FREE NEWSLETTER
During the last couple of months I’ve saved around $1000, and I’m not very happy about it. It’s money I really didn’t want to save. I’d rather have blown it big time. My most earnest efforts and hopes to do so were thwarted by circumstances entirely beyond my control.
During this timeframe I’ve had the misfortune of being hit by a string of low level, unrelated plumbing issues. A shower diverter valve jammed, a toilet cistern flush button broke, and a different cistern decided to continually overflow into the bowl. A little shut off valve then developed a tiny leak the moment I turned it off, so we didn’t have to listen to the overflowing cistern all night. I had to spend a lot of time and effort fixing all of it myself, because I couldn’t find a tradesman willing to waste his time on jobs so small.
Then, as if the house itself had joined some conspiracy against my finances, the little rain cap on the wood burner’s chimney chose this exact window to snap clean off and sail away in a gust. This left the flue open to the elements. Naturally, no tradesman was interested in hauling out a ladder for a part that costs about thirty dollars.
So I found myself clinging to the roof tiles with the wind doing its best to reintroduce me to the ground, fitting a replacement cap myself and muttering about how this was somehow going to be the job that finally broke me financially. It wasn’t. I came down, dusted the soot off my hands, and grimly totted up yet another job I hadn’t paid anyone else to do.
By the time the plumbing had calmed down and the chimney was capped, I looked at my bank balance and felt genuinely aggrieved. There it sat: an extra thousand dollars, entirely unspent, entirely unwanted, and entirely my own fault for being so infuriatingly incapable of attracting a trade person. I had “tried” to give this money away, to plumbers, to roofers, to anyone with a van and a vague willingness to charge me for thirty minutes of work, and every single one of them had turned me down for being too small a job. What, precisely, is the point of having money if nobody will take it off you?
I suppose there’s nothing for it but to keep the money invested and let it grow, on the off chance some future household disaster is finally significant enough to attract a tradesman willing to take it off my hands. Until then, it just sits there, patiently waiting for the next crisis it fails to solve.
Two quick points: (1) I often feel that I am not at financial equilibrium unless I have any extra money that comes my way snatched away from me by unexpected repairs, replacements or other home- or property-related events. (2) Dr. Atul Gawande, author of the best seller Being Mortal, says the most important rule as one gets older is “Don’t fall down!” That seems to have cascading bad impacts on the health of aging people. Even healthy and athletic seniors should play it cautious when falls are possible. That may not keep you off a roof, but it may lead you to secure the ladder and inch up and down more slowly, with two hands on it.
The rule on safety on ladders is three points of contact at all times.
Martin, I completely agree with your point about falling. Every time my late mum had a fall and later recovered, her baseline level of robustness ended up noticeably lower than it had been before.
As for ladders, I’ve never been comfortable on them – which is a bizarre state of affairs, considering I spent years rock climbing. In fact, later this month, a few old climbing friends and I are planning to rappel down a section of An Bhinn Mhór, a 650‑foot sea cliff with a massive 200‑foot scree and boulder slope, and then climb back up using our belay points… yet put me on a fifteen‑foot ladder and I get instant wobbly‑leg syndrome. Go figure!
Mark important article. Before 70 years old, I tackled every home issue, except like a new roof. I have been there done that, but when in my 70’s my wife would not allow me on the roof etc. The solution is a local Handy Man, who can take care of just about any household chore for $50 per hour, a REAL bargain. Check for one with your neighbors who has a proven reputation.
William, I would definitely have been on your wife’s team… working on a roof in your seventies? Definitely a hard no!
Toilet cistern? You must in Europe somewhere. Here in the US we call them toilet tanks. Look at it this way, you acted as your own trade person (repairman in the US) and were paid $1000. Plus you know the job was done right. Go buy yourself something special, like a bigger tv.
Tim, I might need that bigger TV if I fall off the roof and have to spend weeks recovering from a broken leg!
You speak to a main pain point in my retirement life. Over the years, I did my own repairs to save money. I even spent 2 years painting my two story house once. But, on retirement, my interest is no longer there. Money is not the issue. The issue is I have a deathly fear of trusting someone else to work on my house and do competent work. And, that applies to small jobs, too, like clearing the leaves off the roof. It is difficult to find a trustworthy source for competent, reliable people to do home repairs small and large.
The problem is no one cares about your property as much as you do. When I was interviewing for fine gardening (not heavy landscaping) jobs my first summer in retirement (just for fun) I told the proprietors that I would treat all the properties I worked on like they were my own. Not surprisingly I was offered a job with each company.
Competent work.
I reroofed my front porch roof several years ago and found the tarpaper under the singles didn’t even overlap.
Who ever had reroofed it years earlier, besides the lousy tarpaper job, couldn’t figure how to keep a long piece of flashing below two windows at the top of the roof from popping up. A 2X4 was then nailed at the bottom to keep it down. Over the years water built up behind the 2X4 and rotted the tops of the roof joists and decking at every nail. I had to sis