Student Loans for Little Kat

Little Kat finished his spring semester at community college. He signed up for summer and fall classes. Now he needed to figure out how to pay for college. Previously he took out some personal loans. The problem with them is that he has to immediately start making payments on the loan. That is not fun as he is still in school.

So Little Kat inquired with the college how he could get some loans that you don't have to start paying until you graduate. He found a bank that would lend him money under such an agreement. The only problem is that the bank said that Momoko's credit was tapped out. She could not co-sign for him.

This is where I enter the picture. Little Kat has a plan. He wants to get into a lucrative program at community college. If he does, he can get a certificate in 2 years and get a good job directly after that. I had to co-sign his loan so he could move forward with this plan. The loan is just for the summer and fall of this year. There will be further loans in the future.

Dishwasher out of Service

Little Kat ran the dishes this afternoon. Momoko saw the lights on the dishwasher this evening. Apparently the dishes were not run. Little Kat pressed the start button. The dishwasher lit up but did not do its job. Neither Momoko nor Little Kat can get the thing running.

I am going to call the manufacturer to get an authorized repair guy to look at the dishwasher. Momoko and I are going shopping for a new dishwasher tomorrow as well. Momoko is worried about washing dishes by hand. So Kit Kat has replaced the dishes and glasses in our cupboards with paper and plastic ones.

We are cancelling the cooking of dinners for the time being. It is going to be fend for yourself. Little Kat said he is broke. So Momoko will subsidize the funds for his dinners. Hopefully we can get the dishwasher running again soon. For now, ingredients for dinners planned this week are being frozen.

Doordash is a Rip

Momoko and I were busy for work. So Momoko had Kit Kat order us some Arby's. She used DoorDash for the delivery. Normally Momoko and I drive to Arby's and walk in. We often use coupons. We get a ton for food for under $20 total.

With Kit Kat eating too, I figured the bill would cost around $30. She has a subscription to DoorDash that I thought would eliminate extra feeds. Nope. Turns out that only removes the DoorDash fee. There is still a service fee and a tip involved. Our total turned out to be $51+.

The moral of the story is that delivery is expensive, even if you subscribe and pay a monthly fee to DoorDash. Now I know these kids should not be having food delivered to them. They just don't make the money needed to truly afford this type of living.

Full Recycle Bin

Momoko is teleworking now due to COVID-19 restrictions. She used to sit on her chaise and use a folding table. The table broke. And the chaise is bad for her back. Therefore she ordered some furniture. She got a smaller desk to fit in her study. She also got a chair with no arms to slide under the desk. Plus she got some accessories to put on top of the desk.

All this new furniture has resulted in a lot of cardboard to get rid of. Momoko is slacking. She just folds up the cardboard and puts it in the county recycle bin. The problem is that we generate a lot of other recyclable materials each week. Our bin is overflowing.

I got a new furnace filter. It can in a big box. I had to get to work. I tore up all the big boxes that Momoko tried to stuff in the bin. Kept each piece to 9x12 inches or so. When chopped up, all the cardboard fit fine in the recycle bin. Not sure if that will help them recycle the material. I know it will help us put all of our material in there before they haul it away.

Windows 10 Printing Trouble

Both kids are having problems printing from their Windows 10 devices to our Brother laser printer. I sent them some links to web pages that help resolve the problem. The original trouble was that the pages came out all black. That got resolved. However printing is now just garbled.

I figured somebody needed to dig in and solve this problem. At first I thought I would just buy a Windows 10 compatible printer. The problem is that everyone says their printer is Windows 10 compatible, including my printer's manufacturer.

Next I thought I would try to upgrade one of my laptops to Windows 10. I chose a machine that I had Windows 8 on. Tried three times to upgrade it to Windows 10. The upgrade failed every time. This is a total waste of time.

I think it is time for me to just purchase a new Windows 10 computer. Then I can make the problem happen on my machine, and work through to a solution. The new machine could serve some other purposes as well. Time to go shopping.

Negative Steak Surprises

Momoko asked me what I wanted to eat for dinner. Steak of course. She tried to place an order via Door Dash. It would not let her choose a side of mushrooms. So she called the restaurant at 3:30pm. Asked to have them deliver the steaks at 6:40pm.

Well 6:40pm comes and goes. No steaks. Ten minutes later, she calls the restaurant. They told her our food was done. But it would not be delivered for another hour and a half. WTF? Momoko decided to drive down to the restaurant to pick it up herself.

Upon arrival, she was told the no longer sell mushrooms. This was after speaking with 3 employees over the phone who said they would ensure the mushrooms were included in the order. Luckily Momoko chewed out the manager. She got the meal charge reversed, and allegedly would be getting some additional credits back.

The food tasted good. The experience left a sour taste in our mouth. Later, Kit Kat said that steak house was the worst ever. Now we know.

New Car Acquired

I broke down and purchased a new vehicle. It is a luxury model. I used a web site to find the cheapest one in town. Turns out the back seat in it is very spacious as long as there is no sunroof installed. I took it for a test drive. It was zippy.

The local dealership was willing to knock a few grand off the price. They also offered 0% interest for 36 months financing. Only problem was their cheap model was white. I really wanted a black exterior.

So I found the right color at another dealership on the other side of the city. I asked them to give me a walk-out price. The also knocked a couple grand off. But there were more options on that car. So the total was a lot higher than the other offer. I asked the guy to match the other offer, but conceded that his car had more options. We settled with me paying the matched price, plus the cost for an expensive option.

At this second dealership, I saw a few folks in the parking lot. Initially they seemed like salespeople. Nope. They were sales trainees. My guy was the sales manager. He was tied up. Eventually he shuffled me off to a side saleswoman. I did a test drive and was ready to buy. Their initial offer on my trade-in was low. So I kept my Chevy Spark.

Momoko had to drive me back to the dealership to pick up my Spark. Now I got a new model vehicle that I love. There are way too many bells and whistles on this thing. Tomorrow I go take a class to learn about the vehicle. Let's hope I can keep this car for a very long time.