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It’s been about 9 months since I made an episode of Common Cents Saving, and I’ve gone through a few minor emergencies since we last spoke. In this episode, I’d like to talk about what happened, what I did, what I could have done differently. Then we can talk about what we can do during minor financial inconveniences to avoid worrying about how we’re going to pay for them.
There was a time I would have thought an appliance breaking in my home would be a financial nightmare to deal with, but because of some frugal habits and planning, a couple of would-be major issues turned into minor ones. As far as my issues goes – I had a bathroom plumbing issue, my TV broke, then I had a kitchen plumbing issue. All within a month! Everything has now been fixed, and I think I handled the different situations well, financially speaking. Let’s go over everything that happened and I’d like you to help me judge how I did. Now, I’m going to preface these stories by telling you that I’m not great at being handy at home, but the Internet is available to help me along the way.
- The first had to be the worst. A bathroom sink drain was leaking into a room on the opposite side of the wall. Aside from the occasional toilet flush valve breaking, I’ve never had a serious plumbing issue before, so I made a knee-jerk reaction to call a plumber to get a quote. To fix the problem, the plumber had to cut a hole in the wall on the other side of the wall from the bathroom sink. He found that my sewer outlet was the issue and recommended cleaning it out to allow things to flow and not back up at that part of the house. This required him to scale my roof and snake the main drain to clear it. $550 later and the problem was fixed. I think I made an okay decision here, but not the best. If I wasn’t afraid of heights, maybe I could have rented a large drain snake and cleaned the main myself. That way, I could have saved myself $550 on a plumber. I also had to spend $50 on the material and tools to patch the huge hole in my wall that the plumber left. I’ve never had to patch a wall before, but YouTube had me covered. (it’s not great looking, but it’s behind a dresser) Overall, I’d say this was a learning experience. If I ever need to clear the drain from the roof again, I may call around for a better quote. Unfortunately, my fear heights has me turning to my wallet to solve this kind of issue.
- The second minor emergency was that my TV suddenly broke! And I was in the middle of my favorite show! This is most definitely not the worst thing that could have happened, but still a first-world inconvenience if I’ve ever had one. As I was watching TV one night, it suddenly shut off and wouldn’t power back on. After scouring the Internet for possible fixes and attempting all the button pushing configurations on the remote, I learned that maybe my issue is an internal component. My TV was essentially broken. I’ve never had a TV break on me before, so I didn’t exactly know what to do. I don’t know anything about electronics and microchip boards, so what was I to do? Do I buy a new TV? Are TV repairmen still a thing? Turns out that YES they are! It’s not just something from old movies. Also, they cost way less than buying a new TV. The repair cost me $250 to replace and reinforce a piece on the internal power board. It was an odd expense, as I never expected to call a TV repairperson in my life. I won’t complain, as it’s better than buying an equivalent replacement TV. To replace my TV with the exact same brand and model would have cost me well over $1000. I bought the TV way before my frugal habit days and I would dread having to actually replace it. I think I made the right decision here.
- The last issue I faced was another plumbing issue, this time in the kitchen. This one was entirely my fault, and I fully accept the blame. I was installing a water filter under the sink and broke the faucet’s cold water line. This meant that I needed to replace the entire faucet, as the hot/cold waterlines are built into it. Thankfully, this particular issue was easily solved with a couple of YouTube videos and a trip to Home Depot. Now I have a new touch-less kitchen faucet! This repair cost me just under $100. I’m comfortable saying I made the right decision here by doing the repair on my own and not calling a handyman or plumber.
I’m fully aware that most people are not able to handle a $400 emergency [find research] and may likely go into debt to perform any of the repairs I recently experienced. I used to be in a similar position. It’s not fun to suddenly find ourselves staring down a home repair with no way to financially handle it. The answer to this is to build an emergency fund. Because of my emergency fund, I had some money set aside to weather this storm and call it a minor inconvenience. Rounding up, I spent about $1000 on repairs last month with money I had put aside for just the occasion. Of course, I will now need to add money back into my emergency fund over the next months, but the plus side is that I didn’t go into debt.
There are a couple of ways to go about paying for emergencies and turning them into minor inconveniences.
- In episode 4, we discussed emergency savings. About putting money aside for literally what it sounds like – emergency situations. This way, you build up a stash of money to pull from whenever a large issue arises. Your emergency savings gets replenished when used, and is only ever used for emergencies.
- In episode 6, I talked about sinking funds. If you’re aware that you may have to perform a future home repair or replace something, you may want to plan accordingly and budget out a small portion each month to build towards its cost. For example, if you know that in one year you will have to replace your old stove and it will cost $600 for a new one. Using sinking funds, set aside $50 each month for 12 months to build up the $600 needed.
Planning and budgeting is crucial to avoiding debt. Whichever method you use, you will be prepared for whatever financial emergency may come your way.
Question of the episode:
Have you had any recent emergencies that you took care of with your emergency fund? Also, what would you have done in my three situations? I’d love to hear from you! Leave your answer in the comment section below.