amount of books $700 would buy me though.

    Actually, I would only buy about $400 worth, the rest of the money would have to go to the cleaners because once I get reading nothing else happens.

    Sigh.

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  25. Ohhhhh, ouch! That stings a little, huh?

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  26. AnonymousJune 26, 2008

    That sucks. All 700? Every last one? You can't keep a teeny tiny (say $50) for yarn?

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  27. Sorry you are having a bad week. My oldest daughter backed my camry into a pile of cinderblocks while she was backing out of a parking space. She missed the cars on both sides of her.

    My bumper is dented-it's plastic so it won't rust. I'm sure someone else will hit me again- I'll get it fixed then. It matches the hood,trunk lid, and roof scratches that my sons put on the car within weeks of my buying it new. Metal snow shovels are unkind to a cars finish :(

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  28. What color is their bumper? I have about 70 bottles of nail polish left over from my pre-mommyhood days, I'm sure one of them is close enough...

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  29. Been there. For a scrape when the car door was swept back by a strong wind. My husband literally had to search for the owner of the car. The scrape on our door from someone else? They never admitted to it. I'm glad my husband's honest.

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  30. Yikes. That's absurd. No bumper should cost that much.

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  31. Doh! That is so, so painful. Sorry to hear that.

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  32. Stupid hybrid cars!!
    Just be glad you don't have to replace the battery. I hear they go for $6K!
    $700 is pretty outrageous for a scrape, though, they must have a buddy padding the bill for them.
    So sorry you have to spend your hard earned money this way. I know you all live pretty frugally and so this really sucks! =-(

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  33. Yikes! I don't want to think about my food bill when my boys are teenagers!

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  34. There's something about spending money on your car (or someone else's) that pisses you off!

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  35. OWIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! My heart aches for you. It was accidental so don't feel quilty all all summer. HUGS, HUGS and more HUGS.

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  36. Oh no! I'm sorry! It's such a bummer when something like that happens and costs a lot of money.

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  37. Oh. That. Sucks. At least you were honest, though. Somebody nailed my car in the parking lot of a Whole Foods (the one time I went there, to verify that I couldn't afford to shop there on a regular basis). They left without leaving a note or anything and I had to foot the bill.

    Frigging yuppies.

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  38. Ouch...That Hurts...
    So sorry.
    I hate car problems.
    Hope your weekend is good anyway.
    Blessings, E

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  39. AnonymousJune 29, 2008

    That rots!

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