There goes most of the progress I made..

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-05-2004
There goes most of the progress I made..
4
Thu, 09-09-2004 - 12:23pm
I'm sure you've all been there at some time. Just when you think you're making progess, something comes up. A couple of months ago, unexpected car repairs pretty much put me at rock botton. Credit and savings pretty much used up. I was so worried about bouncing checks before the next paycheck (luckily that didn't happen). Since then, I've been really diligent about my budget, paying off my line of credit and working on CCs and starting to feel really good about it (even though I have a REALLY long way to go to be debt free). To make a long story short, my car is back in the shop today and I'm looking at about $300 to fix it. I really won't know until they call me w/ the grim details. I spent a lot of time looking into the problem yesterday so when I dropped it off this morning and talked to the service manager, I knew what I was talking and told him the problem instead of saying "this is what's happening, I don't know what it could be." At least I feel a little less likely to be "taken" when I go in w/ a little knowledge and they know it. But anyway, I hate the fact that I'm going to have to spend this money and put me back a month or so on my payments. I realize I should be preparing for these emergencies, but it's hard to have an emergency fund in place when you've only been seriously budgeting things for about 6 weeks.

Oh well, this too shall pass. Thanks for letting me vent.

AM

Avatar for zaboz
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Thu, 09-09-2004 - 1:37pm
I'm with ya! I posted above about how our car DIED. How's that for knocking you back a bit?? But, you're right, it will pass. And I'm sure we're both in better shape for it then we might have been in the past.
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-25-2003
Fri, 09-10-2004 - 2:03am
Ouch. Our car is on it's last legs, too, so I can empathize.

You're still in a better position than if you hadn't been paying things off for the last 6 weeks.

Good luck! I hope the bill is less than you think it's going to be.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-05-2004
Fri, 09-10-2004 - 1:57pm
Well, it ended up costing me $380 to have it fixed. I could have been a LOT worse. Now instead of putting $600 of the next paycheck to my targeted CC, I'll put $200 toward it and the other $400 to paying this bill off. At least this didn't put be back at rock bottom/square 1. One good thing is that I was able to take care of this (even though I did have to charge it) and know it would be covered and that I could pay that card back quickly. I didn't spend days worrying about it and losing sleep over whether or not I could scrape together the funds. So I guess I really am better off than I was 6 weeks ago and I feel good about that. I've got a few other things that need to be done on the car, but they said it wasn't a rush (can you believe that!?!) and that I could have it done over the course of the next couple of months. That means I'll be able to take care of with CASH, not credit!

So this is now behind me and I'm reworking my budget to make up for this hiccup in my plan. I'm so glad I found this group!

AM

Avatar for cl_phocid
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Fri, 09-10-2004 - 7:16pm

Hey AM - any news on the car front?

All my best,
Danni