Saturday, July 23, 2011

Expenses That Creep

Today's Post:
      Sometimes you think you are finally getting ahead into your savings account and finally saving up cash for that "thing" you really wanted to get but you don't really need.  It will generally start off slow, such as having to get your oil changed, then maybe an appliance breaks down in your house and you need to pay someone to actually fix it.  Or an accident happened where someone such as a friend was hurt and they need some cash to help them out with their bills.  It could even be someone you forgot that you owed money to and they finally came asking for it back.  All of this usually happens to me right when I finally start getting ahead on my savings and it sets me back down to almost square one again.

     Recently I have been saving up some money from working with my uncle during the weekends so I can buy myself a new computer monitor. Right now I'm running a dual monitor setup one of which is 19 inches and the other is 17 inches.  I honestly do not need a new monitor since these are pretty nice monitors but it would be nice to have a really big widescreen monitor to really tie my room together.  The monitor I want isn't cheap and with some of the bills I have to pay around here, it makes it difficult but not impossible to save money up for something like this.  I had really made some headway into this when all of a sudden things started going a bit south for me financially.

     The first thing that happened was that my uncle went off to Mexico earlier this past month and the month before that to see my grandfather, his father, because he was very ill.  Now I don't have a problem with him seeing his father, but the thing is, is that if he isn't around, then work isn't around for me either.  So a few weeks without pay for me wasn't the end of my world since I had savings and could keep food on the table for myself.  Also going out costs money which I didn't really stop doing until I realized how much I was dipping into my savings account.  The thing is, is that I didn't really notice that I wasn't going to get paid until it was the end of the week when I usually go to get my check and then it dawned on me that I wasn't going to get paid until at least a week or two after he had gotten back and gotten his business going again.

     Then during all of this, on the car my mom had given me when I donated my other car, the oil light came up.  I checked the oil level and sure enough the stick was bone dry.  Turns out my mom never once thought about changing the oil in the car or checking the levels of oil in it unless I did it or my older brother did.  I looked at the corner of the windshield and the last time she had gotten an oil change was nearly half a year ago from the chevrolet oil stop station.  This basic oil change ran me 45 dollars because the coupon I had, expired a month before I used it.

     A few weeks back my bathroom sink was changed by me and it was much more complicated that I had originally thought but I still managed to get it installed and looking nice.  Well I felt great that I didn't even have to pay anyone to install it for me but a few days back I realized that I was standing in a large puddle of  water that was under one of my bathroom mats.  I checked under the sink in the cabinet and sure enough, there was just a small drop of water dripping just about every second or so that had accumulated into a larger puddle that then went on to leak onto my floor.  Even though I had done everything right when it came to installing the sink, the pipes that connected and went to the cold water were leaking because of age.  Now I'm just waiting on a price estimate from someone who has to come in to fix it but I can already tell you that this isn't going to be a quick cheap fix.

     Now even though I have enough money to buy a monitor, I have to save that money in order to buy text books at the beginning of next semester which is coming up faster than I had expected.  This is the part that is actually an easy decision to make yet tempting.  I want to keep making excuses for why i NEED this monitor yet at the end of the day, I know that I don't need it whereas i do actually need the text books.  Now this is just another patience game for me to wait and get the monitors but I'll just have to keep it out of my mind until I finally do end up getting it.  Now reflecting back on this, I am just glad I even had savings to begin with to help me out when things like this happen.

Comments:
     Have any of you guys ever experienced anything like this before?  Whether your saving up to get a brand new car or finally taking that step to buy that house or move out, these problems always arise during the most inopportune times.

10 comments:

  1. Duuuuude...I can't even comment back, this happens so much to me.

    It's not even a creep, it's just a "Oh, you have 500 dollars in savings? NOT ANYMORE LOL!" from life itself.

    If it's not one thing, it's another and it's ALL important.

    Freakin'...just life.

    Next time I'm gonna roll up someone rich but with a good down-to-earth head on their shoulders. While I obviously critted on a couple of stat rolls, my starting income was in the friggin' negatives.

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  2. this kinda thing happens to me all the time.

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  3. I hate when this happens to me. Once to me and once to my girlfriend, in the last 4 months!

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  4. The oil light. I dread thatso much since I drive a 91 Toyota Camry and its barely running. One expensive repair and BAM back to thge poor house

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  5. This annoys me so much. All the time I am either "rich" or have no money at all.

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  6. I can sympathize with this, some of my friends argue well just have some money set aside to deal with random expenses! The problem is sometime you can be hit with3 or 4 things at once and then what are you going to do?

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  7. I've had to wonder if I'd be able to eat at the end of the month pretty much all my life, and I was homeless for two years, so I guess I've seen the shittier end of the spectrum. It wasn't until I was in my 20s I got some stability. I rarely desire things I don't need now though, I guess that's the good part of it.

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  8. I know what you mean, suddenly we went from doing "ok" to choosing between gas and groceries.

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