A NEW TIRE

January 28, 2012

I am in the waiting room of a local tire place. I had let my inspection sticker expire over the holidays – just did not notice. This past week I got my 1997 Toyota Tercel inspected. With 170,000 miles on the car it is getting to the point of inspection anxiety. It past. Yeah, but with a warning about a rear tire and not enough tread for good traction in the snow.

There was a time in the past that car maintenance was routine. You did not buy one new tire at a time but four new ones. I was a bit surprised that the inspector did not say anything about the muffler. It makes that hot rod noise. So a new muffler along with a new door handle is on my list of negative dollars. The muffler is on the border between hot rod sound and siren sound. So which cost more the ticket or the muffler? The lack of car maintenance is routine for many low income people. My list of negative dollars grows and includes an oil leak.

It is not just car maintenance, if you even own a car, that is a problem but home maintenance too. 40% of low income families own a home. My home was part of a divorce settlement when my children were little. It still needed a lot of work back then. There were a few growth spurts. In the last 5 years it has been mostly backslides. You know things are getting bad when you can't get the last emergency repair bill paid before you have several more in a row. My washing machine has not drained properly for almost a year. A friend put my snake down the drain pipe and it didn't help much. Now it is time to call the power eel guys. Last spring my roof started leaking in the family room. It was so bad I could not get the five gallon buckets emptied fast enough. Fortunately it was a simple fix for now. I had to tear out several rows of wet ceiling tile and insulation. I had planned to have it fixed before winter. Then the water heater crashed and I had a flue fire. Get the picture!