Dang, Thanksgiving just passed in a blur. I was either, shopping, eating, or working most of the time. It hasn’t built a relationship of trust with my scale either. BUT, Wednesday was a hard day for me.
O’Connor called at 5, and wanted me to work. We’d already scheduled to take our car in and Drew and I were already wide awake so we hauled the kids out of bed (that’s right, at 5 am) and took the Subaru to the dealership, left the keys in their lock box and they took me to work (btw, the kids went back to sleep once we got home and slept til’ 9 — Drew is a lucky man). I proceeded to work 12 hours… from 5 am to 5 pm — all of it being my on call/called back pay. Which is a lot.
I was dreaming of the dollar signs that our family would have in our bank account when Drew called me. It was 800 dollars for our Subaru to just have a check-up (we rarely take our cars to the dealership, and the Subaru rarely gets much more then an oilchange period, so we thought it was time). “800” I thought, but we gave-in since it was already there and I Was makin’ the bucks. LAter in the afternoon I found-out it’d be more like 1200… since we needed new brake pads. Guess how much Hilary made on her special day at work. Probably somewhere between 1200-1300…
So, there it went, all to Stevens Creek Subaru.
Yes, the car drives better.
Yes, it’s a relief to have it serviced and have that out of the way (since Drew has to be to work so early every day it’s difficult for us to take our cars in for service).
But MAN… EVERY PENNY I EARNED? Youch.
I was really having a hard time with it on Wednesday evening. We are really focusing on saving this year, and so far it’s been going well. Of course, when we’re saving we tend to also do things that we’ve put off for a long time that need to be done (like taking our car in for a check-up)…
It’s so hard to shift your mind to the fact that I should be grateful we made the money to pay it.
But, it’s a shift that needs to be made.
The glass is half full Hilary. Get on with it. 🙂
Having a Hard Time… with my attitude
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Lara says
Obviously, I agree with everything you just said.
You did save. Annoying as it is, you didn’t have to put it on the credit card so all is well.
Dang Cars. DANG them.
Bringhurst Family says
This reminds me of when we were moving to Texas and we had a huge garage sale and made 500$. The next day the car broke down and the bill was…$500. I was realing instead of hey what a blessing the $500 was just when I needed it. Nope it was more like grrr my car takes my money. It’s lame but at the same time perspectively a blessing!
Leslie says
Bummer. I know just how you feel because the very day before we had to drive 12 hours to Utah our car needed work – about $800 worth of work – ouch! Not a good time, but we did feel blessed that the shop was willing to work into the night for us(until almost 11 p.m.) because we had to leave the next morning.
Maybe the blessing for you guys was that you got called to work unexpectedly and made the exact amount you’d need. (not that it’s cool to fork over every penny for the car, but still little blessings)
mama bear says
Reminds me of a quote I heard on Sunday in RS. The gal said that when we pray for humility, we don’t just become humble, we get OPPORTUNITIES to develop humility (which usually sucks!). Same thing with patience, faith, etc., etc. Somehow your situation reminds me of this. You’ve been working to save money and you being called into work and earning the money you needed was a way for you to not have to dip into your savings. I would have hated to see it go to the dealer, but Leslie is right, I think it was all “in the plans”!