Current Mood: awake
Current Music: "The Deal (No Deal)" from CHESS
So I put myself about $1750 in hock (sort of; I still have $5,000 in savings but felt it better to finance, which I'll get to below) today, for reasons of both necessity and opportunity.
First, the necessity. When I picked this apartment complex, I got a place with washer/dryer connections even though I didn't expect to need them too soon. Having not used a coin laundry outside the University of Houston (where prices are probably artificially low at $.75/$.75, or were in 08) I thought it'd be no big deal...I used the free public laundry at CCRC and LWSB, after all. However, it became evident after one trip to the complex's Laundry Shed that I'd have to be mad to keep using it. The load capacity is badly undersized and it's $1.50 per load...I could either spend hundreds of dollars now on extra work clothes and bedsheets, spend $12 a week to do two loads twice (with the attendant time wasted in the laundry room because I was shocked to learn last time I lived in an apartment that people will totally steal your underwear. I mean, I kind of expected that creepy persons might steal ladies' undergarments, but the notion that someone might want my stuff was a genuine surprise.) Or I could pop down to Lowe's and take advantage of the fact that my credit is miraculously good enough to get a store card and thus qualify for 18-month same-as-cash financing. This weekend is also a tax holiday for appliances as long as they're Energy Star-compliant, meaning just about every front-loading washer you can buy was tax free. Additionally, my dad had spotted a really nice Whirlpool set he says should last me a good ten years for $825. So I made the buy and they'll be installed Saturday. Unfortunately, after tax on the dryer (I don't guess there is such a thing as an Energy Star certified dryer), the vent kit, the stacking kit and a power cable, it works out to just around $980. But hey, that's still only $54.44 a month and if I need to I can tap my savings to pay it down faster. (I actually plan to do exactly that after my paychecks start coming on 7/11)
Now, the opportunity. I've needed a new TV for a while...the one I got on indefinite loan from my dad is 22", the one that had been in my room is 32" and has all kinds of Issues with the HDMI jacks. (One of them doesn't work at all, the other hates the Playstation and you have to switch to another input, then back, every time you turn the PS3 on, change games, start a movie in Netflix, etc. etc. etc. Sometimes it gives you a flickering screen and it has to be turned off for two hours. Since the PS3 is my primary media device, that's a problem.) And anyway, I wanted a bigger one; the Wii I bought on a whim last summer with a bit of windfall has never gotten used to its full potential because I couldn't sit close enough to read the screen AND far enough to use the sensor bar at the same time. So I'd had to avoid any game that uses the Wii remote as a mouse pointer...which is a lot of the best games. (And another thing. I know that in terms of raw real estate, a 32" widescreen TV is roughly a 26" in old 4:3 terms. It still feels bloody weird to say that a 22" TV is too small, since I grew up with a 25" or 26" in our den.) So I'd been looking to upgrade, but knowing damn well I didn't really have much money to spend without, again, tapping my savings. I'd rather had my eye on an Insignia 46" TV...it had gotten a decent review from Consumer Reports (a "good" for audio quality and remote ease-of-use, "very good" or "excellent" for the other categories), is made from Samsung parts and has a good picture. It's not 3D or internet-capable, but the former is useless to me as my nystagmus and huge disparity in visual acuity between eyes makes 3D a headache, and the latter options on other TVs don't do anything my PS3 won't. The model year was over but new units hadn't come in, so I'd been slowly watching the price drop on bestbuy.com. Today it hit $700, and since I was already near there I decided to stop by. Sure enough, they had two left, and I was able to get it on 36-month financing...which works out to $21 a month after taxes. So yeah, totally bought that. Played a little Saints' Row 2, watched the first episode of Tiger&Bunny on Hulu+, and about ten minutes of Tron: Legacy to make sure it's working well (which it is). Wii is still packed up, though, so I haven't checked to see if I can play pointy games. Realistically, I could easily have paid cash for both of these. But it'd cut out over a third of my current savings, and I'd kind of like to leave that as untouched as possible. And if I really need to pay it off in a hurry, that option's still there. Frankly, I'm just happy to actually be making some home acquisitions on my own...this place is too full of gifts from relatives both new (kitchen table) and hand-me-down (recliner). I start work a week from today; my goals for this week are (a) get a haircut, (b) go see Front Line Assembly on Thursday night and (c) try to make it to the Capitol building. I've lived in Texas three quarters of my life, spent four months here in Austin last year and am now a resident...I really ought to. Oh, and get comics, duh. Any week we get the Avengers Academy/X-Factor/Thunderbolts triumvirate is not a week when I'm going to say "I'll go next week." |
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zqadams's journal
cynical
lonely
tired