Expect the unexpected

Sometimes you just have a bad week. Well I got one of those. Here is a quick rundown.  Daughter got an ear infection so a trip to Urgent care, Water heater leaking needed to be replaced, back window of my car decided to stop working and stay open (then it started to snow with 30mph winds), I got sick, dealer wants to charge an insane amount for window to be fixed.

Sometimes these things happen.  Well we came home from a day ski.  Good news kids made it to level 5 meaning they can do some blues. Bad news when I went into the basement to put the ski stuff away I see this ominous wet spot by the base of the water heater. 

Great just what I needed with Tax bill and maybe a tuition bill coming due.  I did a little search to see if it was something I could fix.  Short answer was no.  The leak was coming from the internal tank and only fix is a new one.

Off to Lowes and Home Depot to price shop and see what I need.  I took prices of the current one to make sure I got about the same and what the size of the current one is.  I was thinking this was going to set me back about $500.  I even heard Dave Ramsey talk about getting a new one for about $500 so I was pretty confident it would be around there.


I go to the stores after reading up on water heater from Consumer Reports.  With the size and capacity I needed it looks like they would cost $500-$750 for the unit.  I talked to the Home Depot buy and he said I could install it myself and save myself $900.  WHAT $900 for an install that is crazy.  Just to check it out I ask for a quote and what do you know it was about $900 for someone to install and take away the old one. Then during the install he said we would need a new vent step, because that’s what the city required so an extra $250. So all out the door $2000 just to heat some water.

Now for most people that would of been a bad week.  Not for this Fox that is only the beginning.  On Sunday my daughter started to complain her ear was hurting here so we took her to the Urgent Care and what do you know an ear infection. $300 later we go home with some medicine and miss one day of school.

Then on Tuesday I drop the kids off at school and head to work.  I'm in the car and hear more wind noise then usual.  I look in the back and see the passenger rear window down an inch. So I try to roll it up and it only wiggles.  Thinking it is suck I press down and up and it only went down.  So now I have a window that is half way down and it's like 30-40mph winds outside.  SWEET.  I pull over to try to lift it up and it no worky.  So I just drive to work not knowing what else to do.  I put a blanks to cover the window while I'm at work until I figure out what's next.

I can't find an appointment until Thursday. I email the dealer who was trying to get me to come in for service since I haven’t been there for a while.  Luckily they replied that I could get in today which was awesome since online the earliest was next week.  The other place I looked was SafeLite, but they could get to my car until Friday, but they quoted $260 for the repair.

I take the car to the dealer and at the end of the day they came back with $980 to fix the window. WTF the part was only $130 and it was something I could fix myself.  They also said I needed new tires and $700 other stuff. I laughed when they came back with $3800.00 in total repairs.

After talking to them and quoting other companies estimates at $260 they said the best they could do was $800. Needless to say I said no thanks. But the tires were a good price and I did need new tires, but I didn't want to pay $180 for nothing.  $760 for a set of run-flats was a good deal; plus they can do the alignment.

The next day the called back saying the called to the technicians and they can do it quicker then was quoted.  They can do it for $400.  My guess they may have done the work already :).  With OEM parts and getting it done I went with it. Next time I will go going to SafeLite for window repair.

Grand total week expenses $3800.00

Now this is where a emergency fund is great. Luckly for me I can utilize my credit cards to gain points on these purchases and pay off the cards with either points or emergency funds.

If you don't have it start an emergency fund of 3 to 6 months of expenses.  6 months if only one person works or if you aren't secure in your job or you are very risk adverse. 3 months if you have multiple source of income like spounse, Stable field for 10+ years.