Renovation is expensive and difficult to keep on budget.

Around here, the short term budget is a little tight as we move into the final stages of the living room remodel. We can handle it, partially because we planned well and used a 0% financing deal for the costly flooring investment. We're disciplined and use these finance deals fairly regularly, paying them off well before the big interest hit comes into play at the end. Sweetie handles the books perfectly, every time. Why would we pull from interest-earning savings when we can use the merchant's money for free? As all projects do, we got hit with a few construction overruns. We managed to absorb them as we went.

But sometimes unplanned things, outside the current project, give a swift, precision kick to the wallet and drop your plan gasping to its knees. For instance, who could have foreseen the colossal financial impact our family budget would suffer due to an utter and complete unpreparedness for the season where legions of uniformed Girl Scouts besiege the entrances to every shopping center in the county, with their diabolical cookies? I simply lack the fortitude to walk past a smiling little commando, as she dual wields Samoas and Thin Mints, without reaching for my wallet. (Note to self: double-check the ladder's maximum weight capacity rating against my new-found pounds.)

Breakfast of Champions

Then, another hit. Literally. On my way to work this week, some mental-giant in a Honda Odyssey decided to cross three lanes of traffic and stop across the fast moving left lane lane blocking a pack of speeding morning commuters in the darkness. It caused a chain reaction of ricocheting vehicular pinball madness that resulted in a fast moving Mustang skimming across my front bumper and running me off the road. Luckily, the stability assist feature in my truck helped me maintain control and avoid a streetlight when my tire blew out on the curb. Even more lucky was the that bus stop I found myself parked in was vacant and a couple inches higher than my roof rack.

Hanging out at the bus stop.

I know there were several vehicles that hit each other in the pandemonium. I heard the impacts. I saw the skid marks and bits of plastic in the road. Of course, every single one of those turkeys boogied-out, at great haste. I was only able to catch a partial plate number on the Mustang before the throaty roar of its big V-8 disappeared into the darkness.

One of the special treats about living in Arizona is a cornucopia of possible reasons why people may abandon an accident scene. There are undocumented immigrants afraid of deportation. There are people with minor criminal warrants, terrified of being sentenced to the humiliation of pink underwear, green bologna, and freezing nights of Sheriff Joe's "Tent City." There are uninsured drivers. There are common people afraid there is a loaded firearm in every other car, ready to settle traffic altercations like it's the O.K, Corral.

Regardless of reason, I was alone on the roadside with a busted wheel, flat tire, and a pounding heart.

$480 worth of aluminum and rubber.

Surprisingly my truck body was only a little scratched up. Nothing serious. I have to contend with a $300 wheel, $180 for a tire, and an alignment to be roadworthy again. I can't DIY this particular project; regrettably it's not in my wheelhouse. Hopefully, the suspension is OK. I won't know until I get the wheel back on, but  if major repair is needed, we'll have to make an insurance claim.


This is definitely not in the budget. We could have done a lot of DIY renovation work for this kind of money.

Crap.

P.S. - No, before you ask, the new "spare tire" in my mid-section from ingesting 2 metric -tons of Girl Scout cookies will not fit a Honda Ridgeline. 

Follow my blog with Bloglovin