Together both appliance cost about $1500. I torture myself in the same way whenever we have an expensive car repair.

Say hello to our new fridge. Mind you, I hated, loathed and despised the old one, and prayed for its death so we could replace it. But of course, the old fridge died at a particularly broke time in our lives. Such is life.

New washer and dryer replaced the ones in my condo that had been there since it was built. (They were technically only $1200, but I had spent extra to have the door to the utility room widened so I could get full size ones instead of the weird narrow ones.)

And getting the pipes replaced from polybutelene pieces of crap that fail violently without warning to nice copper ones.

Yeah, wish I was one of those people who budgeted for known expenses, like new appliances ever eight years, but looking that far into the future makes me think about my own death too much.

In other words, I have about four refrigators left in my life.

"wish I was one of those people who budgeted for known expenses, like new appliances ever eight years" Eight years? Hell, I want 20 years out of a major appliance.

According to our repair guy and the elderly salesperson, those days are gone.

Felt the same way when I recently had to replace the airbag computer in a '96 Mazda. Do I really need that? I've never actually USED the airbags . . .