Unexpected Major Purchase Throws off Blogging for the Night

After a year full of household renovations, I didn't expect to have to make another major purchase for a while. But as I noted yesterday, I came home to a blinking, flapping, noisy refrigerator when I came home from work. I scheduled a repairman for Tuesday afternoon, and took off early to meet him.

Here's where repairmen get you: I'd already laid out the problem to the call-taker. The repairman had the information. It's a common problem with my particular refrigerator. But he had to come out to the house, charge me 50 bucks, and then tell me he can't do anything that day. In fact, they'd have to take out a part, send it to the manufacturer, and have them fix it, if they can fix it.

Minimum, this was going to cost me $600, and take anywhere from now til June. All of that time would be spent with no refrigerator in the house. I realize this is a whine, since I have the old unit in the garage, but it annoyed me anyway. So, I paid the guy his fiddy, and sent him away.

Then, I got in the car, and headed to Home Depot. Having already looked up three selections on my Mac while I waited for the repair guy to get me a quote, I went right over to them and compared. I narrowed it down to a Samsung, an LG and a Whirlpool. Then I zipped over to both Lowe's and Sears Outlet for a quick comparison, and back to Home Depot for the purchase, narrowed down to a Whirlpool, both on advice of the salesman, and due to features I liked better.

The  fridge will be delivered Friday, and they'll wheel the old (hey, eight years doesn't seem old for a fridge, but there you go) beast away for free. And my Discover Card got a bit of an unexpected workout. I thought I got a better deal than I really did though. It's true, the original price was $400 higher, and indeed at Lowe's, it is. But a search after the purchase found a price just a little higher than I paid everywhere else. So, the artificially-imposed "ending soon!" sale at Home Depot didn't make much difference.

In any event, I'll finally have a brushed stainless refrigerator, and the price was about what I paid in 2006. Now, I have to wonder, will this one need replacing in 2022? Oh my god that sounds far away, doesn't it? But now, I guess I'm not going to get much if any blogging done today. We'll see if I can find something before time to turn in.

Ice2-Oh No!

Way back in 2006, I had recently dug myself of a decade-long debt hole. I was free! Free at last! But I was advised to strategically rebuild my credit. Buy a largish item on credit, pay it off over two or three months. Wait. Repeat with small items, big items, etc. Never take a bite too big that you couldn't pay for it all at once. And I tell you, it worked like a charm! I really did rebuild my credit rating, and by 2010, it was doing pretty well. And then after buying my car that year and paying it off, the credit is sterling. The aim now, is to keep it that way.

But back there in the beginning of debt-free life, it was a little daunting. For my first strategic purchase, I'd decided on a new refrigerator. Prior to this, I'd never bought an appliance that expensive. Other fridges were either provided with an apartment, or were hand-me-downs. I'd decided that I wanted a Maytag Ice2O refrigerator. It was the first model with French doors, a bottom freezer drawer, and water and ice through the front. It was a big purchase, but I managed to find a floor model at Home Depot, and I'd settled for black rather than brushed stainless.

It started us on an appliance-buying trend over the next year, mixing the stainless with the black, and it looked great. But from the first couple of weeks, there were problems. I've detailed them here in a previous post, and I just noted that I started the post almost exactly the same way! Anyway, as noted, the water through the door never really worked. I was foolish in not insisting that the water line be properly fixed, while I had a warranty. So, it's never been fixed.

When I came home from work on Monday, I was greeted with a different problem. Clunk! Clunk! Clunk! The ice machine trap door was popping open and shut on its own. The control panel was blinking like a 60s sci-fi movie computer. I tried tripping the circuit, unplugging and replugging. Nothing worked. Clunk! Clunk! Clunk! Endlessly.

So, I've got a repairman coming tomorrow. I've managed to squeeze all of the food into the garage refrigerator. The Ice2O is unplugged and empty. Pulling the beast out was a trick, after the new granite (which has it wedged in pretty tight), and the fact that it's always been missing a screw-foot. So, since this is going to cost me through the nose anyhow, I'm going to see if this guy can also fix the water and the missing foot! It's worth a shot. And if the price estimate goes over a certain dollar, I'm booting the repairman, and going and buying a new fridge. Goddamnit.