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Being a homeowner isn’t cheap. Keep reading to learn how one writer dislikes paying to make repairs to her home — just to end up in the same position as before.
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I’ve owned a home for most of my adult life and it’s been well over a decade since buying our first house. There are some things I absolutely love about having my own space, like being able to decorate it as I want to and having a lot of privacy.
But, there’s one thing I really don’t like about homeownership. Here’s what my least favorite part of having my own place is.
This aspect of being a homeowner isn’t fun
The one aspect of homeownership I dislike above all others is having to pay money to repair things that break when the repairs or replacement don’t actually improve anything about my user experience.
For example, if I have to pay for a new water heater, but I manage to get a more efficient one, then I don’t mind that as much — even though there are still plenty of things I’d rather spend the money on. But, if I have to replace something and there’s no upgrade or improvement that improves my life in any way, then I really dislike this type of spending.
This kind of spending happens a lot, unfortunately — especially as my house is a little over 10 years old, so more things are starting to break. Just recently, for example, my garbage disposal broke and I had to spend a few hundred dollars to buy a new one and have a plumber install it.
My new disposal is absolutely not one bit better than my old one — so it feels to me like I just wasted that money because I spent a lot to get back into the position I would have been in had my disposal not broken in the first place.
Are you ready to cope with these unpleasant costs of homeownership?
The disposal incident was just one of many examples of a situation where I had to spend money — and sometimes a lot of money — getting back into the same position I would have been in because something was repaired and had to be replaced with an equivalent model.
The reality is, this is just an unavoidable part of being a homeowner. And I will continue to face these types of pointless expenses long after I have paid off my mortgage loan. While I can try to take care of my belongings and make them last as long as possible, most consumer products have a shorter shelf life than the time I’ll spend in the house. So I just have to accept this as part of the price of owning my own place.
Fortunately, I was aware of these costs of homeownership before I purchased a property, and I made sure I could easily afford them on top of my other bills. Anyone who is considering a home should do the same, as these costs will be a part of your life from the time you buy until the time you finally sell. You don’t want them to be a source of financial stress on top of feeling like a waste of money.
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