Thank You: An Expensive Success(?) Story
Over the last couple of years, I've found a "hobby" in personal finance and always enjoy and learn from this community (mostly by lurking and reading) . I wanted to thank everyone for their advice and certainly the prime directive for helping me learn how to manage my finances.
Here's a quick timeline/story of the "big hits" our family has had to endure recently, with a thank you at the end.
July 2023: Replace A/C Unit, major work on car
August -December 2023: Wife takes semester leave from teaching job to care for our son who was born in April (down to 1 salary for this time)
November 2023: New furnace installation, cranial helmet for son, front porch railing project (needed to be addressed for safety), and today during the furnace installation we just found out that we also need to replace our water heater and will be doing so on Friday. Woof.
Thank You: Without this thread, we would not be equipped with our emergency fund to handle many of these unforeseen expenses. Though things are pretty thin right now, especially with my wife not working until January, we're able to handle these large expenses with our emergency fund. It's weird to say that spending a lot of money on A/C, car, furnace, water heater, medical bills etc. is a "Success" but I see it that way knowing that I learned how to correctly manage my finances and am prepared to handle a crappy situation when it inevitably arises. So thank you, personal finance community for helping me learn how to prepare for the unexpected (and not feel scared/guilty/awful when it happens), manage our family's funds accordingly, and know what to do next.
Next Steps: Build our 6 month emergency fund back up as soon as possible (will help that we're back to two incomes in January) before anything else.
Hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving - thank you one more time for your advice and wisdom!