An Expensive Time

This September-October period is always an expensive one for me.

The main thing is the car – because I got it in October , it means that this six weeks or so includes MoT (and any associated fixes), Service, Tax, and Insurance Renewal. This time it also included a visit to the local dealership to get the handbrake cables replaced (because KwikFit decided they couldn’t/wouldn’t do it, and some other load of old cock that they told me) as it wouldn’t have passed the MoT with them un-fixed.

The handbrake thing is one that’s been going on as long as I’ve had the car – every other MoT gets a warning about “handbrake too high” or “little reserve play/motion”, whoever’s fixing it does something, and it’s OK again – but it got a better-ish fix at KwikFit last year, and then got worse again recently.  So far the newly-replaced cables seem to have sorted everything though.

Anyway, the MoT was yesterday, and it passed fine.  It failed initially (but only for misaligned windscreen washer and misaligned headlights) but was then fine.  Not bad for a car with 220,000 on the clock!

The insurance renewal was mentioned elsewhere, as it was farcical, but is now fine – and I’ve managed to keep it at the same level as what I was paying for the last year, so happy day.

Alongside that (because God Knows, I’m shit at planning) it’s also been time to sort out my tenancy renewal on the new place – which has involved a small-ish raise in rent, although not as much as initially suggested.  And then I also ended up organising for a company to come and deal with the front garden and so on, because it’s a bombsite and needs dealing with (and I am emphatically not a gardener!)

So yeah, it’s all been a bit costly.  Utterly doable though (which is lovely, and still a good thing compared to ten years ago) and at least I know it’s now all organised, so the rest of the year isn’t too bad at all. Thankfully!