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Man, I’m neck-deep in wedding season right now. I’ve got two biological daughters, but thanks to life’s plot twists, three other young women have adopted me as their surrogate dad. I bought a wedding dress for one of them this past spring, she looked absolutely stunning, by the way.
Now one of my actual daughters just dropped a wedding date on me, and my other two surrogate daughters are also marching down the aisle. The damage? Four wedding dresses in twelve months. Add in multiple new wedding outfits for my wife Suzie, and that’s enough to stress most budgets. My coordinated ties might be what finally breaks the bank.
At this rate, I’m going to need a frequent buyer card at the bridal shop. So, other than looking for sympathy, why am I sharing this? It’s simple: I’m trying to illustrate that life happens and spending can be unpredictable and very lumpy.
When you’re planning out that perfect retirement spreadsheet, with all its precise calculations and cashflow summaries, remember this poor Irish guy being blindsided by wedding Armageddon. Expenses happen. For your own safety and sanity, build in a spending cushion.
Don’t just pad your annual budget by 5% and call it a day. Think about the big, irregular expenses that might hit you: weddings, yes, but also home repairs, car replacements, medical surprises, or helping out family members who hit rough patches.
I’m not suggesting you need a line item for “unexpected daughter acquisitions,” but keep a separate bucket of money for life’s curveballs. Some people call it an emergency fund, others a contingency reserve. I call it my “sanity account.”
From experience, one thing I can attest to: if your retirement plan only works when everything goes exactly according to plan, you don’t actually have a plan—you have a wish list. And trust me, life’s got a wicked sense of humor when it comes to wish lists.
My ongoing close encounter with lumpy spending is painful but ultimately absorbable because of realistic budget assumptions before retiring. Stress testing your plan for large spending spikes is a vital exercise. If you haven’t done it, maybe now’s the time.
For me, I’ve learned the difference between an A-line and a Bardot-cut wedding dress without worrying too much about the prices. For you, it might mean the difference between a replacement HVAC system and tinkering around the edges of your old one for another year.
Budgets matter. Keep it realistic, not a pipe dream.
It’s definitely smart financial planning to plan for lumpy, unexpected expenses. On the other hand, it is also smart financial planning to provide a license to spend in retirement.
Mark, you have made the point I have been trying to make on HD for years. I wrote an article for HD five years ago on a similar topic.
You need to plan for the “what ifs” in life and especially in retirement where do-overs are more difficult. To me that means not cutting assumptions to close and not relying on a “we will be alright” optimistic budget. You have to plan beyond things going as planned or assumed.
I see this as especially true for early retirees.
I’m completely with you on maintaining a substantial emergency fund and living below your means—ideally with some reliable fixed income backing you up. I’ve been hit with too many nasty surprises over the years not to know how fast unexpected costs can pile up. In my view, this should be a priority for most people. Forget the opportunity cost.
Aren’t the dresses for the “adopted” daughters the kind of thing an emergency fund is for? (And no, I don’t think you need two!). If you have biological daughters (or steps) surely weddings need to be planned for ahead of time, like college for American parents – although hopefully less expensive.
I guess you should make concrete plans for weddings, and I did to a certain extent, but just big-picture planning: I took an approximate large amount, multiplied it by two, and added that to our safe assets. As far as the three additional wedding dresses, I stepped in to help when one of the girls’ budgets got tight. So I have to do the same for the other two even though it wasn’t a planned expenditure.
Oh, you’re gonna be in trouble when RDQ reads “budgets matter”!
I agree with your every word. I call our cushion the ‘disaster fund’.
In my landlord life, I used to budget 10% of gross income toward those unforeseen expenses.
In my time doing taxes, one of the biggest surprises for clients were dental expenses; $30k was not unusual.
I was thinking about RDQ as I typed the word “budget.” In fact, I even spent a moment trying to think of different wording! But I think he already knows I’m not really a massive budget person beyond the big picture stuff lol
Is it really the budgets that matter Dan?
Really, it is not. Budget or no budget, you have to know that ‘what ifs’ and surprises are coming.
A good lesson, be prepared. The good news and blessing is that you are in a position to help these young women. Weddings are so special. 🙏
Mark: Why not try finding wedding dresses at a thrift shop, if you have them in Ireland? Around here in Pennsylvania you can find many gently used beautiful gowns for extremely low price, and maybe for the cost of a minor alteration, it’d be worth it! And you can give the bride money for something that is really needed, worthwhile, and practical!
I agree with your suggestion and would be happy to explore that option myself. However, knowing these young women as I do, while they’re all sensible and grounded individuals, they’ve understandably been shaped by contemporary and peer expectations around weddings. I think a pre-owned dress, despite its practical merits, might not align with their dreams for such an important milestone. I want to respect where they’re coming from on this…also, and probably more importantly, my wife Suzie would kill me if she doesn’t get to visit some bridal salons!
Having just spent a small fortune (thank you Apple stock) on our daughter’s wedding, I can tell you that even the mere mention of purchasing a wedding dress from a thrift store would be most upsetting to most young women. However, sample dresses at these bridal salons can be had at a huge discount and as long they are in excellent condition, that is something that your daughters may consider. My daughter went with that and it looked and fit her quite well when she tried it on, so imagine my surprise at the dry cleaner telling her all the things that were wrong and they didn’t know if they could make it right! The cost of alterations ended up costing almost as much as the dress which was 4 figures to begin with! And may I say what a generous and lovely gesture on your part for doing this!!
First you need to find a young lady who wants to get married in a used wedding dress of any kind. And if you marry such a lady, you are sure to be reminded of it on your 5th, 10th, 15th …. anniversaries. That may be worse than a previously used engagement ring. 💍
Great story, great message. Thanks for sharing.
I see another story within this story…”three other young women have adopted me as their surrogate dad.” These young women admire and respect you and Suzie for direction and $upport.
You have known for a very long time the need to have budgets, albeit not four wedding$ in one year. I see your extended family growing in the near future. Yes bartender, I’ll have another!
I have a good friend with three daughters. He is now retired and his wife remains in the work force. For years he had to have a side business so that he could
paybudget for their college, vehicles, weddings and down payments on their first homes, plus provide financial support for one son-in-law’s advanced education. Now that grandchildren are in the picture…new budgets are created.There’s a long story behind my three surrogate daughters, but the short version is that Suzie and I have known them since birth, and their biological father abandoned them as children. The upshot is that I get to walk all three of them down the aisle… which means I have to come up with three original wedding speeches. Lucky me!
You’re very blessed. But, I agree, you can’t really have too much saved for contingencies.
The weddings/dresses are a fun problem to have on the relative scale. Beats the heck out of “adult kid lost job again and we need to either kick in financially or let them move in with us.” But I take your point—don’t ‘t keep the margins too tight.
I know how difficult it is to have a wayward adult child back at home; it can be very stressful. We pay for the apartment my chaotic youngest daughter lives in. Thankfully, other than that, she’s financially independent
This is good, Mark. I like how you used a happy expense of the 4 wedding dresses to make your point. We have some $$ set aside also for if/when our son gets married. Happier to think about than a new furnace. LOL!
I also wanted to mention again about how we use a “life happens” fund. I learned about it from Michelle Singletary, the personal finance writer for the Washington Post. It is a fund separate from our emergency fund. It is for when “life happens” like a car repair. Money is expected to go in and out of the account as you use it. We have a few thousand set aside for this. It made sense to me when I read about it. Chris
I guess wedding dresses are about as good as an expense gets lol
I’m curious—for a retiree, what is the difference between an “emergency fund” and a “life happens” fund? When one is still earning, I could see that an emergency fund would backfill possible job loss or income loss due to illness or disability, but once you’re retired, isn’t it all “life happens”? When might you tap the emergency fund if the “life happens” fund is for HVACs or wedding dresses?
Dana, I see the “life happens” fund for smaller things that happen. Like, we don’t know if it is going to be an unexpected car repair, a crown for a broken tooth, an appliance replacement, etc. something that might cost a few thousand dollars. Does that make sense? Bigger things like the wedding dress, a new furnace, etc, we save for. We are 2 years into retirement now and the “life happens” fund helped us keep things separate in our everyday bank account while we were trying to build up enough savings for a money market account. We were finally able to do that in 2025 and consolidate our “life happens” and our sinking funds into it too. It was a happy day here. Spouse keeps a spreadsheet for it all to keep track.
The money for son’s possible wedding, as well as a new to us car and a few other things I saved up for before retirement is at our brokerage, not our everyday bank.
I hope some of this makes sense to everyone. I like to have “pots” of money. LOL! Chris
Makes sense, thanks!
Chris, a bit of mental accounting going on. If it works and gives you peace of mind, it’s the perfect system for you both.