I have never claimed to be wealthy, in fact we are not. However; we are pretty frugal and on top of that we have done nothing to spend money outside our regularly scheduled spending, like groceries, in about 3 years.
Which is a really, really good thing.
The first year of no spending was my wheelchair adventure, followed by physical therapy, followed by a five day stint in the hospital with blood sepsis (do you know they told me I almost died??), followed by a month of bedrest, followed by resumed physical therapy and then Merry Christmas. The next year was COVID and this year is much of the same.
So, we had some money. For us, it seemed like a lot. Of course, that ain't saying much. I remember when we first got married, we had $34.00 left over one month and it was like we'd won the lottery. That's the kind of mentality you are dealing with here.
Anyway, in June things began to fall apart. We had to have a new air conditioning unit in the sun room. The "old" unit was 22 years old. that was nearly $4500.00 dollars. We had to have (yes, I know you don't "have" to have) a new dishwasher unit. Right at $2100.00 and I still don't have the dishwasher, but that's another story entirely, apparently the song the whole country is singing "We can't get it shipped to our warehouse". Then, the fella who was doing our pressure washing told us the screws on the metal roof were coming out. The people who put the roof on put screws that were too short, way- to- save- money- may- you- pay- for- it- in- other- ways- roof- man. Believe this or not, $3,000.00. We had a small leaky spot on the bathroom ceiling. The guys who did the long screws that cost more than gold apparently, said there had been one screw completely out and that was probably where the leak was because the rest of the roof looked good.
He was wrong.
We had now a giant moldy ceiling. He got a little biddy feller to crawl up in our attic. Our 34 year old sky light was leaking. Good-bye $2400.
My digital pad that controls oven temperature went out (again). $345.00.
And after that, every time we preheated the oven it stunk, stank. Until the last time it smoked and we thought it was going to catch fire. Guy came. Wasn't his fault, one had nothing to do with the other, the mice that had stored dog food everywhere else had stored it under the floor of the oven. One pile was ashes, the other blackened. He said he had no idea why it didn't catch fire. But he cleaned up the mess and put the oven back together. He felt sorry for us because I talked about all the above and only charged $60.00
Our laptop stopped connecting to the internet. $95.00.
One afternoon Husband and I went outside to look at something or other and couldn't get back in. Our outside part of our door doesn't have a door knob, rather a handle and a latch you push down with your thumb. It broke. Had to break a window pane to get into our own house. Husband took the handle off, which left us with a door knob size hole in the door. Now, I didn't want to leave it like that, who wants a hole in their door?
So I figured out how to fix that. It's called Appalachian Ingenuity:
For you city slickers who don't know what that is, it's a canning lid for when you home can food.
New door hardware, $100.00
And some other miscellaneous stuff, $825.00. We have yet to pay our work man for putting the door back together because he's coming next week to repair the bathroom ceiling and put a new window pane in and we'll pay him for all of it at once.
Oh, and did I mention all cars decided to tear up in some shape, form or fashion? $4100.00
This adds up to a million dollars. Don't bother to count it, I know for sure.
I wonder if we have $34.00 left...
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