You feeling that pressure? Feel like you’re in a vise? That’s this April. That’s this frigging grand cardinal cross and the April 15th total lunar eclipse. Ugh.
All of a sudden, I need new glasses. (My doctor pointed out that I practically put my face into the computer screen, and it’s probably not helping the herniated disks in my neck. Did I mention that most days, my arms are numb from the elbows down? But not in a good way — it kind of hurts and it’s hard to hold onto things. I haven’t played the guitar in a long, long time, which makes me sad.)
This time around, I’m going to buy glasses online. But I’m mildly anxious about telling the optometrist at the local eyeglass place I won’t be giving her my business. Isn’t that insane? I mean, they’re the ones jacking up the prices so high that people can’t afford them. $500 for glasses — I’ve owned cars that were cheaper than that! And the actual costs are much lower.
But the real worry right now is my car’s air conditioner. Oddly enough, this happened last summer. It stopped working on a Saturday (I remember it was a Saturday, because I stopped at a Pep Boys, figuring it just needed more coolant.) The parts manager told me it was the coolant pump and it was $700. No way, I said, and left. It started working again, so I put it out of my mind.
A couple of days ago, it was hot and I went to put the AC on. Uh oh. I called the mechanic who did the head gaskets and he said now that he thought of it, there was no coolant in it when he worked on the engine, and it probably had a slow leak. That night, I remembered what happened last summer. And now I’m really pissed, because the thought of going through a Philadelphia summer without an air conditioner in my car is rather daunting.
There are a lot of things in my life that would be a lot simpler if I had a credit card, but I don’t. I recently considered putting a few hundred bucks aside to get one of those secured cards that rebuilds your credit, but then my catalytic converter went and there went that idea.
How about you guys? Where are you squeezed right now?
If you have friends with a Costco card their eyeglasses are reasonably priced re: quality and they have a decent replacement program (1 year or so?) for accidental breakage.
Thanks, the online places are much cheaper. As in, $50 a pair with everything!
(You’re gonna hate me but, God willing and the creeks don’t rise, I’m not actually feeling squeezed. I have in the past, and I’m sure I won’t escape in the future. But not right now.)
About the slow AC leak. In my case, I fixed a car two (three?) times for a slow coolant leak. It was some hundreds each time, just like your quote. The fix would last a couple of weeks and I’d be right back where I started. YMMV, but I see the choice as being a hot car (only literally, of course) or a new car. 🙁
For your slow AC leak, just google ‘slow ac coolant leak fixes’ and see what you can do with that…
What am I squeezed about? I’m laid off from my job. Again. Luckily this time my partner has a job. We’re still paying on the credit card the $22K cost of fixing the foundation on our little house. They wouldn’t give us a home equity loan or HELOC because we are in HAMP and Citi lied to us when they told us we HAD to be 90 days delinquent before being eligible. Our savings and 401Ks are just about gone trying to prevent that. Oh well.
My hip is giving me tremendous pains so I’m trying to get all tests and all done before my insurance runs out at the end of the month. All this pain limits the jobs I can apply to at this point.
I’m 50, my partner is 60 and once again we find ourselves fucked.
I’m sure I’m able to come up with other squeezes (like our aging pets needing serious care) but I’ll leave it at this.
Enough for now, I figure!
Best possible health and good wishes to all here.