I suppose I'm just venting by typing this out, but I figured I would try to find some silver lining in what's happening by reminding others of the importance of an emergency fund.
So I'm 30, newly married, and just bought a house with my wife. Luckily, I was drilled early on the importance of saving, so my entire adult working life until now has basically been spent getting the money saved to cover a 20% down payment plus closing costs on the house we just bought.
When figuring out what home we could afford, I made sure to do the math so that my wife and I were left with a 6 month emergency fund after the down payment, closing costs, and all initial home/furnishing spending. A lot of folks told us that we could afford a bigger house. That the financial squeeze would just be temporary. That it would be ok to dip into our emergency fund a bit.
Thankfully, I didn't listen.
Since moving into our home, the following things have happened in the last two months alone:
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Our HVAC system leaked all of its refrigerant and needed a new condenser coil. Long story short, the $350 third party home warranty we decided to get at closing is absolute shit, so the HVAC was $1,500 out of pocket to fix. And it would have been worse if the contractor wasn't able to backdate their diagnosis a month to get the part within manufacturer warranty.
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My aging car had some new fun noises appear over the last couple months. My $20 oil change turned into $1,400 worth of work (front axle, and rear wheel hubs replaced, among other things).
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We recently noticed our cat had a large mass in a tricky spot on her throat. A $1,300 vet bill later and (thankfully) it was just a benign tumor and she is doing ok now.
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10 days after my car was fixed of all it's noise problems, the catalytic converter ended up rusting through on one it's flanges. A $400 car shop bill later, and the car is running fine again.
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The Nor'easter winds lost us power this past weekend, and we had to toss out about $100 worth of food. Nothing killer, but when power was restored, we've come to find out that our air handler fan blower motor has shit the bed - likely when the power surge first happened. This is about 2 weeks after the condenser coil fix and refrigerant refill occurred. So we're staring down another $400-$1,000 HVAC bill - depending on if this work can also be backdated to get the part covered under warranty.
I realize all of the above just comes across as venting. And part of me is half expecting some game show host to knock on our door any day now telling us we're part of some new crazy social experiment.
But the point of me writing all this is to simply say: Thanks to sticking to the advice of this sub on emergency funds - even in the face of pressure to extend ourselves during our very first home purchase - my wife and I are going to be financially ok.
Our emergency fund has obviously taken some major dings these last two months, but we're staying afloat and not going red on anything or taking on any debt. I'm hoping that we're about to get through the last of these recent financial hurdles, but I still sleep easy knowing that my wife and I can still afford to pay our bills, buy all of our groceries, fill our cars with gas, and to still continue trying to save for that vacation we wanted to take this summer.
Everyone has their own unique financial situation on what they can save, and overall I count myself very lucky. But if you are able to get yourself to a point where you can have an emergency fund - be it 1 month, or 3 months, or 6 months - it can really be a lifesaver. This flowchart has been extremely helpful for me. Right now, my wife and I are re-adjusting our spending and budget so that we can get that emergency fund refilled back up to 6 months asap.
Submitted March 04, 2018 at 01:50PM by NeedFilmAdvice http://ift.tt/2Fgnxq4
