The Cost of Celebrating Mother’s Day

I haven’t been posting lately and that’s because of a very expensive Mother’s Day. It all started when I was voluntold that we would be hosting Mother’s Day for my mother-in-law and my mom. This meant we would be having at least 20 people over and maybe more depending on which extended family decided to show up. Of course, when it rains it pours and we woke up Saturday morning to a wet ceiling in our downstairs family room. Right above is a spare bedroom so we were confused as to where the water was coming from but my wife suspected it was something to do with the HVAC because this had happened about 10 years ago which I had no memory of but she insisted.

The HVAC guy came out and said he didn’t find anything in the attic but said he suspected an HVAC drain pipe inside the sheet rock might be leaking. He asked if he could cut a hole in it and we said yes and lo and behold a pipe inside the wall was dripping water on the outside of the pipe. The tech said it was probably clogged and that we needed a plumber because he was he only worked on HVAC stuff.

Home Depot

We headed to a nearby Home Depot and bought an Dry/Wet Vac to vacuum up the water, anti-molding spray, a bucket and a few other items. Cost: $120. Cost of tech: $125.

Food

On Friday I had gone to buy meat for the grill. The chicken was fairly inexpensive but the beef was the most expensive I’ve ever seen it. Cost: $130. On Saturday, we went to the grocery store to buy supplemental items beyond meat. Cost $115.

Gifts

My wife bought the gifts for our moms and I don’t know how much she spent but I did buy the flowers which were $100. I did gift my wife a 90m session massage session, cost: $200.

Time

The largest hidden expense was time. The unexpected Home Depot trip and expense, the two grocery store trips and the trip to buy flowers all took 4+ hours. We then spend another 4+ hours cleaning up the water mess and we’re not done. The plumber I called said earliest he could come is Monday so we have another expense coming upwards of $500+ for plumbing then replacing the sheet rock and repainting.

I suspect when it’s all said and done, this Mother’s Day will have easily cost $2500 when factoring all the costs.