The Cost of Working

So I thought, get a job, have more money, right? Not so much for us as it turns out.
The first and one of the most expensive costs was the car Jer just had to buy me for my commute to work and back, he felt the overall expense and extra miles on the minivan would justify the purchase....not sure if it worked out like that or not but I have to admit, I LOVE my car. Next the dog, my sweet little Daisy did not enjoy the 10-12 hours alone each day while we were at work, we found her a wonderful new family, and with many tears delivered her and all her expensive dog stuff to her new family.There were stitches for Addison, after falling on her way to her brothers bus stop with her daycare.

Also, the day Jer backed his car out of the garage and took off his side mirror....I think he cried.
Shortly there after the sensor went out on his fancy car door handle that allowed it to sense the keys in your pocket, for a week he had to actually take the keys out of his pocket and push the "unlock" button.....we had to buy a whole new handle, not cheap.
Or one of my favorites, two days of cold water because our hot water heater went out the first week of February, we found a new one on KSL but in an attempt to save money decided to install it ourselves, it took us 4 hours to empty the old one by hand.
One morning our garage door fell off....really, it fell off. It's fallen off it's hinges before and we've either put back on or paid someone else to do it, this time it was all bent and ruined, we replaced it....garage doors are definitely not cheap.

One of my favorite expenses was the pretty red calipers Jer put on his car, he did all the work himself and they turned out great only problem was while the car was lifted the jack slipped right into the radiator, we then had to replace the radiator.
I believe it was around this time Jeramie entered what I like to call his "Tire Obsession" phase.




He bought and bought, he bought for my car, his car, his car again, entire sets of tires. Anytime there was a good deal he bought, snow tires, winter tires, summer rims with tires on them, winter rims with tires he doesn't really need and will probably sell. Eventually due to lack of space, and I assume finally finding just the "right" tires he stopped buying and started selling, we can finally park in the garage again.

Shortly after exiting his "tire obsession" Jeramie began his "biking obsession" with the nice spring weather came a love of mountain biking, he went several times a week with friends from work.
He usually came home covered in mud and for those first few months...blood. He took some kind of fall nearly every ride, and although covered in scabs he seemed to be having a really great time. Biking was worth every penny it cost us, he lost 30 lbs and finally there was more mud than blood. He was even working towards a new mountain bike by hitting his goal weight, all was well until one tiny little fall in a Draper canyon.
THIS tiny little screw must be made of gold for all it cost us. Two casts, many x-rays, surgery and this tiny little screw.....I have not even added it all up, but it won't be pretty.

There was that air conditioner issue that took two house calls and way too much money to fix.

The scariest expense of all was the day driving home from work, Jer said his car just "popped" we had it towed to the nearest Accura dealership, and cringed when they told us the repairs would be over $3000. Jeramie being the ever optimistic one, felt sure that extra warranty he purchased with the car would cover the expenses. We fought back and forth for several weeks but in the end they "don't cover spark plugs" and that got them out of paying the bill, OUCH!

Addison's little tonsillectomy last week finished off our family out of pocket maximum, so I'm going to schedule every kind of doctor appointment out there to get my money's worth. Looking back, we wouldn't have been able to cover most of these costs without my job. I'm glad in addition to being a great experience it allowed me to upgrade a few things around the house.