Murphy meet the Farnes Family

Murphy showed up at the Farnes Family on Saturday. After a fun filled morning of Honey Do's and trying to prepare meals for my folks that were visiting, I pulled into the garage and walked around to go into the house when I glanced down to admire the dirt on my VW tires. Guess what I found sticking out the sidewall of my tire. Yup, It was "Murphy" in the form of a nail. I wasn't too concerned except for the fact I had to race down to Rocky's before all the air let out. Patches are pretty cheap. I dropped of the car and my Dad followed me down. The car was going to take a 1/2 hour to be fixed so we went for a drive. It gave me a chance to talk to my Dad about Dave Ramsey. He still can't figure out why I would volunteer to be the class co-ordinator for a course that is 13 weeks long and not get paid for it. I told him that the class had changed my views on money and debt and it was working for us and I had a chance to help other people, plus it's a good refresher course for Nicole and I. (I'm still working to get him on the plan remember the acorn doesn't fall far from the tree, but at least this acorn has a plan.)

Well back to the story about my car. I pulled back into Rockies and noticed the car was still in the bay. The Attendant was shaking his head at me as I wandered up to the counter with a worried pit that was now growing in my stomach. "Can't patch it" he said, "It's on the sidewall" Now if anyone hasn't seen the wheels on my car you might notice that there is not much sidewall between my rim and the tread. Only Murphy or Micheal Jordan could make a shot like that.

I then asked the next question but before I could get the sound to come out of my mouth, he had already told me that he had 2 17" that he could put on it. For safety reasons they can't patch a hole on the sidewall especially when the patch is larger than the area it needs to rest on. I asked him how much and said throw in a deal. He added it all up and then told me $239 I said a few other things silently in my head. $249 wasn't in the budget, My emergency fund is more like the jar of coins in my closet than an actual emergency fund..."Remember my Christmas story" Don't spend your Emergency Fund!!!

I said "OK" I only had one car and this was it. So I went to the teller and withdrew $240 dollars from the bank went and drove around for another 1/2 hour feeling like the stuff I cleaned up out of the backyard earlier that day. Returning now for the second time to the Tire shop I found my car was fixed and waiting for me with some new front tires. I went to pay and he added it all up and it came to $269 with tax. Doh! I said I thought you told me $239 so I went down to the bank and brought back 12 Uncle Andrew Jacksons. Cash! He looked at me and then at the money and said "I'll take care of you." and he marked the price down to give me the tires for the $240 cash that I had. I told him that I appreciated that and went about my way. I had wondered if I would have got the same deal using a debit or credit card.

The bright spot about the whole experience was that I didn't have to make a $428 car payment this month. So even though it wasn't in the budget. It worked out.