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[personal profile] kantti
Had my car serviced this week. The good news is that now that the new engine has had its 500 mile service, I can drive it above mph again. So now I can drive to the Poppies on Tuesday at a reasonable pace. Hurrah!

Total bill: £184

I also got my bicycle serviced, which apparently is going to involve replacing large chunks of the brakes and the chain.

Total bill: ~£180

What's wrong with this picture??

It reminds me of when my bike and my car both went in for new tyres at the same time and the bike tyres were £22 each and the car tyres were £19 each. The only reason the bike came in cheaper was because it had two wheels instead of four.

Today's big expenditure, though, was IKEA. I've been hunting for a bathroom cabinet for ages and all I'd seen were expensive, cheap-looking, ones. Expensive I might have been able to tolerate, but not in something that looked so cheap (in the good cases) or ugly (in the bad cases). Ikea had loads of nice cabinets, though. I ended up leaving with the most expensive one (ooh, get me!). Not only was it better quality than any others I'd seen (solid birch, mirrored inside the doors, glass shelves), it was also less money than any I'd seen anywhere else, even in places like B&Q.

I also bought a frame -- which may or may not be the right size -- for an Olivia Bettie Page poster I bought ages ago, two plants and ceramic pots, three little cacti, two watering cans, a little box with drawers for under the bathroom vanity, six tea light holders, and about three hundred candles of various varieties. The only downside was that I didn't end up finding any bookcases deep enough to accommodate my stereo and shallow enough to fit in the alcove beside the fireplace that I actually liked. They had one, and it was nice solid dark-stained pine, and not much money, but the styling was rather fussy. Poo.

Total bill: £104.

So in order of value, I think we can safely rank them as IKEA, car garage, bicycle shop. However, the fact that I'm in a position to compare all three simultaneously suggests that next month's credit card bill is going to be a very bad experience indeed.

Date: 2005-01-22 03:22 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ant-girl.livejournal.com
I got my car back yesterday. It cost me £450 to get it fixed... and I'm still not convinced it's quite right. It seems to be blowing a lot of smoke still, although hopefully it's just water vapour condensing cause it's a cold day, and me being over-paranoid about it.

Date: 2005-01-23 10:03 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] minusbat.livejournal.com
What you need it a chaperd bike and a more
expenmsive car to redress the balance I think.
Currently your trabsport expenditure does look
a little skewed!

Date: 2005-01-23 10:03 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] minusbat.livejournal.com
Oh, and PWEI were fantastic last night! Enjoy....

Date: 2005-01-24 01:49 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kantti.livejournal.com
The thing is, the bike isn't that expensive, really. I think it cost £280 when I bought it five years ago, so this bill alone was more than half the cost of the bike.

Which does make me wonder if I should just buy a new bike at some stage.

But then ... there's nothing wrong with the bike, it's just been subject to wear and tear. And it seems more sensible to replace just the worn bits, rather than the whole bicycle.

But ...

Date: 2005-01-24 02:47 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] minusbat.livejournal.com
Well, maybe you neeed a car that isn't so ludicrously cheap
to maintian and keep on the road in order to maintain
differentials then :-) Or just resign yourself to
the fact that both are pretty much the same level of
complexity and hence cost about the same!

So, you comming up here for PWEI then ? Saw them on
saturday and they were superb!
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