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Yesterday someone broke a window on our car while it was parked in a secure parking garage.  They stole a GPS System, and left a ton of shattered glass in its place.  We need to have two cars (there is no public transportation to speak of here, and I need to get to my part time job and Fiance to his full time one).  So, I got on the phone last night to try to find someone to fix our shattered window.  

My first phone call was to Lexus, because silly me I thought a dealership might want to help out its customers (and because when we had a broken window last year we took it to Lexus because we didn’t know any better).  Sure, they could see us and they would give us a loaner car to drive while they fixed it.  For $750.  This was actually $50 cheaper than what they charged us when we lived in California, where it was $800.  Oh, and the loaner car that they so generously gave us in California broke down the 2nd day we had it and we ended up waiting an hour in a parking lot for someone from Lexus to come and get us.  

Well, I thought when we had the last broken window that $800 seemed a tad high for some glass (I mean, true it is a power window… but still!)  Last time, we paid it because we didn’t know anyone in California so we had no idea where else to take it.  But, since we’re in my home town now I knew a few people so I called around for some advice.  

I ended up finding a place to fix it for $185.  And they will do it tomorrow. And they will come to my house, instead of me having to drive to the dealership all the way across town and relinquish my car for days.  

Well, this decision is a no-brainer, right.  Except, the people who are going to charge me $185 require me to pay in cash.  Now, $185 isn’t an astronomical amount of cash.  But it is not cash that we have budgeted for, or generally available (we pay every extra cent to our debt, instead of keeping large cash reserves in our checking account).  

I had always assumed that if we had an “emergency” we would be able to put it on our credit card and pay it off with our next paycheck. I thought it was safe to assume this for several reasons.  The main reason is we have virtual no financial responsibilities.  We live with a parent right now, who pays the mortgage and utilities and other home upkeep, as well as the cost of one of the two cars we drive (its his car, he just doesn’t use it).  We are responsible for paying for food, but we use coupons and have a big stockpile so that is a small cost.  Our main financial responsibility is the car, which still has 2 years remaining of an extended warranty through Lexus.  We also have no kids, and we both have health insurance to cover medical emergencies.  

Thus, the only emergencies I could foresee would be emergencies with our dogs, or car breakdowns that weren’t covered by warranty, and I assumed most of these would be under $5000.  We have that much credit on our card available and would be able to pay that much off within 3 paychecks, even while keeping up with at least minimum payments on our debts.

So, since I am in the frame of mind of being obsessed with getting rid of debt, I didn’t feel that we needed cash reserves (outside of a $100 cushion in our checking account so we wouldn’t accidentally overdraft).  Fortunately, my fiance convinced me otherwise and we came to the agreement that we would keep $1000 in an account from which we could quickly access cash.  

That is where we are getting the money from for the car repair.  If we didn’t have this, I don’t know what we would do.  We can’t use credit, so my Plan A would be out.  We could borrow from family, but I don’t want to do that at this stage in my life, especially because the only family member we could borrow from is the one who is already letting us live rent free.  We could wait until we get a paycheck, but we get paid bi-weekly, so not for another 9 days. That would leave us with a big problem as far as getting to work.  Theoretically, we could be forced into a situation where we had to go someplace that took credit cards, even if it cost more.  And this would not be good for anyone!