I have been working full time for the past two months; coupled with my wife’s income we’ve been able to save some money for the future and today; BOOM, it’s all gone, not the job, just the money.
I took our Saturn in for it’s yearly service and we come to find out that the car needs almost $1700 worth of repairs including a new timing belt, water filter and hosing, new front brake pads and discs, which totaled almost $1,700; but I managed to get the price down to $1,413 including tax. Still not much consolation as all our savings and what remains in our checking account has been wiped out.
We need to have a reliable car for me to get around and to transport the kids from school and therapy sessions. So I really had no option but to shell out the money to get the car fixed, definitely need the brakes working, kinda good thing to have working on a car and if the timing belt failed, then it could mean a new engine which would cost a lot more than $1,413, so I shouldn’t complain.
Our second car is due for a service soon, now I am fearing what bad news that will bring; given that the car is worth $1,200 now, I wont’s be spending thousands getting it fixed; it’ll be scrapped and we’ll buy a newer used car instead. It’ll be a false economy to pay more than the car is worth!
[cont…] Just after writing the above; I opened a letter from the Social Security Administration telling us they have overpaid us $581.98 SSI despite us reporting every cent of our income. This is the fourth time that we have been “overpaid” in the last 2 1/2 years, it’s not our damn fault that the SSA employees cant count properly. We have no intention of paying this bullshit, we just paid off a $66.35 overpayment from just last month, what an incompetent bunch of idiotic bureaucrats.
I am sorry to read this bad news Jason and a belated happy birthday. You’re an old man due a free bus pass soon.
If it makes you feel any better, at least you had the savings there to help deal with this unforeseen expense. Savings are in part there to help with rainy days such as these and with two full-time incomes I am sure you guys can replace the savings in next to no time. Imagine how much more devastating this would have been say, three months back, or when the service (mot?) was due last year.
Are American desk civil servants actually worse than those in the UK? All of the troubles you have had over the years lead me to believe they are.