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There was a point when I’d written off the idea of saving money. Read on to see how I got back to a better place.
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Being a homeowner isn’t for the faint of heart. In addition to having to make a mortgage payment every month, you also have to pay for expenses like property taxes and homeowners insurance. And you have to do what you can to keep your home well-maintained.
The average U.S. household spends $2,335 on home maintenance each year. But when you run into a series of expensive repairs, your costs might soar well beyond that point.
That’s pretty much what happened to me during a three-year stretch not so long ago. In about 36 months, my husband and I had to replace two air conditioning units and our entire deck. And those were just the major repairs. We also faced some minor ones whose cost added up in a pretty big way.
Those repairs really got to me. There was one night when I actually cried after transferring money out of my savings account and into my checking account to pay one of the contractors who’d worked on my house.
That string of unfortunate repairs in short order also changed my mindset about saving money — and caused me to give up on it for a period. Thankfully, though, I was able to work my way back to a better place.
When you don’t see the point in small savings measures
I’ve always been a pretty frugal person. Even if I can afford to spend $30 five nights a week on takeout when I’m too busy to cook, I’ll usually limit myself to once or twice a week because I know that takeout is such a big expense compared to the cost of buying groceries.
But after facing so many large home repairs, I stopped being mindful of smaller expenses and allowed myself to make those purchases. That meant I started ordering takeout four times a week instead of once or twice because the way I saw it, I was spending so much on home repairs that it made saving $20 here or $30 there seem pointless.
This went on for a period before I realized how financially unhealthy it was. So I started to remind myself that when I was first building savings, $20 here and $30 there made a big difference — and so too could it make a big difference over time at this stage of the game.
I also reminded myself that saving $50 a week (roughly the cost of two takeout meals) actually meant saving $2,600 a year — enough to cover a big home repair. And that, more so than anything else, drove me to cut back on those small purchases and focus again on boosting my emergency fund.
It’s frustrating, but don’t give up
Owning a home can be an extremely frustrating experience. And you might reach the point where you’re ready to give up on saving money because your unexpected costs are so darn high.
I get it. I’ve been there.
But believe it or not, those smaller expenses do matter. While it’s hard to push yourself to not splurge for a $30 takeout meal knowing full well that you might end up writing a $3,000 check later in the month to fix your house when something breaks, try to make a sound decision nonetheless.
Losing money to home repairs is even harder when you’re starting with less. And while a $20 or $30 expense might seem negligible compared to a big home repair, remember that over time, everything you put in the bank adds up.
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