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My husband has to pay his university tuition this week. He doesn’t register for classes for another month and a half and they won’t give him his financial aid until that time but they demand full payment now.

Doesn’t make sense? If there is one thing I understand clearly, it’s that college finance departments make absolutely no sense.

Every year, we request a delay of payment until he receives his financial aid check and every year they turn us down. Then, two months after we pay tuition, the school sends us a reimbursement check for nearly the full amount we paid.

In the past, this hasn’t been a problem. We put the tuition on the credit card and paid it off when his financial aid reimbursement check arrived. Silly me got so ticked off at my credit card a few months ago, I cut it up – shredding my emergency parachute in the process.

So now we’re left in a scramble trying to dig up $3,000. Why weren’t we prepared? I completely and stupidly forgot.

If I empty our spare cash and juggle some payments, I can do $1,900.

I’m looking for stuff to sell. Hubby better watch out. His tools are looking mighty nice about now.

I burned 4 ½ hours at the mall this weekend. I wandered the stores with my budgeted cash in hand, searching for a reason to part with it. Signs marked ’40 – 50% Off’ gleamed in high gloss red paint, enticing me to spend, spend, spend.

I did spend…

$23.

Turns out, spending money on Christmas gifts for the first time in two years isn’t as easy as I thought it would be.

Given, it is hard to get into the Christmas spirit while shopping in a tank top and shorts.

Dear San Diego,

In case you missed it, we are in the month of DECEMBER, not July. Please adjust to more appropriate temperatures. Ninety degrees doesn’t exactly scream winter wonderland.

Oh well, there will always be next year.

OK, OK. I caved.

I’m Christmas shopping this year.

We took a two year hiatus and as silly as it sounds, one of my favorite parts of Christmas is time spent wandering around the outdoor mall on a Saturday night looking for a sweater or a warm pair of socks for my husband. I love the smell of the giant decorated trees. I love the carolers singing in their early 1900’s garb. I love it all.

We aren’t going overboard. We aren’t buying gifts for his second cousin twice removed or my great aunt on my dad’s cousin’s side. But there will be a gift under the tree with a fat name tag that says ‘CHRIS’.

Dave Ramsey will simply have to forgive me.

Are you celebrating this year? Or am I by myself on this?

Five years of perfect behavior.

Five years of no break-downs.

Five years of easy flying.

Now, my car is acting like a rebellious child.

Brakes. Gone.

$280. Gone.

Thankfully, my husband’s new pay raise will cover it so our debt payment for December should be normal. Plus, we’ve both been working side jobs so we may actually make a dent this month. Whew!

Oh no. I think I just jinxed it.

I set up the spare bedroom for ‘Murphy’. Apparently he’s planning to be here for a while.

When we returned home from our trip, my car refused to start. My 5 year old battery has been hanging on for far too long and finally decided to quit. My husband replaced the battery over the weekend and the troubles worsened. The car, an automatic, started stalling. Stalling, stopping, and restarting is always super fun in the dark at 5:00 a.m. when you are a female driving alone.

Catching my sarcasm?

Now, let me back up here a sec to tell you a little history about me. In college, I drove everywhere fast – and I had a shoe box of speeding tickets to prove it. I owned a modified Honda Civic and frequently participated in late night street races while living in Los Angeles. I ‘may’ have also been involved in high speed police pursuit.

Before you write a bunch of angry comments about how stupid/dangerous speeding/racing is, let me save you some time. First, I drove like that nearly TEN years ago. Second, at this point in my life, I realize how stupid/dangerous it is. Third, the aforementioned information made my current situation funny…at least to my husband.

My husband took my car to the mechanic to have it repaired. He, who knew me in my racing days, couldn’t stop laughing when he told me what was wrong with the car. Apparently there is an air flap on, near, around, or somewhere in the vicinity of your carburetor (have mercy, I don’t know a thing about cars). If you drive a good portion of your commute under 35mph and don’t accelerate quickly, the darn thing gums up and stops your vehicle. THIS, is what went wrong with my car.

The mechanic specifically told my husband, ‘Tell your wife to stop driving like an old lady.’

The teasing from my husband will never cease.

The only redeeming factor? The mechanic didn’t charge us to clean the flap and my car now drives perfectly.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about Zac Bissonnette’s recommendation for students to attend community college for two years prior to moving to a four year university. Surprisingly, a lot of you didn’t agree and several folks stated, ‘You get what you pay for.’

Here’s the funny part…

I attended community college prior to moving on to a private university.

Obviously I’m not the expert but let me tell you why I absolutely agree with Zac (obviously not all community colleges are the same as ours):

1. Our state college and our community college shared more than half of the same instructors – who taught the same classes at both. The difference? I paid $60 while my state friends paid $580.

2. The class sizes were significantly smaller at the community college vs. the state college. All of my teachers knew my name.

3. San Diego State University, our local state college, is notorious for its impossible acceptance standards. BUT, if you attend the local community college for two years, you are guaranteed a spot. While your perfect GPA valedictorian student can’t get in, my average GPA husband is registering for classes.

4. According to Bissonnette, students who transfer from community college to a four year university are more likely to graduate than those who started in university their freshman year.

5. Best of all, my student loans amounted to $15,000 instead of $30,000 and my diploma from my private university looks exactly the same as someone who attended all four years. There isn’t an asterisk on my diploma saying, ‘We only vouch for half her education.’

That’s just my experience… what’s yours?

Here’s Italy…

Before I lay the blow about our financial status… let me soften it with photos from our trip.

Today:

Ireland

Despite heroic efforts, my husband was unable to save our water heater. While re-routing the pipes, he found a crack in the tank caused by improper initial installation – or something like that. There were a lot of other words mixed in about ‘crappy two-bit plumbers’ so I gleaned what I could. He was surprised it lasted as long as it did with the extent of the damage.

I had long since gone to bed – he stopped appreciating my ‘help’ on plumbing projects years ago – when he crawled in sometime after 1am. He rubbed my arm, told me the water heater wasn’t fixable, and fell asleep.

Telling me I have to dive into my already nearly depleted emergency fund (more on that later) at bedtime is the equivalent to telling a 7 year old there are monsters under the bed – but worse.

I didn’t sleep a wink.

This week should be interesting… Will this be the first time we have more month than money?

Murphy’s Law has moved in to our house.

First we had the damage done by our house sitter (update on that later), now we have a fickle water heater.

Our water heater has started leaking an excessive amount of water. If I lived in Kansas, perhaps leaking water wouldn’t be a problem – but I live in California. Forget oil, water is our liquid gold.

My plumber husband has been out in the garage for the last hour and a half trying to save our 5 year old water heater. All I keep hearing is, ‘I’ll get six more years out of you if it kills me!!’

I stay quiet and make a waterless dinner while he slams tools and torches the pipes. Halfway through cooking, he opened the garage door into the kitchen and shouted, ‘It’s a lot more fun to do this while you are getting PAID for it!’ then disappeared again.

We are $75 in the hole so far but I all I can think is…

Thank God I married a plumber – albeit a temporarily grouchy plumber.