I regret to say it has been awhile since my last post. I had intended on writing a steady stream of entries every week, but due to circumstances (not having internet access or pc) I have been slacking. I have had a run of “bad luck” so to speak of late that has caused me some financial distress as well.
First, after moving into my new living situation, the cable and internet were shut off in transition to switching to different services. After that, my car died. Brake lines rusted through and had to be replaced. This caused me significant distress since I just started my new job and had no relationships to rely upon in Florida to bail me out. Luckily, my roommate was more than generous and kind to me and gave me rides to and from work every day for a week and a half thus saving me significant financial discomfort.
Apparently, Floridians are foreign to the rust buckets that we call cars upstate. After my car broke down, I figured I would just have it towed to the local Pepboys and they could fix me up, for what is usually a 300$ job or so to replace/repair a rusted line. I estimated I might pay up to $500 here to have it fixed. After a day of “diagnostic” they refused to work on the vehicle any further. What?. Flat out refused work…They must be doing pretty well financially to refuse work I thought. Apparently they didn’t want to take on such a time consuming and “difficult” job. This put me in a bind, now my car was at a shop, broken, and they wouldn’t fix it. So, I phone AAA and have it towed to a dealership. Bad move on my part. After a $1200 estimate and looking at a few used vehicles, I decided that they were off their proverbial rocker and I phoned up AAA once again to have it towed to yet another shop(cross my fingers), on the referral of a “friend”. Due to some confusion, the mechanic was unable to work on the vehicle because he took on more work than he could chew. He then brought the car to a mechanic across the street for me.
Finally, they were able to fix me up proper, after only a day. Nearly two weeks after my car originally broke down. In the end it only end up costing $400 to have the car repaired. In addition to this, however, I bought two tanks of gas($60) to help repay my roommate’s kindness, and had to rent a car ($60) one day to get from the Airport after flying back from my Father’s 50th birthday.
This week I had my car back, my wallet taking a significant hit in the process, but things were getting back to normal. I still needed to look for a new vehicle since my car is unreliable at best and I can’t afford to miss more days of work.
Yesterday, I get the news that my Grandmother who was very close to all of us has passed. I’d need to fly back out to NY for the services. And miss more work, I thought.
I’ve already been half a day late due to my car troubles, had to call in giving one day notice because of a canceled flight and no way to get back in town on time, and now I get the news that my Grandmother has passed. I hopped the first flight out ($400) I could get (Thursday), which of course was canceled. Next flight out not until the following day, so I rescheduled to fly out Friday morning.. Hopefully, things will go smoothly from here on out, as this will already be a stressful time for all of us. I won’t be returning to work until Wednesday. That is if my flights get me here by then. I’m not holding my breathe.
This has caused me a lot of stress about my job. I need to talk to me boss and express to him that this unreliability is not usual and it just seems a stretch of bad luck and unfortunate events have strung themselves together all at once.
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Fortunately, from a financial perspective I was prepared for these kinds of things. I had a good amount saved in a cash emergency fund that I was able to draw upon to pay for my car and plane tickets and the like. Though, my budget is all out of whack for this month. I haven’t had the time to pay anything more than cursory attention to my finances.
I’m going to have to sit down and have a thorough inspection of where I am financially, and see how far off track I am from my initial estimates. Pretty far I think. Every day I miss from work is $256 pretax that I’m effectively spending. Four days (Thursday,Friday,Monday,Tuesday) is $1024, plus the other day last week for a total of $1280. That’s no joke.
I’ll be happy when (if) I roll over to perm. in 6 months and I get proper paid vacation and some nice benefits to boot.
RIP Edna Borio
We all will love and miss you.
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