I have always tried to be prepared. I keep a change of clothes in the van in case I get caught in a downpour. (It’s hilarious when you read about me and find I am housebound.)  When I asked my son to leave a hooded sweatshirt in the van instead of donating it to Good Will he came up with a new word for me.

He called me “Pre-paranoid!”

Hey, you can’t live frugally unless you are always thinking ahead and planning to cover your own emergencies.

Well, I lost it on May 28th when lightning struck and my “Life Time Guaranteed Smart Power Bar” failed. (I will have to get back to you on them later. We will see if they really do replace whatever is damaged should their power bar fail.)

The good news was my hard drive survived and I did not lose my information.

The bad news was the CPU was not repairable.

I had a Plan B in case I did have some time without my computer. My Plan B was to use college boys laptop. He did not like Plan B and I moved on to Plan C…which also failed. Plan C was to use my husband’s tablet. Sorry, I just couldn’t blog on 7 inches.

Being Frugalfish, I asked the repairman exactly what components had to be replaced. He told me just the CPU and possibly the keyboard as the USB drives took a hit also.

I had $300.00 in my savings account under the “Appliances” category. The repairman helped me find a flat CPU that came with a keyboard and a mouse at Tigerdirect.com. It was a refurbished model with a warranty. I was able to buy 2 years “Square Trade” if anything happens to it and a program called PC Tune-Up. Total cost – $300.73.

I bought the software because this would not have happened if I had this program. I had icons moving around and suspected a virus. I went to Youtube.com and got a free scan from a company that was supposed to fix it. My fix cost $70.00 and when I turned the computer off it would not turn on again. It went to sleep and would stay asleep for hours before it decided to wake up. We decided to leave it on all of the time with an appropriate screen saver until we could find someone to check it out.

When the storm hit, normally I would have shut the computer off right away, but I trusted the power bar.

They say you should sleep in your guest room for a weekend and you will find the things that you can put in there to make the room more comfortable. Our guest room is a blow up air mattress and usually our guest is our 2-year-old granddaughter. She stayed with us a few weeks ago and woke up crying for Mommy, who was in the hospital at the time. We never let our children sleep in our bed but when that little girl cried for Mommy, grandpa caved. He let her sleep with grandma and he took the air mattress. The next morning he said we needed to put a mattress pad on it.

Today I want to encourage you to try out your “Plan B” before you need it and make sure it will work. Spend a night in your guest bed and see how comfortable it is.

As for me, I am going to order a laptop this week and I am not going to let college boy use it!