When I ask the question “What is the value of an emergency fund?” the first thing that comes to mind is the dollar amount? Then, how big should it be? Should it cover 1 big expense? Should it cover a few months of expenses? A year? All of these are legitimate questions, but, there is a far greater value to someone like myself who’s in debt payoff mode. It means the ability to weather the storm of life without adding more debt.
We have known for about 2 years now that we would need a washer and dryer replacement sometime soon. They’re both about 15 years old and both having issues that have been repaired in the last few years. 2 days ago our dryer stopped heating up again. This time, we decided it best to just go ahead and replace the pair. So, lets travel back in time to two weeks before this, otherwise known as the first time we had to dip into the emergency fund this year.
About 2 weeks ago, the main computer we have set up for our kids to use died, wouldn’t power on. It’s also pretty old, built on parts that are mostly around 10 year old now, which in IT speak means “antique.” I can tell you from working in IT for some larger corporations that once something gets past about 3 years old, they’re looking to replace it. The warranty has run out and the parts get harder to get. That doesn’t mean you should scrap your 4 year old laptop, it just means you can expect it to quickly stop keeping up with newer technology. If all you use it for is writing Word documents, you probably won’t notice any difference for several more years. If you’re trying to stay at the top of the kill charts in the latest FPS, it’s at least time to start looking at upgrade parts, if not a whole new unit.
Having outlived its usefulness, I endeavored to build the kids a new PC. I started looking up parts on the usual places, newegg.com, tigerdirect.com, Amazon, Ebay, etc. I quickly found that the price of graphics cards has recently skyrocketed! A few searches and you can see why, but memory is getting to be very hard to come by. It’s already shut down several manufacturing lines in the USA that have been unable to procure chips for their products. Instead of being able to build the kids a PC for $600-800, I was looking at this cost for a graphics card alone!
I’m too savings motivated at this point to continue down that path. After all, we’re trying to pay off debt! If the kids didn’t need the computer for school, I’d have just left it alone for a while. But since they do need it, I started looking at other avenues to get what they need. I found that the graphics card prices had not yet affected pre-built systems! I was able to get them a system from Ebay where the graphics card alone was selling for over $600, but got the entire system for under $900 shipped! Being frugal isn’t always about not spending. It’s about spending in a smart way on things you and your family derive value from. My kids will get education and entertainment from the new computer for the next 6-10 years at possibly less than $100/yr. Money well spent.
This brings us back to yesterdays adventures in laundry appliances. Unfortunately we had put off this purchase until it really was needed right away. Now you don’t think of something like RAM scarcity affecting appliance availability, but I’ll be damned if it hasn’t created a mess there as well. Everything is “smart” these days to its benefit, or detriment. All these brains need a whole lot of processing power, which is getting very hard to come by.
We checked Amazon, nothing in stock close to what we wanted that could be here within 2 weeks. We stopped at Big Sandy, they had nothing in the store that could be taken home (in spite of their website saying most things were “in stock,” and nothing that could be delivered for at least a week. We stopped at Sam’s Club, they had nothing in store and nothing that could be delivered for at least 4 weeks. We tried to stop at Best Buy, but they had weird covid hours and weren’t open yet at 10:45am.
Story time!
We stopped at ApplianceSmart because they’re known to have scratch and dent things on their floor that could possibly be taken home right away. First and last time I’ll ever set foot in that store. First impression, the store was 7/8 empty space. They had 2 laundry sets, and a couple of scratch and dent units. The salesman starts meandering over, and I don’t judge based on weight, I’m well over my goal weight myself, but this man is over 400# with his lower belly unable to be covered by his shirt. Not hanging out, legit couldn’t fit in the shirt.
I’ve sold appliances in past jobs. I know them about as well as most salespeople. He starts trying to sell us on some off brand set that he says is made by Whirlpool. The washer has an agitator. We specifically don’t want one. I mention this and name a couple brands that we may be looking for, Samsung, LG, Maytag, etc. I am quickly rebutted that I must have a desk job. No one that doesn’t sit all day for a living should even consider not having an agitator.
First of all, yes, I sit all day for a living. I even told him so. My wife on the other hand is on her feet saving lives all day. This dude wearing his muffin top as a pink belt for all to see just insulted desk jobs, and me. I laugh internally but keep it to myself and let him go on his spiel about why his Cooper, or Crooked, or whatever the generic brand name was for the 2nd rate Whirlpool he was trying to sell me on is what I need. When he’s done and we insist we don’t want his $1300 set with an agitator, he starts telling us that the new Samsung units are getting terrible reviews, and one has even blown up and taken out a woman’s jaw. Whatever dude, we weren’t going to buy from you, buy your trash selection, or even really be able to take you seriously when you couldn’t even successfully dress yourself for employment at what is clearly dying institution. Good luck duping people that don’t know any better.
After that we stopped roaming around and made a few calls. We found a promising store on the north side of town that we’d never visited before and made the drive.
Beautiful showroom. Great mix of everything from low to high end new appliances. A section of scratch and dent. Another section of old floor models.
We ended up with last year’s floor model Samsung top load washer and matching dryer, but they’re mismatched colors (white and black, yin and yang, salt and pepper if you will.) We’re ecstatic. The optics don’t bother me enough to care about spending an extra $1200 to find them matching. The floor model discounts are priced right. The salesman is extremely helpful and knowledgeable. Not to mention nice! We leave with exactly what we were looking for, and needed, and able to take them home and install all in the same day. Mission accomplished.
This is the value of having an emergency fund. We weren’t scrambling trying to figure out which card had what balance/availability left to squeeze this purchase on to and having to settle. We didn’t have to wait until payday, or the payday after next. We won’t be paying any interest on these purchases. We were even able to use a rewards card for them so that we’ll get cash back to help pay off our other debt, and then pay these purchases off right away. We were able to replace the PC, and then replace the washer and dryer as needed. We’ll now build our emergency fund back up before we throw extra at the debt again.
Having an emergency fund means instead of everything being a catastrophe and major set back, they become inconveniences that we can weather and then forget about. Having an emergency fund is the best kind of peace of mind.
Photo by Ekaterina Belinskaya from Pexels