Insurance Woes

 I suddenly realized my old car liability insurance had gone up by hundreds, when I went to renew it.

I've had no wrecks or tickets in decades with this insurer.  Is this my reward?  

I couldn't sleep night after I discovered the increase.  How can I survive on a fixed income in a world so expensive?  What do I let go, I wondered.  I feel trapped into this decline in quality of life.  Not that I have ever lived with much.

The nonprofit is a blessing.   It keeps me occupied and pays to insure the other car and for its gas, and for all the cat food and bait and cat fixing.  That's when we have donations.   But I get to help tons of cats and people who otherwise could not get their cats fixed and they get to feel relief.   And I help private businesses like that darn trailer park.   So in all, what I do is very good for the community in general.  Too bad its not a pay job, however.  

There have not been decreases in living expenses, like was promised by the country's admin.   Except gas prices are down some.  But food and utility prices have only gone higher and higher.  I don't buy anything else really, than food and pay for utilities and gas, the latter being for the nonprofit car since I rarely drive my car.  Turns out I probably wouldn't drive more than once a week, and just to the grocery store, if I wasn't helping cats all the time.  Oh and to the lakes in the summer.  I can't wait for summer. Maybe the personal car will last til I drop.  It's really a dream come true to have the high mile car with the nonprofit now.  I know it won't last that much longer, but for now, I can seperate my personal and business lives even more. (and have a car that isn't all stunk up from hauling a zillion cats to be fixed).  Both cars are old enough to be practically worthless.

Yesterday morning I was up early to take the black boy over to RADpets to be checked for sex, spay/neuter status and updated on shots.   If he got that done, he could go to a barn home today.   A good one, that is extremely safe.  Otherwise, the lady who had fed there would probably have kept him and she can't afford more cats.  Or anything else.  Her truck is broken down.   She just had hip replacement but is having to ride her heavy 3 wheel bike to work.  (which in reality will likely help her hip).  They're trying to sell the house she lives in since her mom died and left it to both her and her brother and they have to split it.  Anyway.....getting the black boy she'd fed to somewhere else is kind of crucial.

And very helpful to her.   Its hard on her not being able to feed him or the Siamese out there.   It is sadder for those cats.   I can't see how she'll survive, even if they sell the house.   She has a friend wanting to sell her and her nephew, who gets his fathers half of the house sale proceeds, their junked out property.   Yeah, to me, driving by, looks like a  junkyard.   She believes that would be her saving grace, if they sold and bought that place, because what they're asking for theirs and what her friend is asking, well there's a difference of several thousand.  So then she could pay off her credit card debt and fix her truck, she hopes.  None of my business anyhow I know.  I hope that family can figure it out and be ok, is about all I can say.

I came home after taking him to the clinic, and called the insurance company.  I knew the phone people probably don't make that much either.   I told them the truth, that I was horrified to find out the policy had gone up hundreds of dollars and that I'm just trying to survive now and I can't afford that much for liability insurance on an old junker car.  

The guy was helpful and rewrote a new policy that is half what they were going to charge for the old.   Relief flooded through me the rest of the day.

It was then time to get Scooter and Fish, the two trailer park cats fixed last week, into carriers, and go meet up with Silverton Cat Rescue barn team.  They had a place for them to go.   

After leaving them with the barn team member, I headed to Lebanon to pick up the feeder lady.  Her bus wasn't running that took her to Waterloo so I gave her a ride.  We went to where she'd fed the siamese again but she could not call her up out of the brush or flatlands.   Darn it.   We then headed to Waterloo via backroads, came around a corner and there was a Fed Ex truck pulled to the side of the icey two lane road, lights flashing.  I could see down the embankment that there was a car with tires straight up in the air---upside down in other words.  The Fed Ex driver was down trying to help occupants out of the upside down smashed up car.  I bet it slid on ice.  A woman and an older man got out but someone was still inside.  I heard sirens in the distance and we left, to avoid getting in the way of first responders.

Eventually I picked up Boulder, the black cat, from the clinic, came home with him, and put him in the holding cage for the night.   This morning he is leaving to go with SCR barn team.    I went to bed very early.   It was a busy day.

It was nice to walk around a bit at Waterloo park.   I don't go there anymore due to the county's $9 day use fee.  But the Lebanon lady has a parking pass.

After the ice is gone, the weather has been beautiful.   Unfortunately, we have almost no snow in the mountains.  The skiers and boarders must be so disappointed.   Next summer's water supply is also a worry, since mountain snow provides it.