|
erieangel -> RE: Welfare benefit scroungers - the evidence just doesn't add up. (12/10/2012 9:49:24 PM)
|
quote:
A new car though? Really? A Toyota with 30,000 miles, of similar size to the sort of new cars that can be had in the $15k range, wasn't good enough? The depreciation hit, in exchange for seeing the odometer turn 10, surrounded by that new car smell, certainly isn't a luxury I can afford. Shit. You can replace your appliances for what it costs you the moment those brand new tires leave the dealership's driveway.
Yeah a new car. A Toyota Yaris. I traded in the 13 year old Saturn that I kept pouring into and still owned $4,000 on after buying it 2 years before from a J. D. Buy Rider. I had the $4,000 to pay off the Saturn and used it instead as a cash down payment for the Yaris; rolled $2,000 I still owed on the Saturn into the new car loan after the $2,000 I got for the trade. My payments are $10 a month more and I have no maintenance, don't even have to pay for an oil change for another 16 months. In the 2 years I had the Saturn, I put $1400 worth of repairs into it with another several grand being covered by the dealer warranty. But 2 of the repairs required me to take the car all the way to Cleveland (nearly 100 miles) and rent a vehicle for the week or more that it was there. And instead of going through an entire tank of gas each week just to get to and from work, I use about 1/4 tank. So now I can afford to visit family, friends and have a night out once in a while.
Yes, my life is pretty good compared to those people who are homeless, penniless and without hope. But my financial life could be better. I haven't had a raise in 3 years, nobody at my agency has had a raise. Last year, for the first time in its 50 year history, my agency had to lay off some staff when one of the programs was defunded by the county. Six months later, the county re-opened the program within a different agency with many structural changes to it. Both of my nephews are in that program and my brother told me just today that he and his wife have been fighting with the agency because they don't have the boys in speech classes. Neither of them talk and the older one does have a communication tablet but that isn't speech. The younger one, who actually has never talked doesn't even have a tablet. The older boy has talked, will talk when he feels an overwhelming need to do so--about 1 or 2 times a year--but isn't encouraged by his school or by his treatment team to do so to communicate.
|
|
|
|
