It Costs Money

When I was younger, my mom always used to say, "it costs money just to stay alive."  I don't remember the circumstances, but I imagine it came up most often when I was a teenager and complained about how much things cost and the lack of money I had.

Today that phrase rang through my head over and over again.  I'm sort of in house-hunter mode, but the trouble is, we need to save a whole lot of money before we can actually buy a house out here.  So being in house-hunter mode makes me be in money-saving mode as well.  It's good, and I think I'm pretty good at saving money, but it can be so frustrating when unexpected expenses pop up!  You can't say "wait" or "no" to these.  For example, if your new (used) car has a leaky coolant line, you have to pay more than $400 to fix it.

I'm a big coupon girl, so today when I went to get the oil changed on aforementioned car, I printed off a coupon: $21.95 for a premium oil change. What did I end up paying? $69.95 plus tax! And that was a special offer. Ugh. I learned about synthetic oil today.

Those pesky little (and big) expenses that you don't anticipate. No fun.

What a downer blog post! I think I'll add a picture of Louisa to try and make this visit worth your time. Let me know if that did the trick.

The tide pools of Bean Hollow Beach

Enjoying the smooth pebbles on the beach