Dear LPG,

I want to tell you a story which does have a moral and a relatively happy ending…

I was one of the many ladies who went into retirement single and alone.  I suppose that I was one of those pensioners who arrived not having thought much about the money side of things and I remember really worrying about how I was going to pay the rest of my mortgage off, but my occupational pension’s lump sum sorted all that for me and left me with quite a bit over.

I thought about it and decided that I could do one of two things with the surplus.  I had the choice of putting it in the bank where I would spend it on silly bits and pieces until it disappeared, or spend it on something I would have to remember.  I chose the second option and had a fitted kitchen put in.  A friend of a friend who fits kitchens for a living and I had a chat about what I wanted and he arranged the whole thing for me and it was, and is still beautiful.    Until last week!!

That was when the washing machine went wrong. I suppose I could have bothered him again, but after five years that did not seem fair. I have been getting those telephone calls from companies who try to sell you ‘white goods’ insurance and although I have been ignoring them, they all seemed to know that the five-year guarantee on mine had run out. I even received one while the washing machine repairman I found online was working out what was wrong with it, and he said it needed a part that he would try to source. But he called back and said that the part was unavailable and I needed a new machine. I have always believed in saving some money each month to replace such things when they go wrong rather than paying money for years  to an insurance company.

The problem was that I did not actually buy the machine, it just came as part of the package, but in the back of one of its many storage cupboards, I kept all the kitchen paperwork which included the receipts that came with the new cooker, fridge, freezer, washing machine and other bits and bobs.

I phoned the manufactures to check if I could get the part from them, only to learn that the repair man was wrong.  Not only was it available but even though I did not register it when it was bought, parts on my machine are guaranteed for 10 years.  Of course, I had to pay for a year’s insurance, but it would have cost me that much to have it fixed anyway, and the insurance does not have to be ongoing but while it is, if the machine is beyond repair, they will replace it with a brand new one. The money that I will have to pay for the repair and one-year guarantee offers an alternative option to the cost of a new machine that I wouldn’t even have known about.  When something like that goes wrong in this day and age, the need to get a replacement as quickly as possible often kicks in leaving so many really good appliances on the scrap heap years before their time.

No one really knows what the future holds, but I think that the moral of my story is if you did not choose the kitchen appliance you own yourself and listen to all those people who call about extending your insurance, you really don’t have all the facts. It is truly worth keeping your receipts. 

FM, Bromley