Our stove died (my wife says it is called a range) and we had to get a new one. The old one came with the house (we just moved in November) and apparently was on its last legs. Things like appliances don't break very often (hopefully) but when they go they have got to be replaced right away.
It can be easy to carried away with how much gets spent on a new (in this case)
That is a Molteni range and if I am reading the Spend Like a King blog correctly it costs $106,000 and is not what we bought. Home Depot was having a sale (what a coincidence!) and we got one for just under $1000. Had we needed to go cheaper we probably could have gotten one for $400 (on sale) and obviously based on the Molteni the upper end is infinity--we have propane and those cost a little more than electric, I believe.
We have had discussions here in the past about how to try to budget for the unbudgetable. This sort of expense, the one off, often falls through the cracks of the financial planning process but of course there will always be things like appliance replacement, new tires, unexpected vet bills (god forbid the dog swallows something for the dog's sake and the wallet's sake), something with the roof, even new toothbrush heads (electric toothbrush reference).
It would seem unlikely that whatever your frequency is with these things it would decline once you retire. One way to try to understand the magnitude for your situation might be to fire up the Quicken and start counting for the last couple of years. This may not end up projecting forward too well but but at the very least it might put the issue into better context for anyone who doesn't know how much they have spent on these types of things.
Oh and the harvest gold stove above was not our original stove.
5 comments:
Roger,
I am suprised that you did not select the molteni's platinum plated which cost near 200k. You need to a get a french chef, I can reccomend one from the french riviera. He is actually looking to move to NYC but will settle for prescot. Oh, by the way he also can cook some italian dishes, but only limited dishes. Also you cannot pay him for 12 month. In europe there is the 13,14,15, and 16 months may. That is every quater you just pay him an extra month. He also needs one month vacation and an extra month to spend in france to update his colanary techniques. Well, I'll put a good word that prescott is actually what he is looking for a place to stay.
Best wishes,
Jeff from NYC
I googled something like expensive stove and I think there was a picture of the platinum Molteni but I like the color blue better
RR, just thank your lucky stars you can enjoy the stove. You *could* have had a surprise $5000 plumbing bill like we did this week. Sewer pipe under the foundation rusted and collapsed, requiring three cuts into the concrete in the master bath, hallway, and second bath. I'm a cheapskate DIY guy by nature, and I'll do the tile and drywall touchup, but the main job was outside my wheelhouse and therefore in the wallet. Ugh.
that sounds awful
Your new range/stove looks neat...Agreed, unforeseen expenses like this somehow ruin all the planning you have made. It would be great to have emergency funds to cover them.
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