Sunday, May 24, 2009

Sunday, Money Sunday

Today was the kind of day that made me thankful to have savings.

It started innocently enough. I woke up early to meet a friend to go to a neighborhood festival in another city. (She drove.) While I spent a little here and there -- a corn dog, a (fairly expensive) frozen lemonade, and a Father's Day gift for my dad -- I kept things pretty much in check.

Back at her place, I commented that I'd thought about doing a little clothes shopping but wasn't sure I was up to it. We'd been out for a while, and I was hot and tired and ready to head home. But then I figured, well, it wouldn't hurt to look around. Besides, I had a coupon for the store.

So shop I did. I found a very cute shift, some leggings to wear under it, and (finally!) some white jeans. High-end designer jeans on sale no less. (I'm a very hard fit, so finding jeans that fit is akin to, say, spotting a white buffalo in the wild.) The shift and the jeans were on clearance; the leggings were just inexpensive. Still, it came to a hefty 100 bucks for the three pieces. Not cheap, but I figured that since I haven't bought any clothes in a while, why not?

I left the store, got into my car, and put my key in the ignition. Click. Click.

My car wouldn't start. Yep. That's right. There I was after my splurge with a car that wouldn't start.

I knew it was the battery. I called Triple A and a mechanic was there in 30 minutes. He was a very sweet young man -- thorough and patient. He ran some diagnostics and it turned out that my battery was completely fried. Even after being charged, it wouldn't start up without an outside power source.

So I had to buy a new battery. Yep. It has been an expensive Sunday. Days like this remind me of why it's I must stick to my savings schedule. I'd briefly considered going on savings hiatus to put it all toward the debt, but now that this has happened, I think it's more important to keep up with the deposits. Period.

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