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If you’re a parent, you might commiserate with the feeling that the last few weeks before school starts are always out to test the limits of your capacity.
Right on cue, life did that for me… again.
But this time, I was far more concerned with the additional disruptions to my life and not the $2,000 I hadn’t planned to spend this week on a new radiator for my car, extra nights in a hotel room and extra cash on food and entertainment while we waited for car parts to come in and find out exactly when we might be able to go home.
I may have have been financially secure for a long while, but I think this is the first time I can truly say a large and unplanned expense was at the bottom of my list of stress and worries!
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Here’s how it all went down:
We had made time to take a trip down to Northern Nevada and see some family and close friends. It had been two years since the whole family had made a trip down, and with the age and health of some of these people, it felt important not to let another year pass.
For these folks, it’s mostly about face to face time. But, after a few hours (and too many requests to turn off Fox News in the background) the visits are mostly done.
So, we planned a whirlwind trip. A day of driving down, 2 days of visiting, then a return trip home. That also means 5 nights at the kennel for our dog, another reason to keep the visit short.
Our first bad omen was the Hawk fire just north of Reno. We watched things and considered cancelling the trip. But, talking with multiple friends and family locally decided we could do it – but we’d have to go the long way instead.
The next day, during our first family visit, my son came in and said “Mom, your car is leaking.” At first we dismissed him, assuming it was some kind of condensation. But, lucky for us, he was persistent and said “no, it’s red! It looks like tomato sauce!”
Whelp.
And indeed it did.
My husband is fairly mechanically inclined and knew it was coolant. We figured we should probably take it in to get looked at before we drove home given that the car has over 200,000 miles on it. While I was making calls to the dealership, he was poking around the engine and looking for leaks or clues. When I turned the car on with the hood up we saw fluid coming hissing out of a small area on the radiator itself. A quick wipe with a towel revealed it to be a small crack. Fuck.
One good thing about calling the Lexus dealership was that they were able to get me in for a next day appointment at 8:30 in the morning. I however, didn’t feel good about driving the thing another mile if I could avoid and arranged to take the car in ASAP (in case I ended up needing a tow!) and crossed my fingers that a courtesy vehicle would be ready by then.
So far, I was just stressed, and assumed I would likely need a new radiator. But the cost, even if I was annoyed, wasn’t really bothering me. That’s part of driving old cars I said to myself. And plus, at least I’m somewhere that I can get a free car to use while they repair it and the dealership will surely move faster than my home shop!
The next day, they were able to confirm I’d need a new radiator, but the part probably wouldn’t be there for at least two days. And they couldn’t tell me if that was the only problem until they replaced it.
So we were in limbo. Two more nights in a hotel, or maybe four? Not to mention an absurd pile of appointments and to dos waiting back home for the upcoming week.
Interestingly, not worrying about the big expense didn’t mean I suddenly stopped caring about the rest of my budget. I still looked at 2-4 days of additional restaurant expenses and thought, NOPE (my wallet and my gut were in alignment here).
So, instead of hitting some of the food stops we might have, we went to Costco and got croissants (for breakfast) and bread (for lunch) with meat, cheese and salad greens, plus some chips and yogurt drinks. Some we kept in the hotel fridge and some in the fridge at my family member’s house. We had breakfast and lunch covered for 4 days and are still eating some of it now that we’re home, all for under $100.
And my dinner plan of an Italian restaurant we used to go to years back? That turned into Costco’s take and bake chicken Alfredo and more of the same salad that went on our sandwiches. We fed 5 people for dinner for under $20 and had more for my son to adjust his lunch plan the next day!
Talking later that night, we decided that we enjoyed the dinner at home with family much more than we would have dining out anyway. The food was good. It was lower stress, and there was no rush to get back to the hotel room.
I do admit that Friday morning was high stress. Would the part come in (I found out at noon it did!) and more importantly, would they be able to get it done in one day or would we be stuck until sometime on Monday, unable to head home until Tuesday!
Later in the afternoon I got a call about some rust and not knowing if they could mount the radiator… the part they should use was NOT in stock. Ahhhhhh. So I still didn’t know if I needed to start booking rooms for the next night or not.
Ultimately, they got it done and we were able to pick up the car by about 5:30 with the plan to head home early the next morning – luckily, we only lost 2 days on the jam packed week before school starts.
But I kept coming back to how amazing it was that I wasn’t really worried about the money. Like, what?
Sure, I was still anxious. Very anxious, actually (especially Friday). I hate uncertainty. I hate the layers of I can’t answer X until I know Y, especially when so many things downstream are impacted.
But money was not one of those variables. I didn’t have to worry which credit card had room. I didn’t have to worry that I might not be able to pay another bill because of this emergency expense. I didn’t have to calculate if we could afford another night in a hotel before we had camp on grandpa’s floor. I just had to deal with the problem.
I can be pissed off about it now, because it IS annoying and was probably more expensive than if I had been home and had the same problem, but no one will suffer over the additional expense. Nothing else has to give. There isn’t another financial problem waiting for me later because of this emergency.
And while it’s been true that I can afford these things for some time, I’m really glad that my nervous system seems to have finally gotten the message
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