My car…again…
I should stop going for oil changes. They always get REALLY expensive. This was my 90,000 mile maintenance thingie. There were a few problems I was aware of (like the fog light cable being disconnected, a low coolant warning light that was on, and a slow leak in my right rear tire) but they found more. Some engine mount thingies (my technical term) that prevent the engine from rattling were all dried up. (Another Saturn dealership mentioned this before, but said it would be okay for a while…) Fan belt (or some other belt) needs to be replaced. A couple leaks that need parts replaced. New front brakes. Total damage? Somewhere around ,400. Ugh. The transmission work that I had done three or four months ago was cheaper.
My credit card was screaming at me before, but now it’s REALLY biting at me. I have to pay off this debt somehow. Ugh. (Of course, had I known I’d have a huge car repair bill coming, I probably wouldn’t have gotten the TiVo. Sure, I only paid for shipping…but that lifetime membership fee wasn’t free.)
Ways I can raise money to pay off several thousand dollars of debt:
- Hope my Northeastern course actually has some students and they’ll let me teach it.
- Start brown-bagging my lunch.
- Do my stupid taxes and collect that return.
- Send in the rebates on my hard drive and TiVo.
- Finally dump my personal cell phone (I only use it for unlimited cellular Internet access anyway.)
- Collect on overdue convention hotel debts. (AX 2002 and Katsucon 9)
- Limit new DVDs to .hack//SIGN and Excel Saga v6.
- No more electronics until it my credit card’s paid off.
- Sell a lot of that crap in my basement on eBay, including:
- Old Star Wars toys
- Old GI Joe toys
- A Big Trak tank toy
- Some Lazer Tag guns
- Other misc junk
- No more Anime North.
- Seek out a couple consulting projects.