The (Financial) Hits Keep Coming

There are some days when being an adult really stinks.  Just when you think things are calming down, life throws another "fun surprise" your way.

A couple of months ago, my car had been making bad noises. I put off getting it checked out because I knew it would be expensive to fix. Sure enough, when it for so bad that I couldn’t ignore it anymore, it turned into a couple hundred dollar repair.  (Getting it fixed earlier wouldn’t have changed the price tag.)

A month later, we had to fix our chimney.  Ten years after having it repointed (the quality of which we question), the bricks were crumbling and letting water into our attic.  We needed the entire chimney removed and rebuilt at a cost of over a thousand dollars.

And then comes the day before Thanksgiving. While getting ready to cook dinner (after having baked a pumpkin chocolate chip cake for Thanksgiving dessert the next day), our oven died.  Specifically, it made a loud pop, sent out a bright spark towards our wood cabinets (which luckily didn’t catch fire), and stopped working.

I unplugged the oven, checked the circuit breaker (which was tripped), reset the breaker, plugged the oven back in, and tried it out.  The range top worked fine, but the clock and oven were completely dead.  We explored repairing it but it would have cost almost as much as a new oven.

We’ve already purchased a new oven.  Meanwhile, other costs loom ahead of us ready to drain the money from us the minute any money hits our bank account.

Considering that the new oven will take over a week to arrive, we’re going to need to be creative with microwave and slow cooker based recipes for dinners.

What slow cooker or microwave meals would you recommend? Remember, the meals shouldn’t require a stove or oven at all. (Vegetarian is also easier for us with kosher considerations.)

Note: The "home expense" image above is by scyg and is available via OpenClipArt.org.