FREE NEWSLETTER
Go to main Forum page »
Spring arrived bang on cue at the start of March, and the weather gods actually delivered some proper early sunshine. I seized the moment, dug out the power washer, and set about bringing the yard back to life. Forty-five minutes in, my trusty 20-year-old yellow Kärcher started making alarming noises and belching smoke. That was that.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Things don’t stop breaking just because you’ve retired. The last week has been a particular case in point. The microwave began staging its own light show, little electric storms crackling away if you so much as looked at it. Then the car picked up an irreparable sidewall puncture, which meant a new tyre, which, once the garage pointed out the tread on the others, escalated into a full set of four. And now the power washer, waving its little white flag in a cloud of smoke.
Your house, your car, and every appliance you own didn’t get the memo that you’re on a fixed income now. Boilers, roofs, washing machines, cars — they operate on their own schedule, entirely indifferent to yours. When you were working, an unexpected $1,000 tyre bill was an annoyance. In retirement, it’s a budget conversation. And somehow it all arrives in clusters, as if your possessions held a meeting and agreed to go down together. A sensible rule of thumb is to budget around one to two percent of your home’s value each year for maintenance alone, before you’ve even replaced a single white good or put four new tires on the car.
You might think at length about drawdown rates and portfolio diversification. What you really need to think about is the relentless, low-grade financial drip of stuff just… wearing out. It’s simple to plan for. Build a contingency fund, keep it topped up, and try not to raid it for anything that doesn’t actually need fixing. Future you, possibly standing in a smoky yard holding a dead power washer, will be very grateful.
Is there a silver lining to a machine dramatically giving up the ghost on a sunny March morning? There absolutely is. Because now I get to browse for a new one.
There is a very particular pleasure in researching a replacement for something that has finally, legitimately, died. No guilt. Full permission to spend. I have fallen down a deeply satisfying rabbit hole of reviews, PSI ratings, and heated forum debates about whether you really need a hot water feed. My Kärcher served me faithfully for two decades. I feel it earned its rather dramatic exit. Its replacement will be researched with the thoroughness of a man on a mission and purchased with the quiet joy of a person who has an excellent excuse.
Spring is coming. The yard needs doing. And somewhere out there, the perfect power washer is waiting…just remember to budget for it all.
Check out an electric powerwasher, but not the cheap ones. I previously had a frustrating gas powered model and switched to a Greenworks 2300psi that works great without the hassle.
Be careful with powerwashing a roof, not only for your own safety, but using a powerwasher incorrectly can damage a roof. Some say never powerwash a roof, but I’ve done it apparently successfully.
Good luck!
That’s one thing I’ve learned to my cost over the years: cheap power tools really don’t save you money in the long run. I much prefer paying more upfront for quality and longevity, although it’s not as clear-cut as it used to be. I’ve found that quality brands have begun to cut corners also, but at least you get a decent guarantee and service network. I was only pulling Dan’s leg regarding the power washer on the roof, I got an outfit to do that for me a few years ago. They also resealed the tiles when finished.
I get it. The past couple of weeks have seen a particular light fixture die and a smoke/carbon monoxide detector fail. Both of these seemingly simple repair items became “projects” in our home due to either wiring or damage issues. In particular, the light fixture needed removal and repair – not just a new bulb, and the smoke/CO detector was wired into house current but obscenely failed by beeping at all hours of the day/night.
Luckily, I have both the time and the skills to address these without calling a repairman. As I written in HD before, enjoy the challenge to keep things running, which avoids the need to pay more than just the part replacement cost.
I had a similar experience during the week when using a product called ‘Wet & Forget’ on an area of hard standing near the house. The carbon monoxide detector in the sunroom blared for over an hour before going back to normal operation; I think something in the chemical I was using set it off.
No research needed on a replacement power washer in my hometown of Sacramento, California. I just need to make a reservation to use the power washer available from the “Library of Things” at my local library. In fact, a power washer was the first thing I ever borrowed from the library years ago when I needed to power washer my home before putting it in the market. You might want to check your local library before purchasing.
Smoke, sparks and there went my hip, so it wasn’t my power washer breaking down, it was me. So I’ll hire my grandson for spring and likely summer duties while I undergo a hip replacement and hopefully next year get back into DIY mode.
Outsourcing to the grandson, the ultimate life hack. He gets pocket money, you get sympathy and a lawn chair. Speedy recovery.
Best wishes for the hip replacement! For mine, I chose anterior (pushes aside the muscle instead of cutting it as in lateral and posterior). Speedier recovery: three days with the walker, and after a week not even the walking stick.
Smoke, sparks, and surprise retirement spending arrived shortly before our house went on the market. A lightning strike took out our sprinkler system and a chunk of landscaping that had to be replaced. It could have been worse – no fire in the garage – but those pretty Florida palm trees aren’t cheap. Then a hurricane hit, days before the real estate agency photographer was scheduled, with more damage, again nothing serious. But we had to scramble, competing with thousands of other homeowners needing similar repairs. Now we live in a CCRC, where an onsite, skilled, & bonded maintenance staff is a phone call away. If our microwave explodes, they’ll replace it at no charge. Yes we pay a monthly fee, but it’s predictable and covers a lot.
My goodness, the Florida weather sure had it in for you. There’s me complaining about a little light show in the defunct microwave. I’d definitely be checking if your CCRC had a lightning rod installation!
Our washing machine and air conditioner in the same month.
How did your appliances get a message all the way to Australia that it’s time fail?!?
Personally, I blame that newfangled interweb thingy! 😂
Disqus is not working – this is a test comment.
I am logged on with WordPress, but my Disqus username is displaying. Humble Dollar must have a really interesting architecture.
Sorry for hijacking your post, Mark.
As for the problem you mention, my solution is to budget about $1500 a month for unexpected expenses. This money is not usually used, so I either come in under budget or buy something extravagant instead.
Extravagance—that’s something my forebrain tells me to work on; unfortunately, my instincts recoil at the very thought. I’m slightly envious you can manage it so readily; it’s an uphill struggle for me. Although, I thoroughly enjoyed being in a very high-end boutique shop on Wednesday, with three sales assistants attending to my wife while they sorted out a mother-of-the-bride outfit. I’m normally poking through the sales rails at my local discount store.
I couldn’t agree more with the drip, drip, drip of home/car maintenance. I find it helps to minimize owning the stuff that needs regular repair – like small engine equipment. I like to rent those once-a-year power tools and say goodbye to them and their troubles at the end of the day.
I can see the appeal of renting. I spent 30 minutes this morning coaxing my chainsaw to come out of its winter retirement and spark into life.
We recently performed water and air radon tests. For those of you who don’t live in NH radon is a radioactive gas that is emitted by granite. NH is called the granite state for a reason. As you can imagine breathing radiation into your lungs is not good. Radon is actually the leading cause of lung cancer in non smokers. Remediation is a 10 K+ cost which must be addressed.
If you have read my posts in the past you know we do not have a dedicated emergency fund. My philosophy is that all of our retirement money is available as an emergency fund. So although it’s not fun to spend money on something this, nor is the thought of having a mini municipal water treatment plant in my basement, it is a necessary evil.
So how will we pay for it? Every quarter I perform a quarterly review of our finances and top off our estimated 1 year cash reserves. For now we will expend the cash and April 1 replacement cash will be raised by rebalancing our portfolio to our target allocation.
Guess the dream of having an on demand generator will have to wait for next year, which is what I said last year when our loosely defined home improvement budget went towards a top coat of asphalt on the driveway.
I’ve been putting off getting quotes to resurface our driveway for a couple of years now, but the time has come. The asphalt is starting to show its age — small stones are working loose from the tar binder, which tells me it won’t fix itself. The driveway runs over a hundred feet long with a generous turning area at one end, so my uneducated guess is that this isn’t going to be cheap.
Your last comment reminds me of our old generator. Our first several months in our last house, if a butterfly flapped its wings nearby, our power would go out. The solution to this problem was a generator that cost almost five figures (including a service package). It was connected directly to our gas line, and would test itself once a week, come on automatically when the power went out, run nearly the whole house, and not turn itself off until it was sure we had steady power. After a few years of ownership, a hurricane took out our power for a week. That generator paid for itself in that week alone.
Btw, I’m with you on the concept of the emergency fund.
As far as rules of thumb go, 1% of a home’s value for repairs and such seems like a pretty good one; that would be about $4K in our case. When I was a landlord, I used to budget 10% of the rental income for this reason.
Just don’t carry the new power washer to the top rung of the ladder in order to spray off the roof; Suzie may have to research getting a new handyman.
Thanks for another good read.
Using the power washer on the roof, I never thought of that. Last year I was on the roof using a hard brush to get rid of some moss that had built up on the tiles…thanks for the great idea!
D’OH!