For as far back as I can remember, I’ve always been a thrifty person. After all, a penny saved is a penny earned, right?
Now, my husband thinks “thrifty” is a bit of an understatement, he is more of the belief that I go full-on Scrooge McDuck, whereas I see it simply as being practical.
I shop regularly at thrift shops for clothes and kitchen gadgets and I scour online marketplaces for deals when I need something bigger replaced, like a grill or a lawnmower. Recently, when a friend was updating his ceiling fans, I jumped at the chance for his (perfectly good) old ones.
They’re lovely, by the way.
My cell phone is nowhere near the current model, I own (and use!) a sewing machine to repair ripped seams, shorten hems or turn old pants into new shorts and I knit our cotton wash cloths and winter hats.
My husband’s car is 19-years-old with 300K miles on it — mine’s 18 with 200K. I don’t mind because: A). His runs just fine. B). Mine runs just fine. And C). I refuse to take on a car payment.
In short, I hate, hate spending money on unnecessary things. It just strikes me as being … wasteful. Which, when I was growing up, was about the worst thing a person could be, according to my parents.
Herein lies my current dilemma: What, in this day in age, defines “unnecessary?”
I mentioned above, my car is 18-years-old. It’s a 2001 Honda CRV — and I absolutely love it. This car has been the most reliable, trustworthy vehicle I’ve ever owned — and in turn, I’ve tried to make sure I take really good care of her.
She gets her oil changed promptly every 3,000 miles, I keep her clean (inside and out) and in return she’s never stranded me, or left me broken down on the side of the road. When something needs repaired or updated, I don’t mind, because I consider it just good maintenance — and a good investment.
But I’ve also been lucky. In the years I’ve had her, I’ve never had anything seriously go wrong. Just the usual tires, brakes and a new battery.
That all changed a month ago when my air conditioning went out.
Uh-oh.
At first, I wasn’t too concerned — I figured I just had a leak in the line somewhere. At worst I assumed maybe a clog? (In hindsight, I’m not sure what I was basing my assumptions on being that I know next to nothing about cars.) In any case, as the Summer temps continued to climb, I finally took her to the shop to see what the problem was.
Guys, the mechanic had the hood popped for about two seconds before he came back to the lobby to get me with a pile of what could only be described as “shrapnel” in his hand.
It was a classic “Well, there’s your problem right there” scenario and peering under the hood, directed by his flashlight beam, even I, with my complete lack of mechanical know-how, could see something was terribly wrong.
My AC compressor had, for lack of a better word, exploded.
Wonderful.
When it was all said and done, he said it was ‘gonna cost me around $900 to fix it.
Gulp.
I returned home to talk to my husband about it who, although wasn’t thrilled with the diagnosis, was immediately simply resigned to our fate. His position? You need AC, let’s cough up the dough. I, however, was a bit of a harder sell.
After all, it’s already September … Fall and Winter will be here soon enough and the heat in the car works just fine. I mean, yeah, having AC was nice, but was it 900 dollars nice? Do I really need air conditioning or can I just pull what the mechanic referred to as a “4-60” — 60 m.p.h, with all four windows down.
Truth be told, I’m still torn. It’s not that I don’t have the money to fix it, I do. I just don’t want to spend it on something as frivolous as cold air. I don’t know, maybe I really am too much of a spend-thrift.
But if “a penny saved is truly a penny earned,” I guess I need about 90,000 of them …
