2014 wasn't supposed to be like this.

[GardenFun]

Our high vs. low spending years tend to be cyclical.  This year has been low in the expense column, but that only increases the odds for more things to go wrong at once next year.  Every appliance, furnace, water heater, A/C in our house is the same age (13 years old) so unless lady luck keeps smiling on us, I'm waiting for a few of them to go at once.  Therefore, the 2015 budget has a higher than normal household expense column.  If it doesn't get used, it will roll into 2016 because I know some of this stuff is going to fail soon.  ;-)

[RetiredAt63]

This makes so much sense.  My house was built in 2000 - so everything but the fridge and hot water tank are 15 years old.  I replaced the oven element in the stove a few years ago.  Plus I know I need to re-shingle the roof next year, and the back deck needs some work, and and and.  I have nothing set aside but am aggressively paying off the LOC I used to keep my head afloat during the worst of our separation.   NO CC debt of course, that gets paid 2-3 times each month.  So the LOC is there if I need it, and if I am lucky, the big expenses (except the roof) will hold off until I actually have an emergency fund.  The emergency fund depends on the divorce (more legal fees coming) and matrimonial home sale, but that is beyond my control.  I have steady pension and investment income, so financial planning way back when means things are not too bad now. 
 
Illness and death, so sorry to hear from those going through that now.  I'm old enough that both my parents are gone, and young enough that siblings are OK.  But I've lost good friends to cancer over the last few years, and it always hurts like hell - my best wishes to all of you.

Our high vs. low spending years tend to be cyclical.  This year has been low in the expense column, but that only increases the odds for more things to go wrong at once next year.  Every appliance, furnace, water heater, A/C in our house is the same age (13 years old) so unless lady luck keeps smiling on us, I'm waiting for a few of them to go at once.  Therefore, the 2015 budget has a higher than normal household expense column.  If it doesn't get used, it will roll into 2016 because I know some of this stuff is going to fail soon.  ;-)

[Rezdent]

Yeah, I'm looking forward to next year for sure.
Was rear ended and this totalled my faithful 14 year old ride.
Insurance settlement on value was tiny.

Bought a used Honda Fit with 35000 mile on it. Engine blew a piston shooting a spark plug through miscellaneous fancy pieces.  This was covered under warranty but jeez what a pain.

My MIL took ill with a bizarre problem from a surgery that happened 30 years ago.  Surgery was unsuccessful and she passed after weeks of care.

Eighteen days after my MIL passed, my coworker collapsed and died.  My job was to support his more senior work.  We backed each other up.  He covered for me so i could care for my mil.  Now I am doing the best I can to keep things running until someone gets hired in to do the work.  The exact skill set will be impossible to hire, so I will be doing a whole lot of training once the elusive new hire finally gets boarded.

But there's good news in the midst of this.
Because I had found frugality (and MMM) a couple of years ago...I was able to pay cash for the car issues.  I was able to afford the extra living costs we incurred when mil was sick. We were able to front the costs for her funeral.  I was able to contribute to a fund for my coworkers young children.
2014 has been challenging but we were able to deal with it.

[BlueMR2]

These things shouldn't be unexpected! I'm reading about all these "unexpected" costs, and they could be reasonably foreseen. Don't you all already include categories in your budget for these types of expenses? Home maintenance, auto maintenance/repairs, medical and dental expenses, vet bills, "miscellaneous"... plan on them and budget for them!

Yeah, well, one expects $1000 of car repairs total perhaps in a year, but then gets socked with $3500 bill for what *should* have been a $300 operation, but went horribly wrong...  :-)  Surprises happen even when maintenance costs are in the budget!

[hdatontodo]

I had an unexpected car repair bill of $1,000 that threatened my reaching $40K savings goal (for house principal) by 12/31

Fortunately, I hadn't touched my $2,500 in flex spending. I collected enough of my wife's out of pocket to cover more than the car repair. Now I will make some EOY medical appts for myself to drain the rest.

[RelaxedGal]

Maybe instead of "unexpected" we should use the term "shit we wanted to avoid".

Agreed.  Mine all came out of the slush fund, the nifty electric car I was eyeing is put off to 2015 or so.  I think we had $15-20K in unexpected expenses this year:

• $500 to replace rusted out floor in my Scion xA (and 2 weeks without my car, which hurt more!)
• $1000? to replace husband's car door when he backed into a pole with the door open after loading things to donate to the Habitat ReStore.  No Good Deed unpunished!  1 week without his car sucked too.
• $1200 to survey the property, figure out how badly the previous owners effed up by building the addition over the property line, get a new plot plan drawn up
• $TBD to neighbors to buy land the house is actually on, make the property line match what we both thought it was.  Probably $1, it's 800 square feet but they thought it was ours all along/don't want to fuss over it.
• $1200 to install new carpet in the entryway - something we've been meaning to do for years.
• $60 tip ($20 each) to the guys who installed the carpet because DAMN doing the stairs was a lot of work!
• $300 for plywood, deckstain, and a babysitter to watch the 3 year old for the day whole we replaced the shed floor.  Planned/long delayed maintenance.

And then we get into bigger bills that my husband wrote the checks for, and I haven't bothered to look into the details.  Our basement sprang a leak behind the electrical panel, causing the floor to rot and mold to grow behind the paneled walls.

• $2500 asbestos removal (1950's tile on the floor)
• $4000 to demolish the basement floor and walls, remove crumbling mortar from field stone (1925) foundation, apply new mortar, apply sealant.
• $1700 to have a new concrete floor poured in the basement.
• $300? to electrician to move the main electrical panel out of the way for the walls, put it back when they were done.
• $440 to plumber to hook up the washer and dryer in a new location and bring that hookup up to code.
• $400 for a dumpster to haul away the decades of crud we hauled out of the basement to make that work possible
• $80 to babysitters to watch our 3 year old while we hauled everything out of the basement, and put the good stuff back.  Mainly the big stuff: washer, dryer, shelving units

Wow, that's actually not as bad as I thought.  The first estimate was $8K for the basement walls, $4k for the floor, which is how that got blown up so much in my head.

[DoubleDown]

These things shouldn't be unexpected! I'm reading about all these "unexpected" costs, and they could be reasonably foreseen. Don't you all already include categories in your budget for these types of expenses? Home maintenance, auto maintenance/repairs, medical and dental expenses, vet bills, "miscellaneous"... plan on them and budget for them!

Yeah, well, one expects $1000 of car repairs total perhaps in a year, but then gets socked with $3500 bill for what *should* have been a $300 operation, but went horribly wrong...  :-)  Surprises happen even when maintenance costs are in the budget!

Yes, I suppose so. I *did* sign it "Cranky Old Grandpa" :-)

(even though I'm not that old, nor a grandpa -- you can do the math on what's left!)

[Daisy]

These things shouldn't be unexpected! I'm reading about all these "unexpected" costs, and they could be reasonably foreseen. Don't you all already include categories in your budget for these types of expenses? Home maintenance, auto maintenance/repairs, medical and dental expenses, vet bills, "miscellaneous"... plan on them and budget for them!

Yeah, well, one expects $1000 of car repairs total perhaps in a year, but then gets socked with $3500 bill for what *should* have been a $300 operation, but went horribly wrong...  :-)  Surprises happen even when maintenance costs are in the budget!

Yes, I suppose so. I *did* sign it "Cranky Old Grandpa" :-)

(even though I'm not that old, nor a grandpa -- you can do the math on what's left!)

I'm nowhere near being a grandma or all that old either. And the cranky part is up for interpretation.

But anyhow, I also cringe at the bare bones amounts people budget for.

I also have about a $10k buffer of expenses above what I really expect to spend while FIRE’d. It doubles as a travel budget. I figure if I had some major health crisis or my house caught on fire or something, I’ll probably skip the travel and spend the money on the necessities. I expect some years won’t have many of these irregular expenses and I may decide to not travel that much, so the extra amount not spent would be saved instead.

Hope for the best, plan for the worst…that’s my FIRE budget motto. Any unused funds could be used for extra travel or just save up for next year’s irregular surprises.

Maybe it’s just me…but any “unexpected” expense below $1k is peanuts in the big scheme of things. I’m more worried about the $5k and $10k ones. If you are running such a tight ship, you won’t be prepared for the storms up ahead, in my opinion.

[expatartist]

DH's sister passed away unexpectedly. Aneurysm. Complete surprise to everyone. Docs said her hemorrhaging indicated a genetic predisposition to them - and DH's dad passed away from one around the same age.

I paid $500 for DH to fly home, and found the ticket (~half off the usual price) by shopping around. He's since gotten a brain scan which doesn't show any abnormalities, but there's now a voice in my head saying, "Maybe you've only got 10 years left together." [SIL & FIL were a decade older than DH is now.] We could have only one day left, but her passing was an absolute shock and really made us reevaluate the toxic environment we breathe in this city.