Frugal Babe

Our kitchen project has taken a temporary backseat to our furnace, which stopped working today.  Big bummer, since we’re expecting a snowstorm tonight and the high tomorrow is supposed to be 26.  Good thing we bought a radiator space heater earlier this winter (we normally use it to heat my husband’s home office while I’m at the library, to avoid running the furnace and heating the whole house when he’s just in one room).  We think we’ve found the problem, and now we just need to get a new igniter.  But the only place we found one is all the way on the other side of the city.  And I have to work tomorrow and my husband still can’t drive because of his knee brace.  I talked with my boss tonight and she’s ok with me coming in late or leaving early tomorrow to make it to the furnace store (they’re only open the hours I’m scheduled to work).  So we’ll figure that out, and hopefully by tomorrow night we’ll have heat again.

Our heating system has some cruddy timing… last year our thermostat died right in the middle of a blizzard that dumped 3 feet of snow in 24 hours.  The roads were all impassable, and I had to snowshoe - seriously - to Home Depot to buy a new thermostat.  Hopefully this will be the end of our furnace blahs.

On a good note, I got a $1.07/hour raise at my library job, retroactive to January 1.  We usually get about 35 cents, so this was a nice surprise.  It’s still only $13/hour, but an extra dollar is an extra dollar (or maybe 60 cents after you take out taxes and dental insurance…)