Rainy Days. . . Be Prepared. . .

Things always tend to go awry when you least expect it.   This is why it is important to have an emergency fund and to plan for the expected as well as the unexpected.  When my hubby and I were first married he traveled some with his work.  It never failed, when he would go out of town something would break down.  The first time he went out of town my washing machine broke down, the next time the dryer.  I do remember one icy February he went out of town and the people that were putting in our fence cut my phone lines and then we had a big ice storm and the power went out too.  This was before kids and we had a beautiful chocolate lab that thought she was a lap dog.   On this particular nasty night I took the dog out and twisted my ankle in a hole in the yard and fell.  The dog thought I was playing and proceeded to jump on my back, all 90 pounds of her.  I crawled to the back door dragging her behind me and held on to the door knob to stand up.  Did I mention it was snowy and icy?   I look back on these memories and just have to laugh at how incredibly crazy life is sometimes.  
All of these things happened before I found Dave Ramsey and we did not have an emergency fund and these things did zap our budget.  Today, if any of this happened, it would not be that big of a deal because we do have our emergency fund and we are prepared for those rainy days.  Our heat pump went out one of those times the hubbs went out of town. I learned then, that we needed to be on a schedule for routine maintenance and yearly check ups for our heat pump.  I highly recommend this if you are not already doing so.  There are lots of good companies that will do this for a nominal fee and it is well worth it.  They come out two times a year and check everything out and by doing this they can tell if there is anything that is not working properly before it breaks and messes something else up too.   You also get preference when you do have trouble and discounts on parts and labor.  To me, this is a very good investment.
I have talked many times about my envelopes and I do have one called home repairs.  This is for anything around the house.   We had a little washer trouble this week and thank goodness I was able to cover it with my envelope.  If you are not using the envelope system or some other system to save money for specific things I encourage you to start.  Start small with maybe one or two envelopes and see what you think.  You do not have to do Dave Ramsey, do some research and find what fits you best, but get started.
I really wish our school system taught Dave Ramsey.  Our kids do not learn enough about personal finance in school, I am trying to teach my kids about money using Dave Ramsey but they all need to learn.   It should be one of those mandatory life skills classes.  I am embarrassed to say, I did not learn how to balance my checkbook until I started using Dave Ramsey and saw a real need for it.