Major Appliance Woes

Since the latter part of June, we have been beset by major appliance disasters. The same week that daughter Kari left for Virginia, our washing machine (some 13 years old) decided to lay down on us. We shop for all our appliances at a locally owned appliance store. They provide us with quality products and their pricing is actually better than Lowe's or Home Despot. Best Buy is not even considered. While Judy was checking the washing machines, our favorite salesperson, Bobby Bird, made her an offer on a new diswasher. She snapped that item up, and son Brad installed it (with my supervision) mainly because the old one was in the house when we bought the place 11 years back. It was suffering from corrosion, made lots of noise, and we had to wash the dishes before we washed the dishes.

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed a strange fault light on the oven panel. the oven was only 7 years old, but has given us lots of problems (and related costs) by blowing the control panel the only time we used the high temp clean that it was equipped with. Replaceing the control panel was about $550, and a new Kitchenaid oven (with all the new bells and whistles) was only $800.
So.....We replaced the durned thing.

This has been a fairly expensive month! Sometime, I don't know when, where or whodunit, but our Suburban was attacked in a parking lot. The damage was mostly to the front bumper. We drove it for a few weeks, finally I called Jeff, my trusty State Farm agent, and a close friend. We decided to have it repaired.

When the kids were home, it was almost an annual trek to Kenny Stidd body shop. He repaired all the dings and crashes that kids can accumulate, and I took the "burban to that shop for the repairs. Would you believe that a new front bumper repair, replace one light and touch up the paint was over $1300? I also had the windshield replaced, so the total cost was something over $1600! Anyway, I managed to settle with only $200 deductible on my part. Now tell me why I refuse to do business with GEICO, or any of the TV touted auto insurance companies. Jeff and State Farm have been my anchor for over 30 years, and I intend to stay a satisfied policy holder.

More later.....