In my area of the country, there have recently been a lot of heavy storms with high winds. There have been a ton of power outages in my city. While I was fortunate and didn’t lose power, many residents and businesses did for several days. Residents lost food in freezers, had no heat, and suffered other inconveniences. So hubby and I decided that perhaps we should get a standby generator (one of those that connects to natural gas and comes on automatically when the power goes out).

We started to get estimates and suffered some sticker shock at how much they cost. Our first estimate was between $18,000 and $24,000 depending on the size of the generator. At that point, we said no way as we couldn’t afford to pay cash for something that expensive. So we put the project on a back burner in hopes prices would come down at a later date.

Then, we had another storm and we got VERY lucky again. A heavy branch came down on a line which initially we thought was a power line even though we didn’t lose power. The line was under the branch and touching the ground but was still attached to the house and utility pole. After some contemplation, we figured out that it was the cable company wire, not the electrical service. While we don’t have cable, we did years ago and it was still attached to the house. We called the company and they came out the next day to raise the line back up.  It was sheer luck that it hit the cable and not the electric service line.

Revisiting the standby generator idea seemed to be appropriate so we decided we should look for other vendors. Amazingly, I saw two advertisements for electricians who installed them in my area so I contacted them. Within a couple of days, they both came out to give estimates. These estimates were MUCH more reasonable for our budget. They were both around $10,000 – $10,500 and while still expensive, they were significantly less than the first estimate we got.

I asked if there was a discount for cash and one of the companies gave us a $300 discount if we just wrote checks. Because we set aside money monthly for home repairs, we had enough to pay for this project. Additional discounts we were eligible for were senior and veteran discounts which were applied.

Hubby and I then wrestled with the thought of was this expense a want or a need? We went through the pros and cons of each item and determined that this time, this expense was a need. We both are aging and have equipment that require electricity to function for our health. While we could go to a local hotel (assuming they have power) if we needed heat or air conditioning, we could only do that so many times before the costs start to mount up. And, we do have freezers full of food that we could potentially lose. While our insurance would cover some, it wouldn’t cover all of what we paid initially. The last part which some of you would call a want instead of a need is our peace of mind that we would be protected if the power went out for any length of time. I have been in my home for eighteen years and have experienced several outages, two of which were over twelve hours. Is this a want? Absolutely! But is it also a need? We determined that for us, it was. We now have a signed contract for a generator to be installed in the next few weeks.

So what is the moral of this story? If you own a home, set money aside monthly to pay for repairs. We do that every month which is why we had the funds for this project.  You want to keep the home in good repair because 1) you live there, 2) if you ever sell it, you’ll have less expense to get it ready for sale, and 3) it’s your biggest investment and you want to maximize it as much as possible.