So who is Murphy??? Anything that can go wrong….will go wrong! Now who are his three cousins? In Dave’s own words, his three cousins are broke, desperate and stupid!
End of July was here and it was time to clean out our apartment and move into our dream home. A two story home with beautiful high ceilings….with ONE AC UNIT! Now, that had no relevancy to us till we got our first electric bill. Since many of you know how unbearable Texas summers are, you can probably relate to the need to crank up that AC to 70…what you may not be able to relate to is the electric bill we got after only two weeks of moving in! By the third week of August we got our first electric bill not thinking much of it since I based my calculations off how much we were paying at our old apt. I figure that it would be about double or $200 for the month. Well, we were in for a ride because TXU billed us for two weeks and it was $400! I remember a tear rolling down my face when I saw that. Now here’s the funny thing….we had no idea that it was due to having one AC unit. We got an electrician to come and check all the outlets and ventilation in our attic…everything good. So October came around and there was no need for AC or heater and guess what? Our electric bill that month was for $100 or less….and that was how we figure out it was our AC unit!
Six months after we moved into the house…after we figure out what was driving our electric bill so high, Murphy made his presence known again! I was sitting in our office checking our budget and my needy puppy was hanging out with me. Since I could not trust him I kept turning back to check on him….then I see traces of wet paws everywhere in our office and I thought “that little stinker peed!” so I trace back the wet paws to see where it’s coming from and VOILA….our ceiling is leaking! Best part…there’s also a leak in our living room. Oh…but there’s nothing to worry, the previous owner paid for a year’s worth of home warranty so surely they will fix it…right? We call the home warranty people, the come over and dig a hole in our ceiling only to let us know they can’t fix the problem.
Now, neither of one of these problems have been permanently fixed….we have implemented temporarily fixes because they both require a significant amount of $$$ to fix. Now, if didn’t have debt and had a solid well-funded emergency fund, this would’ve been fixed. But since we bought the house while still in debt and are just now building are fully funded emergency fund, these are just sitting in the back burner for now.
Moral of the story people….buying a house while still in debt and with no emergency fund is not a good idea people! I know renting is not always fun but trust me….neither is being broke and when you buy a house when you’re broke, you just become broker!
P.S. our water heater recently just busted too….very conveniently it happened during one of the coldest weeks we had this winter. Thankfully, we were out of debt and had the money to replace it without going into debt….therefore, this was just an inconvenience rather than a crisis. But….when you don’t have money and are buried in debt anything that breaks becomes a crisis! Which reminds me of the next problem we need to tackle….cover up the hole in our roof where the squirrels are going in and out and then running wild in our attic! I think they're having a budget committee meeting and someone is not happy! Probably the free spirit :)
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