My Dryer

I often preach about the need for an emergency fund.  This week, I will be tapping into mine.

My dryer stopped drying.  Since the appliance is 16 years old, we thought we needed a new one.  But after doing some research, we realized the dryer vent was plugged.  The dryer itself was fine, but it wouldn’t heat due to a lint plug in the venting system.  A friend of ours came over to try to clean the vent out but was unable to clear the obstruction.  The vent, which was improperly constructed, broke in our crawl space.  At that point, it was apparent that we needed to replace the 14 feet of venting.  The cost of this repair will be less than $400, but for many, an unexpected expense like this would be a total disaster.  However, my husband and I have an emergency fund, just for unexpected things like this.  It will be repaired and paid for without hesitation or fear of how we would cover this unexpected cost.  Yes, if we didn’t have the funds, we could have always taken our wet laundry to a laundromat.  But fixing our home and maintaining it is something that we try to do to minimize costs down the road.  If repairs aren’t made promptly, we have found it can lead to bigger expensive repairs later.

This is a good example of why you need an emergency fund.  What if the dryer actually had to have been replaced?  That would have cost more than the repair.  Again, we had sufficient funds to cover the price if we had had to go that route.  You never know when an emergency or unexpected expense will occur.  

So, my recommendation is to start by saving at least $1,000 to start with that you won’t use for anything BUT an emergency.  No, throwing a family reunion party is NOT an emergency.  Something that breaks or needs replacing could be an emergency if it’s a necessity.  If it’s not a necessity, it’s NOT an emergency.  Then if you do need to use those funds for a true emergency, you should immediately resave what you spent back up to at least $1,000.