The only constant is change...and $20k in broken sewer pipes.
The curveballs of life and finances
$15,000-$17,000 when the dust settles… literally and figuratively.
That’s how much it will cost to replace our 51-year-old cast iron sewer pipes under our house. They are NASTY. The iron was rotting away, creating roughly frayed edges that caught hair and paper and anything else to create a massive clog.
The sewage water could then back up and fill up the rest of the system until finally, it would overflow into our laundry room. YUCK.
The leak must have been happening for years because the base plate at the bottom of the wall was rotten and split open.
To fix this the plumbers had to cut 6 large holes in our floors plus another hole in an exterior wall. Then they yank a new pipe through the old pipe to replace it right in the same place. Crazy. Of course that process is nasty, noisy, and unfriendly to toddlers so we moved out.
While our house was a construction zone, we realized it was only logical to do any other home improvement projects at the same time. So I took it upon myself to convert a garage-only closet into a nice new pantry! Added square footage to the house plus a handy big room to stash stuff would be a massive value add to our life!
I worked 22 out of 30 hours over the weekend to remove the old closet, cut in a new door, frame 3 new walls, insulate, drywall, and reconfigure the room into what we wanted.
I was exhausted and after a few more hours work it was finally complete enough to think about paint and tile finishes.
All in we expect the cost of transforming this closet into a pantry to be about $1-2k in receipts plus my 40-50 hours of total work and opportunity cost.
This 2-week period of remodeling then will cost us an estimated $20k. Oof.
But that wasn’t the only change afoot.
I launched an investing class and the attendance results have been largely unimpressive.
In the last 2 months, I’ve gained enough weight to not have my pants fit for the first time in my life. Stress + late 30’s + lack of discipline in the kitchen = wearing unbuttoned pants all day 😅
Along those same lines, I started checking my blood pressure daily to add awareness and data to my health. Its higher than average.
All these changes were NOTHING I expected to encounter 5 years ago. In 5 short years, my life has become radically different. The only constant is change.
(To be fair, not all the changes in life are negative. These are just top of mind right now because of their negative impact on our finances and health!)
What do we take away from this?
So far it’s a mix of things. Thankful that we saved and invested as much as we have because a casual $20k expense in the course of 2 weeks would wipe out most Americans. Thankful to have family to live with while the work is being performed. Thankful to have the personal expertise to build one closet out of….another closet.
But there’s also regret. To pay for this we sold investments because I invested our emergency fund a couple years ago. I didn’t want to hold tens of thousands of dollars in cash. Maybe it would have been wiser to actually keep the cash in cash. I also regret not having the house sewer lines camera’d before we bought the place. It probably would have been clear that the old cast iron was in disrepair and we could have negotiated for a larger discount. And the regret of not being more proactive with my health is only just starting to sting. I expect to affect as much positive change as possible and turn by waistline and blood pressure around in the next 60 days, but as a rule of thumb for all things in life: proactivity is better than reactivity.
Proactivity is better than reactivity
However that may apply in your life right now…its worth paying attention to what’s important and being proactive to prepare for the changes that are sure to come sooner or later.