We have had an unbelievable amount of financial issues lately. This all happened in a matter of days. 
First our toilet seat broke off. The next day, our garage door opener broke so we couldn't get the cars out of the garage. We couldn't go anywhere until we had a repair man came in to repair it.
Next we stopped services with our cable TV service due to cost and went to Dish Network. The guy was here five hours installing it and we spent at least four hours on the phone for four days arguing with them about the instructions we had given them and the installation was all wrong. We wanted out of the two year contract due to all of these issues and I said we are entitled to get out within three days.
Then we went out and bought a Sears dishwasher, refrigerator, microwave, garbage disposal, new oven and new range top. Each of them have had problems whereby we had to call them in to fix these items. They have came over to our house a total of six times already. The microwave now does not work again. We bought a new coffee pot and it broke today. I put bacon in the microwave, after they supposedly fixed it and my bacon burned.
I am very neat and tidy around my house now as a result of watching those Horders shows that come on Monday nights. I have gotten rid of EVERYTHING that we didn't need. We donated everything to charity. The house looks incredibly different. Where once we were sloppy, we are now very sickeningly neat and tidy. I went out and bought drawer organizes for every room in this house. I can't believe how great all of the drawers look and how fast and easy it is to try to find something you need right away.
Also we had some inspectors out spraying for bugs and they had went into our crawl space and said they found a foot of standing water with serious black and white mold. He said we can't wait on this. Well we don't have $12,000.00 to have this repaired. Now that we have the house all neat and clean, repainted, and new floors on, I decided our best bet since we are in such a financial bind, we should buy a house half the cost of ours. (maybe check into these foreclosure homes or HUD homes). I'm going tomorrow to meet with a real estate agent.
As far as saving money, my husband and I sat down and figured out the bills each month. Much to his surprise, he thought we were doing great financially, until I showed him that we spend more then we bring in. He used to have great commission, raising our income to over $100,000 a year. Now it's about half that. So we are now selling his pride and joy, $42,000 truck with very low mileage for only $18,000 and his brand new 4-wheeler for half the cost of what we paid. We decided that we are now being forced to go on a budget and STAY on one.
Since we both need to lose about 50 pounds, we decided we are just going to eat fruit and vegetables, only chicken and fish, no bread, no sweets, no junkfood. So I am guessing after maybe six months, we'll be in a much better financial shape and as well as good physical shape. He said we can't even afford groceries now with this new budget. I also decided we are going to have a garden so we don't have to go to the store for fruit or vegetables.
By Mary from Godfrey, Illinois
Do you have a frugal story to share with the ThriftyFun community? Submit your essay here: http://www.thriftyfun.com/post_myfrugallife.ldml
Add your voice! Click below to comment. ThriftyFun is powered by your wisdom!
I hope you don't mind if I saw the humor in your little article; with a little tweaking I could see it as a novellette along the lines of The Egg and I. Think about it.
Really? Most things in life have nothing to do with luck; just bad planning. Plan financially for the worst and most problems will take care of themselves.
We have had great luck with used appliances - much cheaper & we haven't had any major problems. I wouldn't buy a whole set of appliances at once, but acquire them over time.
Things will start going right soon, they have to! Have you thought of checking you aren't getting power surges? This could be what is breaking all your appliances. Meanwhile good luck with it all1
Bad luck! It sounds like a country song. It is weird how things happen at the same time.
Keep the chin up
: )
Fru xxx
www.yearoflivingfrugally.blogspot.com
I hope you're able to take the appliances back or get refunds on those that aren't working!
I had the same money talk with my husband the other day and we have never had this type of talk before in 16 years of marriage! He takes care of all the money stuff and I make sure I only spend money on groceries. It was sort of enlightening. Basically, we decided in the end, we had to work more hours. I'm still not crazy about the idea, but I will try other ways to discuss this topic more often and see what else we can do. We have a lot of dental/school bills that must get paid up front, so I'm sure there are ways we can cut back or save more. I will read more topics about these issues and see what others have done!
First I would report to any and all agencies the companies that refused to work with you. I would go first to the BBB on line and file a report, and to the corporate offices of those companies that the people did those things, you have to go over peoples heads in companies to get results.
Also look for the executive VIP or whatever the owner of the company is and tell them your story about the breaking of the computer and also consider small claims court, if you wish but definitely let the BBB know what happened. I have an email site I get all the time it is about recalls and it has complaints of people who have been treated wrongly by companies, I would even go to the news, and put this in a letter to the editor in the local newspaper. Don't keep silent about this.
This also reminds me of the truth in that the more you have, the more you have to pay for to keep it up, and the verse in the Bible that says not to borrow trouble from tomorrow and that today has plenty of it's own troubles to deal with.
You have a knack for writing, this needs to be published somewhere besides here...this is so funny, I am not laughing at you at all, but because of the lighthearted way you show everything and then at the end mention buying another house...this is too good! You have writing talent, although it is hard to break into pay writing, this is so obvious one of your talents.
Those shows on TV about hoarding and the Clean House show have got me to doing this cleaning out too, and I mean it is really one of those shows that gets me to thinking...this is what could happen to me. LOL.
Happily my husband does the bills and he balances the books but there are some places we need to look at too, and then there is always room for improvement in the financial situation.
Thank you for sharing this, and brightening my day by the writing style, and I wish you lots of results in your reporting of these inexcusable actions by these major companies.
Blessings, Robyn
Add your voice! Click below to comment. ThriftyFun is powered by your wisdom!
