How am i supposed to find this money?

KME91

Ok just to explain a bit. Last night I accidentally knocked a drink over on to my other half''s v expensive laptop. He hit the roof, and is still upset about it this morning. I said I'd replace it, but I have no idea how to find the 2 grand it will cost. I just don't have that kind of room in my budget. it has to be that particular one, because of his work, so no chance of a cheaper option.

The reason I've posted here is because the money is one thing, but I also have no idea what to say to him, he was in tears last night, and he's still really upset this morning, barely speaking to me. Is it normal to get that upset over something like this, he's acting really devestated? I'm trying to relate it to something like him crashing my car, but I don't know, I'm just not understanding, and obviously i need to. so can anyone help?

Mme.Hibou

Have you/him got home contents insurance? Could you offer to pay the excess? I think that's what we would do, if the same happened to us.

Freddie_Snowbits

Check the insurance, choclates for yer sen, decent meal for OH! Is a good start.

Krystaltips

Have you tried putting the laptop in the airing cupboard to dry out and absolutely not switching it on until all the circuits have dried? You never know...

Apart from that, accidental damage cover on your insurance?

As for your partners behaviour, it does seem a little odd, it's not like you did it on purpose... I would sit down with him and talk about it... It seems like a really big deal for him...

brians_daughter

from experience...

House insurance? I do not have accidental damage as part of my home policy but strangely i am covered for accidental damage to 'entertainment products' such as tv, laptop, stereos, ipod etc .. i did have to argue that although i did use my laptop for other uses it was usually used for entertainment ie browsing web, listening to music as well as work.

If it is for work surely he would have it insured if he depends upon it??

How old is it? manufacturer may fix ?
Take it to local pc repair shop, they will tell you if it is repairable, what the cost will be and write a letter to insurers if needed...

gonzo127

well first one i would look at would be house insurance claim

the other if it wasnt switched on at the time and didnt go 'pop' it might just need 72 hours drying out in a airing cubboard

he could be upset since it might have had important documents on it, or other important work which he thinks he will never get back again? although he might be able to get it of the hard drive so long as that isnt fried

could it be that he wasnt supposed to bring the laptop home with him? and is likely to get in trouble with his boss?

just random thoughts from the top of my head

MarzipanFish

Hmm... reasons for him being that !!!!ed off that i can think of are...

1) losing stuff on the laptop
2) If he'd ever mentioned before not to have food/drink next to expensive electronics and you'd shrugged it off.
3) He knows that you paying the £2000 is difficult/unlikely and is !!!!ed off that he may end up coughing up some of the cash even though it was your fault.

Person_one

My mum did the exact same thing happen to my expensive laptop, but it was luckily covered on her contents insurance. I was a bit annoyed because although it was obviously an accident, she had a long history of not being careful enough with laptops, her own is filthy, so she hasn't been allowed to use the replacement!

I was devastated because of the amount of stuff I had on there, including lots of photos of a close friend who had recently died. Thankfully, a lovely computer repairer person was able to retrieve the data off the hard drive, maybe you could ring a couple to see if they could do this? It taught me the lesson of backing everything up!

Britwife

Must be a Mac?

In all seriousness, I would just talk to him and let him know how sorry you are (I'm sure you have done this a million times already). Hopefully some of it is recoverable. Let it dry out and see what's what and then take it from there. It may only be a case of buying a new power supply or processor, or something much cheaper than a whole replacement.

I can understand him being that upset though, that is all his work and it it's that expensive, then he worked hard for it. My husband would probably react the same way. You guys will work it out though.

KME91

Just to answer a few of the points, it's his laptop, not owned by work, so not likely to get into trouble. He had it switched on and working last night, but this morning it won't turn on at all, so we're thinking it's bust. It was actually his drink that he'd left right in front of the laptop at the edge of the table. I should have been more careful, i take full responsibility for knocking it over, but i didn't leave it there in the first place.

Home insurance - we have it, with accidental damage cover. i suggested this, and said I would pay the excess, but he seems to think that our premium will sky rocket next year, and that it will have an impact on things like his car insurance too?! When I argued that this wasn't the case, he said it probably wasn't covered anyway, although I remember all the drama about getting home insurance, making sure it was covered, so I'm sure it must be covered. he was similarly dismissive last night when I asked if it could be repaired. Going to have a look through the insurance documents and make sure it is covered and take another run at this tonight i think. i didn't think about claiming a repair on the insurance.

I don't know what stuff he might have lost, and can understand that he will be upset about that, he spends an awful lot of time on his laptop so I assume there's a lot of work on there, but most of the work he does is online, so accessible from other computers. I really don't know because he's not saying a lot to me.

I know this is my fault and I feel terribly guilty, and if i'm honest I'm finding it hard to be around him because i feel so bad, and i know he's very upset. I'm just not sure how to cope with him being so upset.

Thanks for all your suggestions though, given me some food for thought.

DVardysShadow

It really depends what the drink is, but drying out in the airing cupboard is possibly the worst thing. imagine drying out beer for example. If it a work pc he should let his IT department deal with it. Otherwise it is disassemble it to a certain extent, rinse out the drink with distilled water, dry out.