Let No Good Deed Go Unpunished

After dropping off some household items for the MV Big Flea, a community flea market fundraiser to benefit our neighborhood elementary school, I was attempting to back out of a narrow alley and managed to sideswipe the mirror off the driver’s door of my car.  Fortunately, the swiping was courtesy of a utility pole rather than someone else’s vehicle.  Unfortunately, preliminary estimates put the cost of repair in the several-hundred dollar range, far more than the value of the items I had just donated.  I’d have been better off had I stayed home and just written them a check.

However, my luck was not all bad.  My father happens to be an auto mechanic and I spent lots of time at his elbow in his garage–yes, I was a bit of a tomboy and probably the only girl in my 6th grade class who knew how to bleed a brake line.  Though I have since moved several states away from where I grew up and thus too far for him to make the repair, he convinced me that the job would not be that difficult and that he could tell me over the phone how to do it.  He was able to get the replacement mirror at cost for me, $75 including shipping.  (To go through a garage here would have cost almost $200 just for the mirror, plus the labor charges to install it.)

Armed with my new mirror and a very basic set of household tools, I commenced to tear the car door apart in order to install the new mirror.  I got off to a poor start when I found that I didn’t have the proper tool to remove one of the screws (which Dad told me later was a TORX screw), but with a little stubbornness and ingenuity I managed to jam an Allen wrench in there to get the job done.  About 30 minutes later I was proudly adjusting the new mirror, door panel firmly reattached.  And yes, the electronic controls for the door locks and windows still worked, too.

In terms he can understand

A conversation with the boy this morning, during the usual dawdling as I’m trying to get out the door to walk him to preschool.

Me: You know, if I’m late for work, I’ll be in big trouble with my boss.

The boy: You’ll be in Big Time Out?

Me: No, but if I don’t work, my boss won’t give me any money.  And we use the money to buy the things our family needs. 

The boy: We use the money to buy my toys?

Me: That’s right, your toys, and all the other things that we need for our family.

The boy, suddenly walking very quickly: Let’s go, mommy.  Walk fast!

Recurring monthly expenses

An interesting take on getting your budget under control from Philip Brewer on Wise Bread. He maintains that it’s the recurring monthly expenses, not the isolated purchases, that bust your budget over the long term.

Most books and articles on personal finance exhort you to make cuts in the budget for ephemeral items first, because that’s the easiest place to find something you can cut right away. They’re wrong, though: Start with the recurring monthly expenses.

And, he points out, fancy coffee drinks are often used as an example of ephemeral items to cut. But if you are buying lattes frequently enough to impact your budget, then they really should be considered a recurring monthly expense as well.