Car costs blow the budget, but that’s OK

Remember those months of old when you drove around in your car and there was nothing wrong with it? You moan about the cost of fuel and insurance, but aside from that, it gets you from A to B without a worry.

In the back of your mind, you try to remember when you last replaced the tyres or put oil in — but it still goes, so it must be okay, right?

And then you notice it’s WOF time. Not to panic; last time it sailed through (you think), so you leave your baby at the Peugeot service centre in Hastings (thanks, Amanda) full of bravado and confidence.

Then, just when you’re minding your own business having a bath in the middle of the day to fill in time, you get the phone call.

In your mind, you had already been thinking of worst-case-scenarios and how much said scenarios might cost, so you are semi-prepared, but you still think that’s surely just your mind playing tricks on you. Until it isn’t.

My little Peugeot has cost us about $900 in the past seven days. But, on the upside, I’ve met some lovely people taking it all over town getting things fixed — and I like to think of the positives.

Aaron and the team at Bay Tyres in Napier are jacking me up with three new tyres that I didn’t know I needed.

He also imparted some great advice, and that is that tyres need air in them. Regularly.

Don’t know how to do that?

Call in and see him, and he promises you won’t even have to get out of the car. Thank you, Aaron. Then it was off to Smith&Smith Hyderabad Road, to get a little chip in the windscreen fixed. The great team there also advised me that my windscreen blades could do with replacing. That’s a job I had been putting off for six years.

Every time I got in my car in the rain or on a frosty morning and turned them on, it was akin to nails being dragged down a blackboard.

The noise was horrendous. Now, with new expensive European blades, it feels like a new car.

I actually can’t believe how happy it makes me — which makes up for how unhappy my bank balance is. But, hey, at least I can see clearly now the rain has gone! — Megan Banks

Don’t miss Adam Green and Megan Banks on The Hits Hawke’s Bay from 6am to 9am, Monday to Friday