No more debt

Almost, still have the mortgage, but we are now officially consumer debt free. It's not what you think, it's worse.

Van

We were at my folks place to fill up our water bottles. We can't afford to replace the reverse osmosis thingy in the kitchen, so we are using "bottled" water. We have several 18 & 15 litre jugs that we are re-filling from my parents taps. We can't afford to buy water. Nor can we afford to replace the water softener. Our dishwasher is dying because of the hard water, and I am sure our other appliances are slowly being damaged as well.

Anyway, after filling the bottles, I went to start the van to move into the street, when the engine quit, the lights went out, the radio went out, nothing worked. I barely held it together. If my dad wasn't there, I would've lost it and probably beat the living crap out of the van. We fiddled with the a few things, nothing worked. I disconnected the battery and re-attached the cables. Lo and behold, the van started again. And guess what, the enging light also didn't come back on. Could be it was just a looses connection or something...

Anyhoo, a couple of days later, the engine light came back on... sux to be me.

Oh, and another thing, we are using the van because we can't afford to use the car. So we park it at my wife's work, she has a subsided spot. The underground parking is pretty tight, you so you have to maneuver the van pretty carefully to get 'er in and out... A few times now, when the wife is pulling out of the spot to drive over to my work to pick me up, she turned a little too quickly out of the spot, and dented and scrapped the door and rear fender too, looks like ass, but at least it still runs.

recent car activities

hey, just to get the ball rolling...

I had a car accident labour day long weekend. Nothing major, just hit a guard rail. At the time all it cost me was a new tire and rim. The rest was just cosmetics, I can live with that.

Last month, the alternator went in the van, got it replaced. But the van is still acting up, lights in dash flicker in time to engine vibrations.

A few weeks ago, the car sounded like it was about to take off (like a prop plane) as I speed up. Back to the mechanic, and had the wheel bearing replaced. Was told at that time the clutch is starting to slip... has now gotten to the point that I can't drive it because of it. Oh did I mention the driver's seat is so warped. It has started to give from the weight of my fat ass, again. I can't get the car fixed cause we're so broke, I can't afford the $1000 to get it done. Or the $200 to replace the seat at a wreckers.

So in the meantime we are using the van... guess what?, engine light is now a steady yellow on my dash... not to mention that the van uses more gas on our daily 80km round trip commute.