There are times when life just gets in the way! It delivers you a pile of unexpected expenses and more often than not, there is NOTHING you can do about it. You pride yourself on being PREPARED (not prepper prepared, just when poo hits the fan you know you’ve got this) and ADAPTABLE for most situations. You’ve trained for all the little moments of “opps!” and your emotions are like steal, never reducing themselves to overreacting.
However, life has a funny of way of going, “Oh, hey! Look at her! She’s doing great. Actually she’s been doing too great. Can’t let her get too comfortable. BAM!” Oh yes, I Legasse‘d that statement because that is exactly what happens. “BAM!” In one blink of an eye, you went from blissfully sleeping in your bed with a snoring husband on one side and a cat cuddled next to you on the other side to jumping out of bed, cat howling, and the husband cursing because LIGHTNING just struck!
Oh you bet I’m telling the truth! The image above is not my house, but it sure felt like God singled us out and we had a moment of “Jesus is coming!!!” it was so bright. That cracking sound was unreal. Good-ness! My husband went from blissfully snoring to sounding like the worst sailor I had ever heard, while still half asleep. If I’m honest, his reaction was HYSTERICAL, but I can’t say that…until now…publicly. LOVE YOU, BRAD! Anyways, we did not actually know our yard had been hit. After the “Jesus is coming!!” moment, we consoled our three cats (they are our fur babies – no judgment!), made sure nothing was smoking or on fire, and all the lights in the house still worked. Okay! Cool beans. Nothing is damaged. Guess it just cracked close by.
Unexpected Expenses can hide around every corner!
The next morning, I went outside to assess if anything was damaged and I noticed our little waterfall wasn’t running. Then I noticed in the far back, our bug zapper had been blown to bits! As we continued to assess (the husband is now involved), our internet was FRIED! Water pump was DEAD. And the more we tried to fix things, the more things we uncovered. Everything seemed fine on the outside, but inside…everything was a MESS! UGH!
When it rains, it pours!
This lovely moment in time was followed by an eventful oven installation (didn’t know ovens could fly and sprinkle the ground with glass like glitter), little car fixes for my niece (who’s staying with us), a change in jobs for the husband, and the avalanche of electricians, technicians, and waterfall builders that descended onto our house and provided us with all the fixes we needed…and their lovely BILLS! SO MANY BILLS! As one good friend put it, “Why is it that when you finally own a house, everything that needs fixing has a starting price of $1,000?” Isn’t that the TRUTH?!
Here’s what you do when lightning strikes and the rain won’t stop:
My friend nailed it on the head when she said all fixes tend to start at around $1,000. Would you be able to cover a $1,000 unexpected expense? Most people can’t! It is vital that households have a liquid Emergency Fund of at least $1,000 to cover the lightning strikes of life. How do you do that?
- Trim some of your monthly expenses to start saving for that Emergency Fund.
- Are you saving away for Retirement or investing? Divert those funds for a bit until you have that Emergency Fund.
- Do you go out to eat? Divert those funds.
- Daily stop at the coffee shop? Divert!
- Multiple streaming networks? Divert!
- Got a garage full of stuff? Sell!
Once you have that Emergency Fund set up, you can rest a bit easy knowing you’ve covered some of the sting of unexpected expenses. Don’t let yourself get caught off-guard! By giving yourself this safety net, you will be avoiding the trap of using credit cards to “buy you time.”
You’ve got this! I know you do! But, if you’re still struggling to save up, let me know! I’d love to setup a time to help you out! Just click here to schedule a consultation! Until then…CHEERS!
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