Diving into our Emergency Fund…Again

We received an interesting letter from our insurance company. They ‘asked’ us to install safety flood lighting in front of our home due to the continuation of the seemingly never-ending legal battle we’re in. If changes are not made by the date listed, we would be dropped.

Murphy’s Law has moved in to our home.

Let’s see, the incident happened nearly three years ago, didn’t happen on my property, and wouldn’t have been prevented by flood lights but…

Sure. Now seems like a great time to demand a change (To be fair, there are 5 watt nightlights brighter than our porch lamp so I can’t exactly fault them for saying we are inadequately lit).

My husband knew how to run the wire and install the fixtures but the $300 price tag for materials pushed us over the edge. We had to…

Dive into our emergency fund.

The whole weekend, as my husband made repeated trips to Lowes, I tried to figure out how we could possibly pay for it without dipping into our emergency cash.

When the job was done, my husband suggested we recycle the stack of cans he had been saving and I thought, ‘Sure. $5 of recycling is going to save us’ but went along anyway to help him sort the bottles and cans.

30 minutes of sorting in 95 degree heat really helped my attitude problem.

How much did we net at the recycling place? $477.85.

How? My husband took the $27.85 earned from recycling and, since neither of us had our wallets, lifted the lid to put it in his truck center console and found a $450 check payment from a side job he was paid for a month and a half ago and forgot about. (Yes, that was a long run-on sentence)

If I wasn’t so happy about putting it back into our emergency fund, I probably would have smacked him for forgetting about it in the first place.

Emergency floodlights and part of the vet bills… covered. Whew!

Posted by Beks on August 23, 2010 at 10:00 PM in Home Ownership | 18 Comments »
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is not allowed.

Newer Posts Older Posts

Jillian responded:
Posted: August 24th, 2010 at 12:00 am
What a great story! Now if only I could find a check somewhere. I’d settle for finding $5 in the laundry.
oofgirl responded:
Posted: August 24th, 2010 at 1:03 am
That’s awesome! Not the spending money on floodlights part, but definitely the finding money just when you needed it part!
Ashley responded:
Posted: August 24th, 2010 at 6:51 am
Thank god he found that check! I would have strangled him anyways! jk
Cynthia responded:
Posted: August 24th, 2010 at 7:49 am
Yep – officially strangled – or at least a very strong eye roll in his direction if it was in my house.
Gay B responded:
Posted: August 24th, 2010 at 8:18 am
Don’t worry so much. That is exactly the type of thing that an emergency fund is for. It has served its purpose.
Shannon responded:
Posted: August 24th, 2010 at 8:42 am
Wow. Insurance companies suck. You pay THEM and they make demands. Nice.

I’m glad it worked out though. Lucky find on that check.
Money Beagle responded:
Posted: August 24th, 2010 at 9:10 am
Wow, when it rains it pours! I’ve never heard of an insurance company demanding lighting be installed. Glad you found the check though!
Nichole@40daysof responded:
Posted: August 24th, 2010 at 9:50 am
On the one hand it’s hard to understand someone as focused on money and getting out of debt as your husband, forgetting about such a nice check. On the other hand, anyone whose been reading this blog for a while will understand. Because you guys have been SO BUSY. I hope you really enjoy your upcoming trip. You deserve it.

http://40daysof.wordpress.com/2010/08/24/the-purse-strings-are-getting-tighter/
Kari responded:
Posted: August 24th, 2010 at 11:21 am
Did you call the insurance company and try to negotiate? Based on what you said in your post, this sounds kind of unreasonable.

And perhaps you’ve done this recently, but maybe it’s time to shop around for another insurance policy?
mikey responded:
Posted: August 24th, 2010 at 2:02 pm
That’s my boy.
Jane Sanders responded:
Posted: August 24th, 2010 at 4:01 pm
Ha wow, its always awesome to find money you didn’t know you had.
Sarah responded:
Posted: August 24th, 2010 at 6:43 pm
Our insurance company threatened to cancel us because of cracks in our driveway. They WOULD have canceled us if they had seen the broken concrete patio in the backyard. Huge tree roots had broken it in many places and raised up concrete pieces so it was very unsafe. We laughed at the letter and eventually fixed it with an inheritance.
Joseph responded:
Posted: August 24th, 2010 at 6:45 pm
I’m really starting to hate insurance companies.
emmi responded:
Posted: August 24th, 2010 at 8:54 pm
I don’t even think my insurance company has seen my house. Ever. I never even thought about it. Now I wonder what they would think about various things, like the massive leaning tree in the neighbor’s backyard that could whack either of our houses, depending on how the wind blows (literally).
Dogfood Provider responded:
Posted: August 24th, 2010 at 10:04 pm
Insurance companies are the epitome of the phrase “necessary evil.” Blech.

But I love the outcome. Good for you guys!
Becki responded:
Posted: August 25th, 2010 at 9:05 am
Wow, that’s awesome! See, there was a reason for why he wanted to do the recycling…he never would have found that check otherwise!
LittleFreeBook responded:
Posted: August 27th, 2010 at 8:17 am
Now, isn’t that just another reason why $0 is the RIGHT amount for an emergency fund? The cash is never going to be there when you really need it, anyway (but, a home equity line of credit, as one example of an ‘emergency fund’ alternative) might be …
Tammie responded:
Posted: August 28th, 2010 at 9:38 am
Now see Bek I prolly would have smacked my hubby to but there is always a reason for forgetting things like checks I have done it too and when I found it, it was a time when we really needed the money. I have just stopped asking “Why” when things like that happen, I know it was on purpose
I agree with the insurance companies being to demanding and the look around never hurt, isn’t that what window shopping is for anyway?? Glad it all worked out for you in the long run!