How much?!?

You know, that tax refund is burning a hole in our collective pocket, so my wife and I thought we'd look into a few projects to spruce things up around the house. We made a list of a few items and are now researching them to see which, if any, to tackle first.

Replacing the windows in our house was one of the first items on the list since a couple are cracked, one has lost its seal (moisture has built up between the panes) and most of them are extremely difficult if not impossible to open. So, we found a couple flyers in our Sunday paper, and called some companies to have them give us estimates on the work.

The first guy to come out was quite helpful and very informative, which was good since the is the first house I've ever owned and I really knew next to nothing about replacement windows. Anyway, he went around the house and measured all 19 of our windows and tallied up the figures for our estimate.

He totally blew me away when he announced the grand total of $29,528! After my wife picked me up off the floor, we told him we couldn't afford that at this point. He eventually brought the price down to $22,249. We told him we wanted to get a few more estimates. The next guy came out a few hours later. $23,043! Then 18,059!

Needless to say, replacement windows are now at the bottom of our list of projects. I never dreamed that windows would cost more than my car! Ah, the joys of home ownership!