My husband and I needed to head out today, so I made sure to get his walker through the sunroom doors for him before bringing the truck over. Going through the sunroom eliminates stairs, but there are still thresholds and different levels of sidewalk blocks that make it harder for him.

The cats love his walker!

Our trip today was to the bank. It’s amazing how much difference having a car payment has already made to our credit scores. While I was able to get a low limit credot card (though I was approved for more), it was for naught, since this financing company would only use my husband’s income, rather than a generic “household income”. While we were going through all the financing battle, my husband tried applying for a credit card online, to rebuild his credit rating, as I was doing.

He was instantly turned down.

After only 2 months of car payments, when he tried again, not only was he approved, but approved for a limit twice what I was approved for!

One thing was different from my getting my card, though. He couldn’t have it mailed directly to him. It was sent to the nearest bank branch (we never switched our home branch after the move, as there was no need). He needed to show two pieces of ID to claim it.

He still does not have photo ID for this province. They would not accept the name he has always used as his given name, since it did not match his birth certificate. Never mind that they still had his old driver’s license data on file with the name he uses. Or that all his other ID has the name he uses. While we lived in another province, the rules changed here because of identity theft. It took me months to get my ID done. For my husband, they told him he would need to do a legal name change.

In the end, we found he didn’t, and what he needed to get his ID, but he simply could not handle the pain while being made to wait, etc. So he never went back.

Which means he was expecting to have issues today.

He was right.

The funny thing, though, is they accepted his expired driver’s license from the other province with no problem. It was still on file! Finding a second ID their system would accept took a bit longer, but they did eventually figure oit their system could accept birth certificates.

That done, he could activate the card, but still needed to use the card, using the chip rather than tap, first.

After deciding he was up to the trip, we went to the nearer city and Walmart, to pick up more cat food. The 8 bags I picked up at Costco, just a couple weeks ago, were pretty much gone. There was still some for the inside cats, but the bin for the outside cats had enough for today, and that’s it.

I counted 37 yard cats this morning, do… yeah. We go through a lot of cat food. Especially since it’s winter. The inside cats need far less.

We got another six bags. There was only one 11kg bag on stock, so the rest were 9kg bags.

The 11kg bag actually cost a couple dollars less than the 9kg bags.

So the whole thing cost over $200 – before taxes!

Thankfully, we got a donation, plus my daughter will be transferring funds as soon as PayPal does its thing for her.

At least we have a break at the gas pump. Our province is temporarily stopping tax collection on fuel right now. Regular gas prices are now around 115.9 or 116.9 cents per litter. Someone local on FB posted the Costco price right now. 99.9! It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen a gas price under a dollar per liter, even if it is just 0.1 cents.

By the time we got home, though, my husband’s pain levels were getting really bad.

Not as bad as they could have been, thanks to the truck! He’s able to tolerate noticeably more travel in it!

I’m so happy we were able to get that truck!

The Re-Farmer