Everybody Loves Your Money

One of the benefits to having grown up around cars and working in our family auto parts business for many years is the ability to work on my own cars when I choose to. Well, today I had to put new brakes on my Toyota truck. I’ve known that it was coming and planned ahead. First, I called around to get prices for a brake job. I needed new brake pads and new rotors. The rotors had a bunch of grooves on them and were in pretty bad shape. Not too surprising since they had about 95000 miles on them. The quote that I got to do the job was about $280. They were expecting that they could resurface the rotors, although from my past experience, I knew that they couldn’t. (They hadn’t actually seen how bad the rotors were). So, if I’d had to have them replace the rotors too, I can imagine they would have added about $80-100 to the quote. Since I wasn’t really looking to spend nearly $400 on my truck brakes, I decided to do them myself. I had previously changed the brake pads on this truck and knew what the job entailed.

About a week ago, I called a wholesale company that sells brake parts to most of the auto parts stores in my area (an old vendor from our family store). I always enjoy talking to this guy and he’s known our family for over 25 years and was happy to sell me the parts at wholesale. I got brake pads, and two new front brake rotors for a total of $55.

I took all the parts down to a friend of mine’s house this morning. I could have done it at my house, but he offered to do one side while I did the other to speed things up. He’s very car savvy and actually took some training years ago at the local college when he was trying to decide what to do with his life. The best part is that he’s got every tool ever made, in his shop, so I always know we’ll have exactly what we need to do the job.

We jacked up the truck and each took a side. We had the wheels off in no time with his impact wrench. It took each of us about 15 minutes to do each side so we were completely done in about 20 minutes (from start to finish). Needless to say, I was glad that I opted to do the work myself. Instead of a $400 brake job at the shop, I was able to put on all new brake pads and rotors for $55.

The one job that I don’t do myself is change the oil. I’ve changed the oil in a lot of cars and now that I make a good living and have some excess income, it’s worth the extra $10 or so in labor to let someone else do it. It’s probably a little bit of laziness on my part, but it’s so much easier to stop by the dealer and get an oil change for $29.95 and I don’t even have to worry about what to do with the old oil.

So, all in all, a fairly productive day. The job was cheap and fast to do, and I have the satisfaction of having done the work myself, and I know it’s actually done right.

Last night my wife and I went out to dinner. A couple months ago, I was given a $100 gift card to Morton’s steak house in Seattle. I’d never been there so we were looking forward to going. I’d heard that it was somewhat expensive but figured the $100 would get us a decent meal.

We arrived downtown about 5:45 and pulled up to the door. There is really no convenient parking right there and it was raining pretty good out. (So far, 26 straight days of rain here. The record is 33 and we just may beat it). When we pulled up, we decided it was worth the $7 to valet. I figured it would be $7 to park and then we’d need to tip afterward.

We walked in the door and immediately went down a couple flights of stairs. The walls were trimmed with beautiful cherry wood and there were pictures of the original Seatac airport on the wall. We were greeted by about 3 people. 1 offered to take our coats, 1 offered to add our valet parking to our bill, and the other showed us to our table. No sliding in the booth at this place. The Maitre de grabbed the table and pulled it out from the booth so that we had plenty of room to sit down. Then he put the table back in place. As we sat down, we noticed hundreds of pictures on the wall of famous people who had chosen to eat here. Bob Hope, Geraldo, Dan Quayle, and many more. (I can’t remember some of the others)

As we were sitting there, Mike Holmgren, the coach of the Seahawks walked in with his family. He had just won the playoff game and obviously had chosen Morton’s to celebrate with his family. Everyone in the place clapped for him, which the waitress said, had never happened before.

The food was delicious. A little steep for what I’m used to paying, but it was fun. I was surprised that their steak prices were only for the steak. You buy each thing on your plate. Here’s what we had:

Cajun ribeye: $40
Filet Mignon: $39
Potato: $8
Lobster Bisque: $14
Cosmopolitan: $11
Coffee $3.50
Valet: $12 (w/ tip)
Coat check: $3 (tip)
Meal tip: $20
Tax: $11.20

Total for the night: ~$170

That’s the most my wife and I have ever spent on a dinner. It was nice to have the $100 gift card so that made our evening a $70 night. Still right up there on the most we’ve spent on a dinner out. We had fun. We probably won’t be heading back there again, but it was a good experience and was a nice evening by ourselves. (We had free babysitting from my family).