Several large expenses are cropping up in my life, and they’ve conveniently chosen to do so a) at the same time and b) when I took an underpaying job just so I wouldn’t lose my mind. Causing the most fun at the moment:
The Bed. My bedframe, which has lasted me a good while and at least two moves longer than a cheap-ass Ikea piece of shit should, is falling apart. And this weekend it literally fell apart, though I’ve jury-rigged it so it works until I get a new one.
I knew after my last move it wasn’t long for this world, and I’d really wanted to get a fairly decent bedframe to replace it when it finally went. That was before my old job evaporated.
I’ve found a couple in the $600-700 range at West Elm that I really like, but right now I’m not sure I can afford more than the $200 it would cost to get another cheap, shitty Ikea frame.
Cost to replace: $200-700 + tax, depending on how good a bed I decide to get.
The Car. This isn’t as bad as it could be, particularly given that I’m putting about 700 miles a week on it, but my car is about to hit 120,000 miles, which means a 120,000 mile tuneup.
The dealer quoted me $500, my friendly local mechanic quoted me $300. Guess which one will be performing this maintenance.
I also need a battery, as I discovered a couple weeks ago, so that’ll be about another $100.
Total cost to ensure continued proper functioning of vehicle: $400 + tax.
The Clothes. This is at least for a happy reason, but the death-by-a-thousand-cuts this is causing is pissing me off a bit.
I’ve lost a lot of weight in the last 14 months, so a lot of my old clothes don’t fit anymore. I’ve dropped three jeans sizes, I’m now fitting about a size smaller shirts, and other articles of clothing are needing to be similarly replaced.
I’m trying to get away with wearing my now tent-sized old clothes as long as I can. I was always pretty good at camouflaging the actual extent of my fatassedness, so I can still do pretty well with a fair amount of my older stuff. But the number of items I can still get away with is rapidly declining.
I’m going to take a stab at thrifting for t-shirts and the like, but certain…delicates…you have to buy new, and that gets very expensive very quickly. Even buying stuff on sale from Old Navy, the cost to gradually replace my wardrobe is running around $100-200 a month.
It will continue to do so for much of the remainder of the year, until I stop losing weight.
Estimated cost through end of May: $200-400 + tax.
Grand total, that’s anywhere from $800-1500, plus tax, that I’ll be spending in the next couple of months.
The $600 “Please for the love of God save our economy!” check from W. and the gang will help, as will the fact that I’ve been making a fucking mint off of mileage at my temp job, which is helping to offset the crap salary.
However, I really would have preferred all these expenses come to me when I a) had a job at my normal salary and b) wasn’t coughing up for my health insurance out of pocket.
Stupid money.