Well, a calm demeanor and a reasonable prayer turned a bad situation into a good one this weekend. Go figure! On Saturday when Paul came home from work he mentioned that he had noticed that the dashboard lights in his car were dim and that his battery meter would sometimes slide down to almost nothing. Let me tell you, I have SO been there before. Every car I have ever owned has been a lemon and I knew that this was going to be an alternator problem. But, it was 3 in the morning on Sunday and Paul had to be back at work at 11 in the morning, so we had few options. Paul left for work at 10:15 and by 10:30 he was calling me from his brand new (well reactivated) cell phone (thank goodness we had just reactivated it) from the side of the freeway. He asked me to call a tow truck so I made some calls and discovered that tow trucks don't like to go to that area of town. 'It's the freakin' freeway!', I pointed out to no avail.
Eventually I found a tow truck that could go get him. (An interesting thing that I noticed was that there were maybe half as many towing companies in the yellow pages as there were in the Winnipeg yellow pages. I couldn't figure that out at all. And then all of a sudden I did. In Winnipeg I bet that 50% of tows are for dead batteries due to the cold. That would never happen here, hence, fewer companies. Warm climates are so weird.) So after a dozen phone calls I went to wake up Josh and ask if he could go pick Paul up, he was so sleepy that he just yelled 'you do it!' through the door. So, I made my first trip down Georgia's major highway, toll booth and everything! *proud* it was actually really easy since it was Sunday morning. I even merged okay. The only thing that freaked me out was that the speed limit is 55 mph and it wasn't until I sped up to 75 mph that I was even close to keeping up with the flow of traffic.
Anyway, I went and got him but by that time he was so late for work that he called and said he just wasn't going to come in. The tow truck driver called us an hour later and told us that the car was at the shop ($80 man! Every place I called was $45 + $2.50 per mile, yikes! In Winnipeg I got my car towed to my parents, about 30 miles away, numerous times for no extra charge!) But he was very nice and accommodating so it worked out well. Then we found out that the battery and alternator were both dead dead dead. However, Paul had just had them replaced last year so they were still under warranty. Whoo! Labor was still necessary to pay, but Paul's lovely and amazing parents agreed to put the $112 on their store card. Thank guys! And we managed to swing the $80 tow charge.
I felt really good about that. When a car breaks down it is so scary, it could be $1000 to fix it. But under $200 for a new alternator and battery? That's darn good. And they are still under warranty, so that rocks. I felt that a bad situation was resolved in the best possible manner.
I was worried about money again now though (notice how 2 days after I post our new financial plan we have an unexpected expense? Yeah.), but! Paul's parents have a jewelry business and every so often they sell a piece that Paul has created (yes, my man makes jewelry, thank you) and send us a check for it. So, they sent us $40 for a recent piece. And they suggested that we sort through Paul's current stock and send them some more for some more money!
AND, Paul had an old $100 bill, which I'm not sure if I had mentioned . The bill is ripped in half, but has slightly more than half of it intact. Our bank refused to give us money for it, but Paul had been told that they should. So, I called the Federal Reserve (who are really scary, by the way) and told them the problem. The woman I talked to told us that by law, our branch MUST cash in the bill for us. In fact, she said, very sternly, 'what is the name of the person who refused to cash the bill?' She kind of freaked me out, really. However, I called the bank back to day and told them that and they apologized and told us to come on in and they would give us fresh money for it (and offered us free checks too).
I'm feeling very hopeful right now. It's an unusual and great feeling for me, especially since I'm PMSing too. Now, back to work for me. Hope you can feel as hopeful as I do today!
4 comments:
So much excitement! That beats my boring, same old same old routine out of the water. Glad the bad news ending up being not so bad.
That's cool that Paul makes jewelry! Maybe you could help him do some of that, to send to his parents? That's neat.
Back to work I must go. Lunch is over!
Hey! I missed your last big post (re: movies) but I'm not sure I'd have had much to add- you and I pretty much always compare movies, and I haven't seen any lately. I saw Moulin Rouge when I lived on Prosper, I thought you were there when I saw it! I would have sworn up and down that you'd seen it before, I wonder what twist of space/time continuum kept you from hearing about it from anyone here.
Congrats on the bad-news-ending-up-not-so-bad and the bonus $100! Do they do consolidation loans in the US? Have you looked into it? I recommend it.
Well, I wish I could help Paul make jewelry but A) he doesn't really do it anymore (he is just going to give his folks the gems not the whole pieces, I believe) and B) I am not nearly that skilled! He makes the big fancy expensive kind like my tanzanite and platinum engagement ring and my emerald and gold Valentine's day gift ring. It is a little frustrating sometimes being so utterly inferior to my fiance!
And Laz, I have tried my utter best to get us a consolidation loan, but we did not qualify for one either at our bank (not enough collateral) or with a consolidation company because in order to go through them you have to make %50 per annum of what you owe. We don't. I told them that within the year I will be able to work and that hopefully Paul will be promoted by that time too. She seemed at a loss for what I could do. At that time though is when she suggested the alternative plan that I mentioned. (that is to pay off the small ones with little extra bits of cash and get back to her in a year at which point we should owe a little less and make more and have a smaller number of debts.
I have numerous concerns about this plan, but it appears to be the best we can do at this point.
Now, the credit management firm (non profit, unbiased) that I was dealing with said that if you owe a company $100 and they offer you to settle for $75 and you pay them that $75 then it will still always be listed on your credit report that you owe them $25. And, that the government then considers you to have earned $25 tax free and will take your taxes until that is paid off.
Now, I do not know if that is true. It sounds very fishy to me...and yet why would they tell me that? Anyone know?
Maybe I should write Suze Orman!
I don't know about the government taking the money to pay it off, but when you settle with a company for less than what you owe it WILL show up negatively on your credit report. As a charge off, or write off, or something, and other creditors can see that and realize you didn't pay the entire amount owed. There are supposedly ways to ask the company to not list it that way, but I don't know how often it works. it may take longer, but it's always a better idea to pay things off, rather than settle, especially when you are trying to establish your credit more. My (hahah) two cents, anyway.
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